Portraits magazine Winter 2022

PORTRAITS WINTER 2022

Telling the Stories of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford

Alumni finding new solutions for health

THE SEARCH FOR NEW KNOWLEDGE

Insuring vehicles that drive themselves

Jean Stone ’66-’68 ready to publish 24th novel

Rick Esch ’83 serving as interim president

New panther statue carved from tree

president’s letter

PORTRAITS Telling the Stories of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford

New beginnings We typically think of new beginnings when we celebrate a new year. Since being named interim president last July, I’ve been thinking a great deal about new beginnings and what that means for our campus.

Last fall, we experienced a new beginning of sorts. We were delighted to have all of our students back in class and most of our faculty and staff on campus.

While we continue to follow COVID safety protocols, being physically together has helped us to experience a new vitality. We are renewing relationships and reconnecting with each other in classrooms, in other campus spaces, and during events such as last fall’s successful Alumni and Family Weekend.

These strengthened relationships will position us well to capitalize on the opportunities and meet the challenges that lie ahead in 2022.

This fall we will welcome our first students into two new academic programs – mechanical engineering technology and energy engineering technology. We also will open a new Engineering and Information Technologies building that will give our students unique spaces where they can be innovative and creative and as graduates infuse that ingenuity into surrounding communities.

Early this year, we will launch a national search for a new dean of students and fill other vacancies in Student Affairs. We will conduct searches for new faculty members in several academic disciplines. And, later in the year, the university will begin a search for a permanent president who is expected to join our community in July 2023.

Despite these exciting times, we face challenges in the new year. We will need to continue to be vigilant to keep our campus as virus free and safe as possible, to advocate for continued state support from our legislators, and to work together to create a campus community where all of our students can thrive and succeed.

These are exciting times for our campus. I am grateful we are on this journey together.

These strengthened relationships will position us well to capitalize on the opportunities and meet the challenges that lie ahead in 2022.

Richard T. Esch ’83, interim president

SENIOR EDITOR

Pat Frantz Cercone EDITOR

Kimberly Marcott Weinberg COPY EDITORS

Laurie Dufford Judy Hopkins ’71-’73 Joelle Warner ART DIRECTOR

John Sizing www.jspublicationdesign.com PHOTOGRAPHERS

Alan Hancock ’07, ’19 Sydney Herdle Glenn Melvin ‘04 Aimee Obidzinski PRINTER

Canfield & Tack Inc. Published by the Office of Communications and Marketing University of Pittsburgh at Bradford © 2021 www.upb.pitt.edu *Some photographs in this publication were taken before the COVID-19 pandemic and do not reflect the current health and safety guidelines.

NONDISCRIMINATION POLICY STATEMENT The University of Pittsburgh, as an educational institution and as an employer, values equality of opportunity, human dignity, and racial/ethnic and cultural diversity. Accordingly, as fully explained in Policy 07-01-03, the University prohibits and will not engage in discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, age, marital status, familial status, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, genetic information, disability, or status as a veteran. The University also prohibits and will not engage in retaliation against any person who makes a claim of discrimination or harassment or who provides information in such an investigation. Further, the University will continue to take affirmative steps to support and advance these values consistent with the University’s mission. This policy applies to admissions, employment, access to and treatment in University programs and activities.

This is a commitment made by the University and is in accordance with federal, state and/or local laws and regulations.

For information on University equal opportunity and affirmative action programs, please contact: University of Pittsburgh, Office of Affirmative Action, Diversity and Inclusion, Carol W. Mohamed, Director (and Title IX, 504 and ADA Coordinator), 412 Bellefield Hall, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260 (412) 648-7860.

In compliance with the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, the University guarantees that students have the right to inspect all personally identifiable records maintained by the institution and may challenge the content and accuracy of those records through appropriate institutional procedures. It is further guaranteed by the University that student records containing personally identifiable information will not be released except as permitted by the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. Tasha Alston, Ph.D., MSW Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer (814) 362-5033 tla42@pitt.edu

BEYOND EXPECTATIONS Have a story, comment or suggestion for us? Write to us at Portraits@pitt.edu.

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contents THE ON ER: COV ll

ce a A Tg to chin ell. a t t a c r e c can

The bronze panther statue by David Hodges on the morning of the first snow on campus – this year, Nov. 3. To see the creation of a new panther statue for the Engineering and Information Technologies building, see page 10.

features

departments

14 Reaching Potential

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Pitt-Bradford says that its students aren’t just faces in a crowd. For four young alumni, the proof is in the research – their research. These four on-the-rise scholars attribute their confidence in the competitive world of research to the work they did at Pitt-Bradford, where they became self-assured that they could, in the words of one, “do science” and that it wasn’t, in the words of another, “only for the smartest of the smart.” But trust us, they’re smart.

SYDNEY HERDLE

20 Robot Agents Jim Duan ’13-’14 and Kamron Khodjaev ’12-’15 could not have known when they met at Pitt-Bradford a decade ago and a world away from their birthplaces in China and Uzbekistan that they would one day be both business partners and innovators. The pair are two of the four founders of Koop, a Pittsburgh-based startup with plans to change the worlds of robotics and insurance. Pittsburgh is taking notice. And so is Silicon Valley.

Cover illustration by Roger Harris/Science Photo Library

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First Shot

Students in Dr. Adina Frantescu’s oceanography class examine the remains of the Allegheny plateau’s ancient ocean.

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Rick Esch ’83 serving as interim president; new panther statue carved from tree felled for construction; alumnus remembers The Iron Eight basketball team; student benefits from Student Emergency Assistance Fund; Chase Rider ’22 finishes soccer season atop the NCAA D-III rankings for points per game; Ron Mattis retires after 36 years; and Peter Hammer ’06 is the don of the Bills Mafia in Jacksonville, Fla.

28 Panther Pack Jean Bozenhard Stone ’66-’68 is putting the final touches on her 23rd novel; Terry Schager ’82-’84 talks about challenges to supply chains.

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Paddling an ancient ocean Morrigan Henry of Pittsburgh, an undeclared student in instructor Dr. Adina Frantescu’s Introduction to Oceanography class, collects a sediment sample from the deepest part of Marilla Reservoir with the help of Dr. Ovidiu Frantescu, associate professor of environmental science.

As part of the day’s field trip lab, students collected data on water depths to make a bathymetric map of the reservoir. The students returned the collected sediment to the lab for further examination. Students in the course learn about the interplay of geology, chemistry, physics and biology in oceans and examine the relationship between humanity and the world’s oceans.

SYDNEY HERDLE

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COMMONS THE

News from Around the Quad

Esch to lead campus for next year Longtime employee had been serving as VP of business affairs Rick Esch, vice president for business affairs and a Pitt-Bradford alumnus, isn’t a jump-head-first-into-something kind of guy. He prefers to methodically weigh all the options while examining spreadsheets, charts and graphs.

He made an exception, though, when it came to serving as the interim president of his alma mater.

When Dr. Catherine Koverola resigned as president in late June, Pitt Provost Ann Cudd asked Esch if he’d be willing to serve as interim president until a permanent replacement was found. Esch’s answer was short and

1980s, and I know it and appreciate it even more now.”

Esch has been working at PittBradford for nearly 30 years, most of that time as the leader of the business affairs area, which includes budget and financial reporting, auxiliary services, and facilities management.

During his long tenure, his leadership style, personality and deep well of compassion helped to instill in his team members the kind of loyalty many other supervisors would envy.

“We would follow him off the ledge,” one staff member in his area said. “That’s the kind of man he is.”

That’s the kind of man who, immediately after occupying the

At left, Esch talks with staff members Kathy Moonan, left, and Angie Wolfe. At right, he visits with summer student worker Rachel Close ‘22.

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president’s office, said one of his first priorities was reconnect to and rebuild relationships with colleagues and friends, both on campus and off, which had been challenging during the pandemic.

“As we cautiously continue to move past the worst of the pandemic, I’m seeing people in person and solidifying

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ALL PHOTOGRAPHS BY GLENN MELVIN ‘04

sweet: “Sure. I’d be happy to serve in that role.”

Anyone who knows Esch wasn’t surprised by his answer. After all, he’s been one of Pitt-Bradford’s longest and loudest cheerleaders for decades.

“Pitt-Bradford is a very special place,” Esch said. “I knew it when I was a student on campus in the early

those long-standing and fruitful relationships that have existed between Pitt-Bradford and the community.”

Those relationships are important to Esch because they’re what helped Pitt-Bradford flourish for nearly 60 years.

“Many, many people, both on campus and in our community, have helped Pitt-Bradford grow and become the amazing place it is today,” Esch said.

Relationship building takes time and many meetings.

His schedule is jampacked every day – he calls it being “stacked and packed” – with face-to-face and virtual meetings with students, faculty and staff, Advisory Board members, legislators, alumni and community members. Despite the subject of the meetings – developing or fine-tuning policies or procedures, planning for events, keeping the campus as virusfree as possible, solidifying continued financial support – the focus is always on the students.

“That’s what we’re all here for, to support our students. All that we do is to help our students succeed.”

While he’s doing that, he’s still leading the business affairs area, which includes overseeing construction of the $24.5 million Engineering and Information Technologies building, which broke ground in the summer and will be ready for engineering and technology students next fall.

Esch’s plate is beyond full, but he’s not worried. He knows he has lots of help.

“Pitt-Bradford has a great team of

“Many, many people, both on campus and in our community, have helped Pitt-Bradford grow and become the amazing place it is today.”

–Rick Esch

people who are committed to serving our students and helping the university succeed. We are all in this together, willing to help and support each other in any way we can. ” Esch is going to give the role all he has, at least until 2023, when a new president will likely be in place.” winter 2022

In early November, Cudd announced that the search for a permanent president would begin in August 2022 with a new president on campus on July 1, 2023.

“I think good things will come as a result of that search,” Esch said.

–Pat Frantz Cercone

Interim president Rick Esch (center) chats with Associate Vice President of Business Affairs Chris Clifford, left, and Vice President of Enrollment Management Dr. James Baldwin, right.

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the commons STUDENT STANDOUT

Shakira Jackson ’22

Mattis retires after 36 years in engineering

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gineering science degree that could also be used toward a Bachelor of Science degree.

In 2015, he received the Chairs’ Faculty Teaching Award for excellence in teaching.

“Ron has proven himself to be a dedicated and talented teacher,” said Dr. Yong-Zhou Chen, professor of mathematics, who nominated Mattis for the award. “Ron’s teaching evaluations are always well above the Engineering School mean.”

In the years before his retirement, he worked with Dr. Matt Kropf, associate professor natural sciences/petroleum technology, and Klaus Wuersig, retired assistant professor of engineering, to develop the engineering technology programs set to launch next year, including working on the curricula and lab equipment lists. He also worked with architects during the design of the campus’s new Engineering and Information Technologies building slated for completion next fall.

Mattis lives in Kane, Pa.

KIMBERLY WEINBERG, STEVE ALLEN

When Halloran Philanthropies sponsored an entrepreneurship weekend for students this fall, one of the participants stood out to organizers from the Watson Institute.

Following the weekend-long program, Watson Institute selected senior history-political science major Shakira Jackson of Philadelphia to attend its semester-long accelerator program.

The program will help Jackson, already an accomplished student leader and activist, work on new skills.

The weekend-long program enhanced her team-building skills, Jackson said, and she hopes to learn more about herself and leadership in the spring semester hybrid program that takes place in Boulder, Colo., and online.

It is the latest accomplishment in her three-year college career, which will end with commencement this spring. She has applied to a variety of law and graduate schools, hoping to pursue a career in politics and social change.

Last fall, she testified remotely before the Pennsylvania Legislative Reapportionment Commission on behalf of Campus Vote Project, encouraging legislators to adopt an apportionment formula that counts college students where they attend college, not where they live during the rest of the year.

Dr. Ronald Mattis, associate professor of engineering and one of Pitt-Bradford’s longest-serving members of the faculty, retired this summer after 36 years of service.

Mattis had taught at PittBradford since 1985. He was a W.C. Foster Fellows Visiting Fellow at the U.S. Department of State Verification and Compliance Bureau, Office of Nuclear Affairs, and has served as a consultant for the department.

As director of the two-year engineering program, Mattis helped students find internship opportunities and assisted them in transferring to the university’s Pittsburgh campus for the completion of their program. He regularly communicated with the engineering school in Pittsburgh to coordinate the engineering program and kept its curriculum current.

He adapted the campus’s two-year engineering program that required continuing on at another school into a stand-alone Associate of Science in en-

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Reese Brown meets with interim president Rick Esch to present a plan to provide more genderinclusive restrooms on campus.

Reese Brown ’24

SYDNEY HERDLE

Finding support at Pitt-Bradford Like Bradford, Reese Brown’s hometown of Waycross, Ga., is often described by the places close by. Instead of 20 minutes from the Allegheny National Forest, it’s 20 minutes from the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.

And instead of an hour and a half from Buffalo, N.Y., it’s an hour and a half from Jacksonville, Fla. And like many students from Bradford, Brown was looking for an affordable education. As a student with limited means to pay for college, he applied to many schools in search of the best deal.

Pitt’s Success Pell Match Program matched Brown’s Pell Grant, a federal grant for undergraduate students with exceptional financial need.

“It’s incredibly helpful,” he said.

“I’m attending here for cheaper than winter 2022

I would be in my own state. There are really bright students who just come from unfortunate backgrounds.”

Additionally, Brown earned one of Pitt-Bradford’s Panther Scholarships for out-of-state students, which covered the cost of his room and board. Everything was covered. Until it wasn’t.

An unexpected COVID scare left Brown with an ambulance bill for a trip to the hospital. In the fall, he made a trip home to attend the funeral of a beloved aunt.

“She was a historian for my family,” Brown said. “She was really important to me.”

To help cover those unexpected costs, Brown received money from a new fund created for student emergencies, the Student Emergency Assis-

tance Fund.

At Pitt-Bradford, Brown is honing his talents for organizing and activism.

Last semester, he made a proposal to interim president Rick Esch that would provide more gender-inclusive restrooms to make transgender students more comfortable. After struggling with some academics last year, he is settled into a communica-tions major and learning to use his voice.

Money from the Student Emergency Assistance Fund has helped Brown remain and flourish at Pitt-Bradford.

During the pandemic, 84 students have received a total of more than $30,000 to help pay for a variety of unexpected brought on by the pandemic and other emergencies.

Students used these gifts to pay for food, shelter, utilities, unexpected medical expenses, Wi-Fi access and travel home for family emergencies.

Laura Weiss, a parent of a senior exercise science major at Pitt-Bradford, has made several contributions to the fund.

“As a social worker in a city public school, I saw first hand how devastating the initial impact of the pandemic was on students and families with little access to resources,” she said.

“When I moved my son out of the dorms during the beginning of the shutdown, I realized how many students at Pitt-Bradford also didn’t have access to resources to even get home safely. At that point, I knew we had to help Pitt-Bradford students in need during that unprecedented time.”

To make a contribution to the Student Emergency Assistance Fund, contact the Office of Philanthropic and Alumni Engagement at 814-362-5091 or upb.pitt.edu/giving.

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Lighting a fire

Zippo Manufacturing makes $2 million gift to equip engineering labs other companies in the region.”

Mark Paup, president and chief executive officer of Zippo, W.R. Case & Sons Cutlery Co., and Wellsville, N.Y.-based Northern Lights Candle Co., said, “Zippo is proud to employ many Pitt-Bradford alumni, and we are fortunate to be able to support Pitt-Bradford’s student-growth focused technology and career-opportunities-driven initiatives. The university’s tremendous educational opportunities and its direct relationship to viable careers not only encourages students from the area to stay local, it also attracts new talent – GEORGE DUKE to the region.”

When the new $22 million building opens, it will be home to two new maof paving the way for Pitt-Bradford jors – mechanical engineering technolengineering technology graduates to ogy and energy engineering technology fill vital roles at Zippo, W. R. Case and – which will be offered starting this fall. These four-year programs were developed in part to help meet the growing needs of regional employers looking to hire engineering professionals.

The building will also house three existing majors: computer information systems and technology, energy science and technology, and information systems.

To learn more about this project and the programs that it will house, visit upb. pitt.edu or contact the Office of Philanthropic and Alumni EngageRick Esch, interim president of Pitt-Bradford, left, shows George Duke, owner of Zippo Manufacturing Co., progress made on the construction of a new Engineering and Information Technologies Building. Zippo made a $2 million donation to purchase the ment at 814-362-5091. state-of-the-art equipment for two new engineering technology programs.

– Pat Frantz Cercone

George Duke, chairman of Zippo Manufacturing Co., announced a $2 million gift to Pitt-Bradford, which will be used to equip stateof-the-art engineering labs in the new Engineering and Information Technologies Building. The building is scheduled to be completed in Fall 2022.

“We are grateful to George and Zippo for this generous gift, which will help us develop unique spaces where our students can be creative and innovative,” said Rick Esch, Pitt-Bradford’s interim president. “The hands-on experiences they will have in our new building will give them the preparation they need for successful engineering careers in our region and beyond.”

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“This donation is part of Zippo’s long-term commitment to Pitt-Bradford and has the added benefit of paving the way for Pitt-Bradford engineering technology graduates to fill vital roles at Zippo and other companies in the region.”

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GLENN MELVIN ‘04

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Duke said, “This donation is part of Zippo’s long-term commitment to PittBradford and has the added benefit

M

AL U E M MN I O RY

The 1974-75 basketball team at Pitt-Bradford star ted strong, but finished the season with only eight players.

The Iron Eight

Sometimes all you can do is keep going by Mark Benton ’75 At the conclusion of the 1972-73 school year, my parents and younger siblings moved from Gowanda, N.Y., to Bradford. I stayed back in Gowanda for my senior year of high school. However, once I graduated from Gowanda Central School in June of 1974, I also moved down to Bradford to attend the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.

On the first day of school in September of 1974, I attended an 8 a.m. psychology class in the just-completed Swarts Hall. It was the first academic class to be held on the “new” campus.

And during the course of that school year, I could look out the window of other classes that I attended in Swarts Hall and watch the adjacent science building being put up brick by brick.

I also tried out and made the men’s basketball team, the only sport offered at Pitt-Bradford at that time. All of our practices were held in the School Street Junior High School gymnasium. The winter 2022

home games were played at the Bradford Area High School and Bradford Central Christian High School.

John Majors, who was the head football coach and athletic director at the campus in Pittsburgh, approved full scholarships for the players at Pitt-Bradford. Therefore, my total cost to attend college that year was $68.

And on game nights, home or away, the players on the team who lived in town were invited to have dinner in the dining hall free of charge.

The team started the season with 14 players and did well before the Christmas break. However, once we returned in January, several of the players became disenchanted with their lack of playing time and quit.

We also lost two players with severe injuries.

The season that started so successfully was quickly spiraling downward. By the first week in

February and with three weeks remaining in the season, the team was down to eight players. We hung together and won a few games during that stretch but lost several others due to lack of quality reserves. In fact, when the flu bug hit campus in midFebruary, our team traveled to Alfred, N.Y., in a snowstorm and played the game with only six players. We gave it a good effort but lost by six points, the same number of players we came with.

Unfortunately, the head coach was not retained, and several players including me transferred to other schools the following year. But looking back at Pitt-Bradford in 1974-75 and witnessing how the campus has evolved over the past 47 years is truly remarkable.

Do you have an alumni memory that you’d like to share? Send it to us at Portraits@pitt.edu.

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Making the cut New panther carved from campus tree

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Technologies Building. Chainsaw carver Dussia came from nearby Ridgway, Pa., home of the annual Chainsaw Carvers Rendezvous. The idea to preserve the tree as art came from alumnus Ron Orris ’77-’79, who is also the executive director of the Blaisdell Foundation in Bradford,

which made a gift to cover the cost of the carving.

The carving took place outdoors along the Richard E. McDowell walking trail giving community members a chance to stop by to chat with Dussia and see the progress he was making. Whenever someone winter 2022

PHOTOS BY SYDNEY HERDLE

What started as a 7-foot-tall tree trunk in the Blaisdell Hall parking lot on a snow-dusted morning in November became a fully carved panther statue two days later in the hands of Joe Dussia.

The tree had come from the site of the new Engineering and Information

Scan to see a timelapse video of the carving.

Counterclockwise, from top left: Chainsaw carver Joe Dussia makes the first cut; Dussia shapes the panther’s head, which was cut from spare wood and attached with wood glue and dowels; finetuning the panther’s head; the uncarved log; the finished product; facility workers Kevin Niver, left, and Jeff Valerius, right, help Dussia lift the statue onto a platform for the second day of carving.

asked how long he thought the process would take, Dussia often joked that the carving took 10 to 12 years to finish since it has taken him that long to build up the skills he has today.

“The carving is better than the last one, but it’s not as good as the next one,” Dussia said while working, winter 2022

adding that he was excited the statue will be put on public display since most of his other work ends up in private homes.

Once the initial carving was finished, he and some of the PittBradford facilities crew members moved the statue to a safe storage spot

in Blaisdell Hall where Dussia will continue making the final touches on the piece until it is moved to its permanent home in the atrium of the EIT Building next year.

– Sydney Herdle

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SPORTS WIRE

Chase Rider finished the season atop the national standings for points per game in NCAA Division III.

Seniors finish strong careers Rider completes season near top of national D-III standings

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Cleveland was the sixth Panther to reach 1000 kills. surpassing the old record by six tallies.

He also assisted his teammates 10 times and landed in the top 10 players in DIII for goals per game (second) and assists per game (10th). Rider was AMCC Preseason Offensive Player of the Year, named AMCC Player of the Week three

times, and also was named First Team AMCC at the end of the season.

Cleveland, who was AMCC CoPlayer of the Year in 2019, started the season off strong. In the volleyball team’s season opener, she recorded her 1,000th kill in a Panther uniform, becoming just the sixth player in program history to reach that milestone. As the focus of the Panther attack, she led the team to a 13-game winning streak and finished the year atop the AMCC leaderboard in kills and points for the second consecutive season. She was named First Team All AMCC after the season. She finished her career with 1,328 kills, the third most in program history.

Both Rider and Cleveland pulled their weight in the classroom as well.

Both student-athletes are multiple-year honorees of the AMCC All-Academic Team, with Rider being named a Peak Performer and a member of Chi Alpha Sigma, the athletic honor society.

– Matt Lovell winter 2022

SYDNEY HERDLE

After losing the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, two seniors finished their careers in 2021 while putting their names in the Pitt-Bradford athletics history books. Chase Rider of Feasterville, Pa., and Emily Cleveland of Winchester, Va., not only led young teams to the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference playoffs in men’s soccer and volleyball, respectively, but they also saw individual successes.

Rider had a season unlike any other for the Pitt-Bradford men’s soccer team, garnering national as well as conference-wide attention. He was the first player in program history to finish the season as an NCAA individual statistic leader, topping the nation in points per game with 3.6 and earning a national award as the United Soccer Coaches Player of the Week.

Along the way, Rider led the Panthers to their first home playoff game in more than 10 years and set program single-season records in goals and assists. He scored 22 goals on the year,

RE AL O

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Peter Hammer ’06

Rochester, N.Y., native is the don of Jacksonville Bills Mafia HIS TEAM: The Buffalo Bills NFL franchise.

HIS HAPPY PLACE: Other than Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y., the place where he celebrated his October birthday each year watching the Bills starting at the age of 8 with his grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles? Wingit, a sports bar, that has embraced its role as the center of Western New York winter 2022

fandoms in Jacksonville, Fla., and where Bills signs and apparel hang alongside that of the University of Florida Gators and Florida State Seminoles. When the Bills play, there are specials for the bar’s awardwinning Buffalo wings, Sahlen’s hot dogs, LaBatt Blue and even the occasional “garbage plate,” a cross between a French-Canadian poutine and a Texas hot dog enjoyed by

natives of Rochester, N.Y., such as Hammer. It’s headquarters of the Bills Backers of Jacksonville, of which Hammer is co-president.

WHAT HE THINKS A FANDOM GIVES TO ITS FANS: “It gives you a sense of joy, pride for your city and region,” he said. “There are a lot of Western New Yorkers everywhere.

Any time I wear my Bills stuff out, I hear, ‘Go Bills!’”

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Caitlin Nolan James ’19

“Grad school was something I had never considered. It’s something that you think is reserved for the smartest of the smart.” – CAITLIN NOLAN JAMES ’19 14

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REACHING POTENTIAL The emerging Pitt-Bradford medical researcher pipeline A single comment by Dr. Denise Piechnik changed the course of Caitlin Nolan James’s life.

A year before James graduated in December 2018, Piechnik, an associate professor of biology and James’s adviser, was reviewing the capstone project for James’s biology education degree. It was James’s second major, one she had selected because she liked her work in the tutoring center.

She was starting to realize that it was the content she liked, not really the teaching, just as she had earlier realized that being a physician’s assistant (her first major) probably hadn’t been the best choice for her because she didn’t enjoy directly caring for patients.

So, Piechnik’s comment had fertile ground in which to plant a seed.

As she recalls it, Piechnik said, “You know, it’s a real shame that you’re not going to grad school.”

In an instant, James realized in her head what she had known in her heart: It wasn’t patient care or teaching that she loved; it was the science itself.

“Grad school was something I had never considered,” she said. “It’s something that you think is reserved for the smartest of the smart.

Dr. Piechnik really supported my decision to switch my major back to biology.”

Associate biology professors Dr. David Merwine and Dr. Lauren Yaich gave James two independent research projects that she could complete by graduation and use to apply to biomedical research programs.

Today she is doing her doctoral research at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y. The department in which she studies, immunology, focuses on how the immune system attacks cancer.

Specifically, she is researching how chronic stress can affect the metabolism of T-cells and what that means for controlling the growth of tumors.

She also has been talking to those a few years behind her at Pitt-Bradford, meeting with students in Yaich’s cancer science class and freshman seminar to talk about graduate school and research.

She’d like to give them a bit more time to think about making the same decision she did.

James is one of a handful of young Pitt-Bradford alumni pursuing research as their vocation.

Mentorship was a common thread in discussing research with three other Pitt-Bradford alumni,

B Y K I M B E R LY W E I N B E R G

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Prashant Gabani ’11, center, and colleagues world is like, and he tells you, all of whom crossed paths with the ‘This is what you have to do to get same professor at Pitt-Bradford, ahead in life.’”

Dr. Om Singh.

Gabani said that Singh Singh taught biology at provided him undergraduate Pitt-Bradford from 2008 guidance on everything from through 2016, working with designing a poster so that students to publish more than people at a conference would 50 research articles. He left in ask him questions to learning 2016 to become a senior-level how to write a professional email reviewer with the U.S. Food and that would get a response.

Drug Administration and is now an “I had no experience, and he independent consultant. brought a ton, and he knew what it He took mentorship as seriously takes in real life to get ahead.” as he did research. One of the first Gabani’s Dorn House suite-mate students he worked with in the lab at Pitt-Bradford, Yvon Woappi ’11, was Prashant Gabani ’11. now holds a doctorate in biomedical Gabani is now a clinical sciences and is an instructor at oncologist, conducting research, Harvard Medical School. He said consulting with medical technology that although he’s had mentors since, start-ups, pursuing a Master of Singh’s mentorship when he was an Business Administration, and going undergraduate was critical. home each night to his wife and “I think he was probably 60% to baby in Austin, Texas.

80% of why I became a Ph.D. scientist.

Singh set Gabani on the fast A big part is getting that confidence that track during Gabani’s first summer you can do science,” Woappi said. in the lab, where Singh created a Like Gabani, Woappi researched and system that allowed individual students published with Singh. to study parallel projects. For example, if Woappi said, “To this day, people are one student was studying the effectiveness quite impressed that I was publishing as an of cinnamon on bacterial growth, another undergraduate. It is not typical.” student could perform similar tests with That early experience is one reason turmeric. It allowed him to always have Woappi prioritizes mentoring young several students working in the lab, and researchers in the lab, and he’s very close he insisted that if students were doing to starting his own lab, having finished his research that they would publish the post-doctoral fellowship (which is like a results with him. medical doctor’s residency) at Harvard and “He laid down the foundation,” Gabani Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. said. “Every year, I worked in the lab, and The world of academic research I came out with multiple publications. His science has its own proscribed paths. mentorship in the lab really mentored me Each university lab is led by a principal in science.”

– PRASHANT GABANI ’11 investigator, who designs and runs Gabani graduated from Pitt-Bradford in experiments and manages their own lab. three years and headed straight to Temple Managing a lab includes applying for funding and hiring Medical School. It was a path that he said Singh helped him people to work in their lab. lay out.

Sometimes lab workers are graduate students, such as “When you’re in undergrad, you’ve just come out of high James, who develop related experiments to run and school, and you really have no idea what the real

“Every year, I worked in the lab, and I came out with multiple publications. His mentorship in the lab really mentored me in science.”

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report on. Other times they are researchers whose work is focused on the principal investigator’s research. One thing Woappi will need to consider is what universities have programs with researchers who will be most useful in conducting the kind of research that he wants to pursue.

In January 2021, Woappi received a huge vote of confidence from the National Institutes of Health when it named him one of seven inaugural K99/R00 MOSAIC scholars.

The program is meant to help promising diverse researchers transition into their own independent careers at research institutions such as universities or affiliated research hospitals like Roswell Park or Brigham and Women’s. The MOSAIC program will provide Woappi five years of mentored career development, research support, and a $1 million, five-year grant to set up his own lab.

One critical aspect of the grant is that Woappi can take it with him to whatever institution offers him an assistant professorship with a lab.

This academic year, Woappi is an instructor at Harvard Medical School, which is usually a transitory position between completing doctoral training and starting a tenuretrack position as an assistant professor. By next year, he should have his own lab at Harvard or somewhere else.

Soon-to-be Doctor of Natural Science Jonathan Josephs-Spaulding ’16 is wrapping up his doctoral dissertation at the University of Kiel in Germany. His research builds on what he began at Pitt-Bradford studying with Singh, Piechnik and Dr. Stephen Robar, associate professor of political science and director of the environmental studies program.

While James, Gabani and Woappi have followed fairly linear paths, Josephs-Spaulding has focused on a blend of his interests, exploring how the environment affects human immune systems and microbiomes, which are all of the microbes living in a given habitat.

Josephs-Spaulding has chosen to pursue his research using a relatively new tool in the researchers’ arsenal – computational modeling. With the advent of gene sequencing, scientists can now make computer models of microbiomes and predict how they will respond to various environments or treatments without having to expose actual patients to potential harm or inconvenience.

During the pandemic, the team he works with was able to create models of different immune cells and simulate how they interact with COVID-19, for example, what causes the virus to replicate more slowly. Critically, it winter 2022

Yvon Woappi ’11

“To this day, people are quite impressed that I was publishing as an undergraduate.

It is not typical.” – YVON WOAPPI ’11 was all research that scientists could conduct safely from home. All they needed were computers.

He attributes the root of his interest and supercomputing to a summer project he did at PittBradford with Piechnik, working with tiny independent computers called Arduinos to study insect ecology.

“That Arduino work with Dr. Piechnik really gave me a springboard to getting into the computer modeling I do today,” he said. “There is no difference in studying environmental effects with humans. I would not have done this without doing that summer program at Pitt-Bradford.

“I think I had a really good environment at PittBradford,” said Josephs-Spaulding, who majored in environmental studies as well as biology. “There were professors who really looked out for me and encouraged me to explore new topics. They all cultivated a different aspect of me. When people ask me about American liberal arts, I’m super proud of that.”

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Where each of these young alumni has landed in the world of medical research had as much to do with luck as it has hard work, starting with the luck of coming to Pitt-Bradford and connecting with professors who believed in them.

Woappi’s path has been classically academic. After Pitt-Bradford, he earned his doctorate in biomedical sciences at the University of South Carolina, where he studied how some viruses, like human papillomavirus, cause cancer. The model for studying this was skin, which led Woappi to an interest in dermatology, which he pursued at Harvard.

He is now studying skin biology and viral oncology and examining how to regenerate tissue. In 2019, he was selected as a Rising Star in Biomedical Sciences by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University and Columbia University.

day, my goal is patient care.”

Josephs-Spaulding also values a broad perspective.

Following his graduation from Pitt-Bradford, he earned a Master of Health Science in environmental health sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

But he also backpacked and explored Asia, teaching English and meeting new friends from around the world, including many Germans, who always seemed up for an adventure.

Having grown up in a multilingual home in South Florida, Josephs-Spaulding has an affinity for languages and has picked up bits of Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese and German. When it came time to find a doctoral program, he kept his options open.

“I wanted to pursue microbiology, and Germany has one of the oldest histories in microbiology,” he said. When the finishing touches on his doctoral thesis are done, he has a 30,000-euro grant (about $34,000 in U.S. currency)

“There were professors who really looked out for me and encouraged me to explore new topics. They all cultivated a different aspect of me.” – JONATHAN JOSEPHS-SPAULDING ’16 And he recently added a new title – Dad. “It’s one of the most interesting and dynamic times of my life,” he said, “launching a lab and becoming a father for the first time.”

Gabani is also a busy new father. He continues to conduct research, but it now focuses on patients and how they respond to different treatments. Gabani explained that he designs studies to determine how various treatments — a new drug combination, for example, or radiation protocol – affect his breast cancer patients. Clinical assistants interview patients, and Gabani analyzes the data provided.

He is passionate about the best outcomes for patients, and it is one of the reasons he has his sights on moving into hospital administration, where he feels he can have an impact on the quality of treatment for more patients.

In addition to conducting research and seeing patients in the clinical setting, he is also advising a startup focused on creating an online community for breast cancer patients and working on his MBA. “I’ve always wanted to get an MBA because it gives you that business perspective to medicine,” he said. “You need to know how the health care system works and how to best treat your patients while not putting the system at a disadvantage. That’s the motivation. At the end of the 18

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to study a chemical found in packaging that leeches into the environment that will mix three of his interests – the environment, human medicine and computers.

While Josephs-Spaulding, Gabani and Woappi are making the leap to the next part of their career, James is steadily making process on the research that will underpin her own career. She has begun research on the thesis that will form the basis of her doctoral research.

Like Woappi, James is working on improving therapies for melanoma patients. Her work is focused on developing a better understanding of immune checkpoint inhibitors, which “take the brakes off” of T cells and allow them to kill tumor cells more effectively. However, “a large population of patients still don’t develop complete responses, allowing the cancer to progress,” she explained.

She and other researchers at Roswell Park are using a common heart drug that has been shown to improve overall T-cell function and may be able to reduce tumor growth.

James’s work in the lab is one way that Pitt-Bradford alumni researchers are improving the world by studying the interface of humans and the environment, researching cures and ways to improve quality of life for patients and leading with patient care in mind. winter 2022

Jonathan Josephs-Spaulding ’16

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Even robots need insurance.

Alumni partners Jim Duan and Kamron Khodjaev find niche insuring autonomous vehicles, and the tech world is taking notice.

A decade ago, Jim Duan ’13-’14 and Kamron Khodjaev ’12-’15 were newcomers to America and firstyear students at Pitt-Bradford.

Today they are part of the cofounding team at Koop Technologies, a Pittsburgh-based insurance technology startup that specializes in serving the growing self-driving vehicle industry and other robotics-based operations.

Duan and Khodjaev co-founded the startup in 2020 with two partners who likewise were far from home: fellow Pitt graduate Sergey Litvinenko and senior software engineer Zak Gazizov, both of whom are from Russia.

In just a short time, the company has gained attention in the region and beyond. In mid-2021, Koop announced $2.5 million in seed funding from Silicon Valley venture capital firms.

Soon after, Koop was among a handful of companies chosen for the seventh cohort of the Lloyd’s Lab innovation accelerator program. By November, Litvinenko was presenting Koop’s autonomy insurance platform in London as part of the Lloyd’s Lab Demo Day. And as 2021 came to a close, Koop Technologies was named a “Startup to Watch in 2022” by Pittsburgh Inno,

That serendipitous meeting, their mutual entrepreneurial drive, and the additional friendships they made when they moved on to finish their degrees on the university’s Pittsburgh campus eventually led to the formation of Koop’s founding team.

“They were two of my best students,” said John J. Crawford, assistant professor of finance at PittBradford. “Their ability to interpret and understand financial information and their business management acumen were very high.”

Crawford remembers Duan as stellar in analyzing financials and crunching numbers. “He really stood out with his analysis,” delving deep into corporate annual reports and financials in his class projects to uncover the “whys” underlying a company’s profits or losses.

Khodjaev was insightful, cuttingedge and a natural leader who helped establish the campus’s student investment club and served as the group’s president.

Both he and Duan were active in the group, which organized a road trip to New York City to explore career opportunities in the financial district.

ROBOT AGENTS B Y K I M B E R LY K . B A R L O W

Crawford said he expected Duan and Khodjaev to go on to careers in fund management or trading. “But it didn’t surprise me when I learned that they were pursuing an entrepreneurial venture. The fact that the two of them are collaborating and working together makes sense,” Crawford said, adding that the synergy in their strong leadership and analytic skills is a winning combination.

“I’m very proud to see they’re taking the skills and tools they developed here and are really putting those to work for themselves. It’s awesome that they’re taking a risk on an opportunity like this.” winter 2022

DEVON BRUNI

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a news source focused on the city’s startups, tech, growth and innovation ecosystem.

For Khodjaev, who grew up in Tashkent, the capital city of Uzbekistan – a city of 2.5 million people – and Duan, who hails from Chengdu, the capital of China’s Sichuan province, finding a future business partner on a small campus half a world away was not on their minds when they began searching for colleges.

It was their mutual desire for a quality American education that led them to Pitt and to their arrival just one semester apart at Pitt-Bradford, where they forged a friendship.

Jim Duan ’13-’14 is co-founder of Koop Technologies. While the company is based in Pittsburgh, Duan is living in Toronto.

Duan moved on to the Pittsburgh campus after a year and a half at Pitt-Bradford. There he met Litvinenko through Pitt’s Alpha Kappa Psi professional business fraternity. Khodjaev joined their circle when he, too, decided to finish his degree in Pittsburgh.

After graduation, the three parted ways to go on to graduate school and careers. Litvinenko, whose Pitt degree focused on finance with concentrations in economics and math, went to Wall Street. Duan’s career took him to Miami, and later to Toronto, where he is active in the Pitt Alumni Association.

For now, he is managing operations for Koop remotely, with a plan to return to Pittsburgh soon.

Khodjaev got his start with a Pittsburgh-based venture capital fund and later joined one of its portfolio companies, which sold fuel-efficiency technology to the trucking industry.

Their complementary skill sets, business experience and entrepreneurial desire motivated the friends to contemplate partnering in their own startup.

“The fact that we have known each other for years has given us more trust. We already know each other’s work style,” Duan said.

Meeting Gazizov through social connections within Pittsburgh’s tight-knit tech community 22

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AIMEE OBIDZINSKI

Kamron Khodjaev ’12-’15 takes a break at Nova Place, a repurposed shopping mall in Pittsburgh where Koop Technologies has its office.

completed the team. “We were friends first, and that friendship emerged into a business partnership as well,” Khodjaev said.

Their entrepreneurial journey is gaining momentum amid the region’s rise as a center for robotics and autonomous vehicle innovation.

“We owe a lot to Pittsburgh. It’s really the place to be right now, building a business in that space,” said Khodjaev, Koop’s chief commercial officer.

“If we were not in Pittsburgh we wouldn’t have come up with the idea, and we would not have met our friend and chief technical officer, Zak Gazizov, who was at Uber (Advanced Technologies Group) building autonomous vehicles.”

Koop’s business is centered on helping the insurance industry catch up with the needs of the robotics and autonomous vehicle industry, where premiums are extremely high because of the lack of historic data.

Traditional insurance solutions understand human risks, but because machines don’t behave like humans, autonomous technologies present different risks that require new underwriting models. Koop seeks to solve this issue and bridge the gap between the two industries.

The company’s platform enables autonomous vehicle companies to share data and in turn receive

In just a short time, the company has gained attention in the region and beyond.

In mid-2021, Koop announced $2.5 million in seed funding from Silicon Valley venture capital firms.

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data-driven coverage. Koop also provides data to insurance companies to help them appropriately tailor coverage to clients in autonomous technology industries.

Self-driving vehicles are not futuristic science fiction. “It’s a reality much closer than you might imagine,” said Duan, Koop’s head of operations, noting that autonomous delivery robots and driverless robotaxis already operate in multiple cities, and that labor shortages, exacerbated by the pandemic, have accelerated investment in self-driving truck fleets.

Said Khodjaev, “Everyone knows it’s going to be big. Companies are adding a lot of value by making vehicles autonomous. You can already see all these companies going public and making commercial investments.”

Added Duan, “This really is just the beginning of our journey. We are looking forward to getting more work done and bringing more benefits to the autonomous vehicle industry and the insurance world as well. We will be really proud of ourselves if we are a true enabler of the commercialization of self-driving vehicles.”

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hodjaev and Duan both knew from the time they were young that they wanted to study in America. Neither had visited the United States before arriving for classes at Pitt, but both are glad for the start they got at Pitt-Bradford.

“You want to go to the best-ranking schools in the States, and Pitt has a really good reputation,” Duan said. “Then I saw the pictures of the Bradford campus, and I could imagine myself being there.”

Khodjaev arrived on campus in fall 2012, just one semester before Duan. He focused his college search on high-quality campuses in the Eastern United States, to be near relatives in the Washington, D.C., area.

“I always wanted to be in business,” said Khodjaev, who grew up the eldest of three brothers in an entrepreneurial family. “I wanted to come to America for the opportunities and the open environment for entrepreneurs.”

As he searched online, he recalls being intrigued by photos of the clouds touching the hills around Pitt-Bradford and by images of Pitt’s campus buildings.

When he was offered a Panther scholarship at the Bradford campus, he jumped at the opportunity. “My goal was to leave the country and be independent. When I got accepted to Pitt, I got my

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visa, got my tickets and packed my bags.”

Upon arriving, he discovered he hadn’t fully comprehended the concept of regional campuses.

Recalling the photos, “I began asking where the Cathedral of Learning was. Then I realized I was pretty far from the main campus,” he said.

But at Pitt-Bradford, the small campus environment fostered friendships with faculty and fellow students alike, Khodjaev said. “I liked that we had great relationships with our professors. John Crawford became a friend. Economics classes with Shailendra Gajanan and Gautam Mukerjee were super-interesting.”

Duan and Khodjaev also praised Pitt Bradford’s comprehensive orientation materials and programs developed by Dr. Ron Binder, then-associate dean of student affairs, and Kristin Asinger, then-director of international studies.

The campus’s VISA Mentor Program, which pairs new international students with a fellow international student mentor, helped them adjust to life on campus.

“My mentor, who was from Germany, was like a big brother to me,” Duan said. He connected Duan to a social circle that included both international students and classmates from the Pitt-Bradford region. The experience immersed him in American culture and helped him quickly improve his English.

“Going from a megacity of 16 million to a small town of 8,000 people was a big cultural shock. But it also had its advantages,” Duan said. “It helped me to adapt quickly to American culture and to rural culture. Had I gone to big city schools at the very beginning, I would have been less likely to get out of my comfort zone.”

Duan also remembers the encouragement of former Vice President and Dean of Student Affairs Dr. K. James Evans. “It was always inspirational when I sat with him,” Duan said, recalling spontaneous conversations in the hallways or over lunch in the dining hall.

“He was always very caring and welcoming for international students like me. He encouraged me to do something that I wanted to do.

“Without their help I wouldn’t be here today.”

Duan encouraged fellow students to stray from their comfort zone and take entrepreneurial chances. “If there’s an opportunity to move across the country to pursue something you think is impossible, give it a shot,” he said. “The entrepreneurship journey can’t be forced upon you. You have to decide to take the risks.”

“Going from a megacity of 16 million to a small town of 8,000 people was a big cultural shock.

But it also had its advantages,” Duan said. “It helped me to adapt quickly to American culture and to rural culture.”

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PA N T H E R PA C K 1960s Robert St. Lawrence ’63-’65 is a retired member of the theater faculty at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

Dennis West ’63-’65 is retired from working at General Motors.

He lives in Apache Junction, Ariz.

Joseph Crosier ’63-’66 is a retired museum curator. He recently finished writing his first book, which is about the life of Boston artist Marilyn Powers, one of the founding members of the “Direct Vision” movement of the Boston Fauve Expressionists in the mid-20th century. He lives in Barre, Vt. Karen Washabau ’64-’66 is retired from working for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

She lives in Flagstaff, Ariz.

Barbara Hatzai ’65-’67 is retired from health care

and lives in LaGrange, Ky. Arla Ertz ’66-’68 is retired from the City and County of San Francisco, where she was a medical social worker. She lives in San Francisco.

Robert Howard Jr. ’66-’69 is retired from Hanesbrands Inc. He lives in Pfafftown, N.C.

1970s Dr. David Daly ’64-’71 is retired from the U.S. Navy. He lives in Winter Park, Fla. Tom Wash ’70-’72 retired from his business, Wash Associates LLC, which provided process safety consulting and auditing. He was a chemical engineer for several decades, also working as a process safety engineering specialist at 3M, before founding his own business. Now in retirement, he’s teaching algebra

2021 Alumni Weekend Baseball

Pa., where she lives.

If you have an update for Portraits magazine, visit www.upbalumni.org and click on “How to update your info” or email us at Portraits@pitt.edu.

and engineering at St. Paul High School. His wife, Laura Hunt Wash ’71-’73, is retired as well.

The couple lives in North St. Paul, Minn.

Samuel Sealy ’71-’72 is “trying to retire” from being a facility manager of Wells Rug Service in Morristown, N.J. He lives in Chatham, N.J. Margaret Gerhart ’71-’73 is retired from the Oswayo Valley School District in Shinglehouse,

Judy Hopkins ’71-’73 had a poem, “Metamorphosis,” published in the Fall 2021 issue of Gyroscope Review.

William ’71-’73 and Connie Smith Policicchio ’71-’73 have decided to retire in Greenville, S.C. William recently retired after a 29-year career with the Dodge Mechanical Products Division of ABB Ltd., formerly ASEA Brown Boveri.

Steven Graham ’72-’74 retired from working as an international trade liaison with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

He lives in Box Elder, S.D. Susan Silvestri ’72-’74 is retired from the Westmoreland Pa. County Area Agency on Aging.

She lives in Greensburg, (Pa.) Kate Day Sager ’73-’74 retired after more than 32 years of daily reporting for the sister papers, The Bradford Era and Olean (N.Y.) Times Herald. She began reporting in the Times Herald’s former Bradford bureau. Throughout her years of reporting, she particularly enjoyed writing feature articles about nonprofits or individuals in need.

David Lloyd ’73-’75 works in golf services at the five-star Kiawah Island (S.C.) Club.

Timothy Fannin ’78 has been elected lead director at Northwest Bank, headquartered in Warren, Pa., where he has been a director since 2013. He retired from his accounting practice in 2014. He is a former Pitt-Bradford Alumni Association president and former member of the PittBradford Advisory Board.

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1980s Brigitt Barlow ’79-’81 is a program director with KidsPeace in Allentown, Pa.

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ALAN HANCOCK

Jay Clinger ’18 played in the return of the Panthers’ baseball alumni game during Alumni and Family Weekend.

PA N T H E R PA C K AL U FO MN CU I

A Vineyard writer Jean Bozenhard Stone ’66-’68 wrote her first novel decades ago — she hasn’t stopped

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“We were in the sitting room at the Emery where they had the backgammon and chess sets. I remember sitting there when she told me that story, and it was like this lightbulb went on over my head,” Stone said.

That, Stone thought, would be the perfect place to set a novel and bring together a disparate group of young women.

More than two decades later, as an experienced advertising copy writer who had co-written a biography with Olympic gold medalist Tim Daggett, Stone closed her advertising firm and committed to writing her first novel, “Sins of Innocence,” which was the story of four women who met in a home for unwed mothers.

The housemother in that novel, Stone admits, was based on someone familiar to the generation of Pitt-Bradford women who lived in Emery Hall in the 1960s – Dean of Women Mary Florence Taylor.

“Miss Taylor had a daunting job,” Stone remembered. “Although we often revolted, I recall that she was rather kind. When I realized I needed a housemother for ‘Sins of Innocence,’ I respectfully named the character Mary Frances Taylor (a slight variation). Like her predecessor, Miss Taylor was strict, yet she had a soft side. When I decided to spice her up in my story, I consulted with another friend and fellow former Pitt-Bradford student, Kathryn McGuirl Swedock. We decided I should give my fictitious Miss Taylor a few delicious secrets, so I did!

“In 1999, I wrote a sequel to ‘Sins’ titled ‘Tides of the Heart,’ in which my Miss Taylor had retired, but one of my characters tracked her down and found her living a comfortable life on Cape Cod (Mass). All of which, of course, I made up, but I did so with the hope that our Pitt-Bradford Miss T. had the opportunity to finally have a quiet, restful life after all we’d put her through.”

While “Miss T.” was retired from Stone’s writing, her friend Swedock is the basis for a recurring character in Stone’s current series set on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

Stone and Swedock remained close friends after leaving PittBradford, and Swedock sometimes visited Stone when she lived on Martha’s Vineyard. Swedock died in 2015. “Sometimes I talk to Kathy in my head,” she said.

Missing her friend, she decided to give her own Vineyard series protagonist, a mystery writer named Annie, her own dear friend who had died, and whom Annie would often talk to.

Since writing her first novel in the early 1990s, Stone has added nearly two dozen more, primarily for Random House and longtime New York publisher Kensington Books. Her latest book, “A Vineyard Crossing,” came out in May, with another, “A Vineyard Wedding,” set for release in April. She’s already started the sixth book in the Vineyard series.

You can find all of Stone’s books on her website, jeanstone.com.

Jean writes about women who would be – or in some cases are or were – her friends, including some from her time at Pitt-Bradford.

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ean Bozenhard Stone ’66-’68 writes women’s fiction, which she distinguishes from romance thusly:“In a romance novel, the woman gets a guy. In women’s fiction, the woman gets a life.”

She writes about women who would be – or in some cases are or were – her friends, including some from her time at Pitt-Bradford. One woman inspired her first novel, “Sins of Innocence,” published when she was 46 and already had a full career in advertising.

The idea came from a story she heard in January 1968 at Pitt-Bradford, when a friend told Stone why she had not been in school during the fall of their sophomore year.

The friend, Stone said, had had a baby at a “home for unwed mothers,” places that, at that time, allowed young women to be pregnant and give birth in secret. Stone’s friend told her about the different young women who were at the home and how the nuns who ran it made them change their names to protect their true identities.

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PA N T H E R PA C K Tamra Minnier ’81 has been named senior vice president of UPMC’s health services division and chief quality and operational excellence officer for the health system.

Engineering in Pittsburgh. He lives in Avella, Pa.

Sherri West-Barber ’83 was promoted to staff specialist with the Baltimore City Public Schools.

She lives in Parkville, Md.

Gregory Switzer ’89 was promoted to wealth management advisor with TIAA-CREF Individual and Institutional Services in Charlottesville, Va.

Richard Marcellin Jr. ’82-’84 is a manager at Corning Inc. He lives in Painted Post, N.Y. Richard K. Ford ’87, ’12 works from home as an implementation consultant with Ceridian HCM, a human resources software company. He lives and works in Holly Springs, N.C. Joseph Grubbs ’85-’88 is a senior professional associate with HDR

The Rev. Andrew Spore ’89 was named pastor of First United Methodist Church in Emporium, Pa.

1990s Cheryl Flickinger ’90 is a permanency specialist with Catholic Charities Counseling and Adoption Services. She lives in Mount Jewett, Pa. Dr. Jill Owens ’93 was named chief medical officer and vice president of quality at Upper Allegheny Health System’s

Olean (N.Y.) General Hospital and Bradford Regional Medical Center.

She is also the medical director of the system’s physician networks, including Foothills Medical Group, Bradford Regional Medical Services and Health System Physician.

Scott Bell ’94 is a senior manager for sales learning and development at The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

Brian Gregg ’94 is a systems analyst with the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh.

Shena Barnes ’95 is a retail support specialist with the U.S. Postal Service in Philadelphia.

Troy Danielson ’95 is director of financial services for The Sherwin-

Williams Co. corporate office in Medina, Ohio.

Ricardo ‘Eric’ Felix ’95 was promoted to lead associate with Booz Allen Hamilton engineers in South Riding, Va. Mary Beth Longo Garvin ’95 is a retention specialist with Pitt-Bradford’s TRIO Student Support Services program.

Warren Shaw ’97 retired from the U.S. Army and is Pitt-Bradford’s new career educator.

Jennifer Washinger ‘97 is a quality systems manager with The J.M. Smucker Co. in Lodi, Ohio.

Tina Hilmes ’95-’98 has a new job with Keystone Powdered Metal in Lewis Run, Pa.

2021 Alumni Weekend Alumni and Family Weekend regulars Greg 73-’75 and Susan ‘72-’74 Silvestri welcome Milton Kenner ’66-’68 at the True Blue and Gold reception.

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PA N T H E R PA C K Jason Daugherty ’99 was promoted to sergeant with the Bradford City Police Department.

Gary Goga ’99 is the new head coach of boys’ basketball at Keystone Oaks High School in Pittsburgh. Previously, he coached at Peters Township in McMurray, Pa., where his teams were 172-179 in 15 seasons and won a Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League title in 2009.

2000s Jamie Knouse ’00 was promoted to specialty sales team leader with Target in Winfield, Pa. Lisa Marie Bielicki ’01 was promoted to parole agent at the State Correctional Institute – Phoenix in Collegeville, Pa. She lies in Royersford, Pa. Stacy Sorokes Wallace ’01 was elected to a seat on the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, which is a statewide intermediate appellate court primarily handling matters involving state and local governments and regulatory agencies. She was the first resident of McKean County ever elected to serve on a statewide court.

Mike ’01 and Rebecca ’09 Ward are the chairpersons of the Bradford Area United Way’s annual campaign. Mike is chief of the City of Bradford Police Department, and Rebecca teaches third grade at School Street Elementary School. They have three sons, Adam, Ryan and Sean.

Amanda Crick-Parrish ’03 is junior executive of operations and scheduling for Compassionate Certification Centers, a medical marijuana company.

Jessica Hill ’04 was promoted to sous chef with the food

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management company Guckenheimer in Austin, Texas.

Donations made to the Panther Pantry during Alumni & Family Weekend 2021

Allison Burks ’06 is a controller for Matrix PDM Engineering. She lives in Greensburg, Pa. Mallory Garich ’06 is a registered nurse at Sharon (Pa.) Regional Medical Center. She lives in Warren, Ohio.

Winnie Rajakumar ’07 is a private banker with JP Morgan Private Bank. He lives in Decatur, Ga. Jennifer Starr ’07 is the new director of nursing at Suncoast Behavioral Health Center in Bradenton, Fla. Previously, she was working in Connecticut and has an extensive background working as a psychiatry-certified registered nurse in both inpatient and residential settings.

Shatara Murphy ’08 was honored by the New Pittsburgh Courier as a Woman of Excellence. The award celebrates Pittsburgh area African American women who “inspire others through their vision and leadership, exceptional achievements and participation in community service.” Murphy is the new deputy director of community affairs for the City of Pittsburgh, having previously served four years as the assistant director.

Brian Sansom ’08 reached his 50th victory as head coach of Bethany (W.Va.) College women’s basketball. His wife, Erikka Rosplock Sansom ’13, is the director of athletic communications at the college.

The couple has a son, named Lucan.

Corey Smock ’08 is an orthopedic physician assistant at Carilion Clinic Orthopedic Surgery in Rocky Mount, Va. He lives in Christiansburg, Va. Tiffany Washington ’08 was promoted to associate executive director of Community Options

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multi-packages of macaroni and cheese

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boxes of granola bars

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4 packs of applesauce

packs of pudding

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packs of fruit cups

cans of soup

A variety of self-care items including: laundry detergent, toothbrushes, tooth paste, razors, shaving crème.

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PA N T H E R PA C K 2021 Alumni Weekend

software engineer with Capital Blue Cross Connect. He lives in Enola, Pa. Jenelle Johnson ’08, ’10 is the liaison librarian for equity, diversity and inclusion in Hanley Library at Pitt-Bradford. She has worked in public education since graduating, teaching English and reading, and was the library media specialist at Kane (Pa.) Area Middle School.

2010s

Blue & Gold Society students help register alumni at events during Alumni and Family Weekend. Shown here from left areTaylor Tyczka, a senior computer information systems and technology student major from Cowlesville, N.Y.; Kaylee Shelton, a junior biology major from Allentown; Tyler Eberly, a junior biology major from Denver, Pa.; and Ryan Taylor, a junior hospitality management major from Darby, Pa. Inc. She lives in York, Pa. Darah Wolf ’08 recently completed a Master of Humanities in English and English literature and celebrated her daughter’s first birthday. She lives in Mount Jewett, Pa.

Justin Elmore ’09 was promoted to captain in the U.S. Army.

Lisa Sears ’09 is an executive assistant with Cell Phones for Less. She lives in Liverpool, N.Y.

Caleb Landmesser ’10 was named Coach of the Year by the Kane (Pa.) Area School District, where he is the head boys’ basketball coach. In the spring, he was elected president of the Staff Association at Pitt-Bradford, where he is director of alumni engagement.

Tracy Tanner ’10 is a nurses’ aide at the Bradford Ecumenical Home. She is living in Duke Center, Pa. Tim Woughter ’10 was promoted to diesel operator 2 with Corning Inc. He lives in Elmira, N.Y.

Meghan Fetterman ’11 married Brian Hernandez in May. She is senior wellness coordinator for the Health and Wellness department at Geisinger Health Plan. The newlyweds live in Bloomsburg.

Matthew Gnan ’11 married Mackenzie Yanetsko in July. He is the head athletic trainer at the Portville (N.Y.) Central School.

The couple lives in Olean, N.Y. Jen Landmesser ’11 is the new administrative assistant for health and counseling services at Pitt-Bradford. She has spent the past 10 years working in the field of human services, primarily in a supervisory role within McKean County. She lives in Kane, Pa., with her husband, Caleb Landmesser ’10.

Lauren Lawson ’11 is a librarian and teacher at Otto-Eldred (Pa.) School District. She lives in Gifford, Pa. Keith Anderson ’12 is a social studies teacher at Kane (Pa.) Area High School. He lives in Kane.

Andrew Laganosky ’09 is a

In Memoriam Tonya Sue Darcy ’05-’11 died in September. She worked beside her husband, Joseph Darcy, at Owl Homes in Allegany, N.Y., where she was a secretary. In addition to her husband and mother, she is survived by her five children.

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Maureen “Cheri” O’Mara ’67-’70 died in May. She was the former superintendent of schools in the Bradford Area Schools, overseeing the creation of all-day kindergarten, pre-kindergarten and an after-school childcare program.

Roger Sager ’68 died in June. He was a retired chief of the City of Bradford Police Department, where he served from 1970 until 2010. In his retirement, he wrote a regular column on hunting and firearms for The Bradford Era. Survivors include his wife, Kate Day Sager ’73-’74.

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ALAN HANCOCK

Eric Garvin ’92 died in August in Buffalo, N.Y., after a brief battle with cancer. He was a regional manager with Community Bank System Inc. in Olean, N.Y., and was active in the Olean community, including as past president of the Olean Rotary Club and as a volunteer with the United Way, Olean Area Chamber of Commerce, YMCA, Little League and as past president of the Olean City School District Board of Directors. At Pitt-Bradford, he was the president of Delta Omega Phi, the Business Club and the Student Government Association and enjoyed giving campus tours. He was an active volunteer and board member with the Pitt-Bradford Alumni Association. He is survived by his parents, two children and former wife, Mary Beth Longo Garvin ’95.

Craig Hart ’72-’84 died in April from brain cancer. From 1990 to 1995, he was a business counselor for the Allegheny Research and Development Center at Pitt-Bradford. He was active in the business community and served on the boards of the Bradford Ecumenical Home and Oakhill Cemetery Association. He volunteered with the American Cancer Society, Boy Scouts and First Presbyterian Church in Bradford.

PA N T H E R PA C K Martin Cipriano ’12 was promoted to field claims representative III at Liberty Mutual Insurance. He lives in Plano, Texas.

Michael Cipriano ’12 is a claims manager for Sedgwick, a claims processing firm. He lives in Aubrey, Texas.

Chisé Diacik ’12 is an occupational therapist for St. Luke’s University Health Network She lives in Nazareth, Pa. Olivia Sherman ’12 recently moved to Florida and is the regional manager of Hollamby Agency, providing financial services.

Tom Taylor ’12 was promoted to associate brand manager for Zippo outdoor and knives at Zippo Manufacturing Co. in Bradford.

Dr. Kaitlin Zapel ’12 is the archives manager for Zippo Manufacturing Co. in Bradford and an adjunct instructor in anthropology at Pitt-Bradford.

Caitlin Castina ’13 earned her master’s degree in public health epidemiology from the University of Kansas. She is an infection preventionist at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, Kan. Michael Hutchins ’14 is a certified public accountant and accounting major for Superior Energy Resources in Brockway, Pa. He also volunteers with the DuBois (Pa.) Area Jaycees to raise money for scholarships for local high school students and various other activities to promote businesses in the community. He lives in DuBois.

Master planner

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Terry Schager ’82-’84 helped companies migrate systems

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or the past six months, the words “supply chain” have rarely been uttered without being followed by “issues.”

While much of the world gets a first-time indepth schooling about the complex system of suppliers, shippers and manufacturers that connect the world of goods, Terry Schager ’82-’84, could give a master class in its development.

Before his retirement almost nine years ago, Schager led teams that migrated entire supply chains for companies undergoing merger, acquisition or divestiture. His teams would move copious amounts of data on trading partners, vendors, customers, patients or clients to ensure that supply chains and workflows remained intact.

Regarding the current pandemic-related bottlenecks that have derailed systems dependent on just-in-time delivery, he said, “What folks don’t understand is that it took 35 or 40 years to build these supply chains, and that’s not going to get put back like it was for a while.

It involves millions of moving parts.”

Not surprisingly, it was the proliferation of computers that made the supply chain possible, and Schager arrived just at the right time, with a two-year degree in computer science and some experience with networks that he gained as a student and as a cryptotechnician for the U.S. Navy.

In the Navy, he worked with the National Security Administration, using the military’s ARPANET, an early government version of what became the World Wide Web. After getting out of the Navy, he returned to his home in Warren, Pa., and attended PittBradford at a time when the Pitt system was investing in a universitywide dedicated network dubbed the “Campus of the Future” to connect all its campuses and programs to the rest of the academic world.

Richard T. Obermeyer ’14 graduated from the Pennsylvania State Police Academy in Hershey, Pa. He has been assigned to Troop F in Coudersport, Pa.

promoted to educational behavioral support at The Vista School in Hershey, Pa. She is enjoying helping children diagnosed with autism excel by living their lives independently.

She lives in Elizabethtown, Pa.

Kayla Wetzel ’14 has been

Mariah Cole ’15 is a clinical

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AL U FO MN CU I

“There were a few of us in Bradford who had time to goof around,” he said. “We’d go into the computing lab and figure out programs and how the systems worked and all that.”

He would go on to earn a Project Management Professional credential as well as a bachelor’s degree in business management.

Now his life has come full circle. While he didn’t return to Northern Pennsylvania, he has returned to spending time in the woods, fishing mostly, and volunteering from his home in Greenville, S.C. It is refreshingly low-tech.

scientist with ExecuPharm managing clinical trials and medical monitoring of oncology clinical trials at Merck & Co. She lives with her husband and two children in Rochester, N.Y. Maria Paula Laverde Duarte ’15 is a clinical researcher at

Altasciences in Montreal, where she earned her Master of Science in human genetics at McGill University.

Kyle Viola ’15 is a conference services manager at Pitt-Bradford.

Previously, he spent six years working in customer service

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PA N T H E R PA C K We want to hear from you!

Even before we’re done with each Portraits magazine, we’ve started to plan for the next one, and we want to hear from you.

For our Summer 2022 issue, we’re looking for those who started their engineering careers at PittBradford. What are your memories of your time at Pitt-Bradford? How do you think your experience was different than that of colleagues who began at large engineering schools? And what did you end up doing?

We’ve also noticed that the Bradford gang has a way of sticking together if students transfer to the campus in Pittsburgh. Did you make the move to Oakland and take your Bradford besties with you? We’d love to talk with you and them!

If you fit either of those descriptions or have another alumni memory you’d like to share, email us at Portraits@pitt.edu.

And you can always update your information for our Panther Pack by visiting www.upbalumni.org and clicking on “How to update your information.”

leadership positions at Seneca Allegany Resort and Casino in Salamanca, N.Y. He lives in Bradford with his wife, Alicia.

Edith Etuwewe Baker ’16 is studying to be a midwife at Mercy in Action College of Midwifery in Boise, Idaho. Over the past three years, she has apprenticed in Haiti, Michigan and Wisconsin and will finish her clinical apprenticeship in Oregon.

Chelsea Gernhardt ’16 is a project manager with BNY Mellon. She lives in Harrison City, Pa. Devon Schoonover ’16 earned his law degree from Duquesne University in May 2020 before deploying to Kuwait and Iraq with the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. This fall, he began his legal career as a real estate associate with Stock and Leader Attorneys at Law in York, Pa. He lives in Dover, Pa. Lauren Ball ’17 started a new position as social media manager at Firestone Walker Brewing Co., a craft brewer in California.

Delta reunion Brothers of Delta Omega Phi rented a house in Baltimore for a weekend reunion this fall. Those gathered caught up on each other’s lives, played cards and other games, and relived old stories and made some new ones. Included in the reunion were, from left, Troy Golson ’96-’00, Carter Miller (son of Kevin Miller), Mike Assad ’00, Jonathan Matson ’01 and Kevin Miller ’00. Not pictured is Chris Mackowski ’91. Kevin Miller invites any Deltas interested in next year’s reunion gathering to contact him.

30 PORTRAITS

Colton Bly ’17 is assistant coach of the newly formed Flower City Union professional soccer team based in Rochester, N.Y. He is one of the youngest people ever to be issued the highest FIFAaccredited coaching qualification offered in the United States, the U.S. Soccer National ‘A’ License. In his spare time, he founded the Twin Tiers Soccer Club to bring professional coaching to youth soccer in Olean, N.Y., Allegany, N.Y., Bradford and surrounding communities. He lives in Olean, N.Y. Lisa Marie Cook ’17 became a certified alcohol drug counselor with Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services Inc. Maple Manor in Port Allegany, Pa. Andrew Dexter ’17 returned home to Bradford and is now a police officer with the Foster Township

Police Department.

Dr. Zachary Hadfield ’17 is an emergency medicine advanced practice provider fellow at UPMC Harrisburg.

Bethany Kier ’17 has been promoted to a product stewardship specialist with PPG in Monroeville, Pa. Collin Maines ’17 is Pitt-Bradford’s newest admissions counselors.

James “Jay” Clinger ’18 works for Harpst Brothers Construction in Edinboro, Pa. Courtney Holzwarth ’18 is a pediatric occupational therapist at Foundations Therapy in Clearwater, Fla. Sage Messenger ’18 is a residential learning coordinator at Valparaiso (Ind.) University.

John Schaefer ’18 is an information technology specialist with Golden Customer Care. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Holly Linden ’18, Jason Rulander ’18, Jessica Penn ’13 and Lisa Cook ’17 were part of the ninth cohort of Master of Social Work students to earn the degree from the University of Pittsburgh’s program at the Pitt-Bradford campus.

Laura Abreu ’19 is a tax specialist with Paycor.

Patrouious Achatz ’19 is the assistant coordinator of Self Advocates United as 1, a statewide nonprofit organization founded and run by people with disabilities. He works on curriculum for self advocates, facilitates trainings, transcribes videos for closed captioning and recruits board members.

Joel Austin ’19 completed his Master of Science in information science at the University of Pittsburgh and accepted a full-

winter 2022

PA N T H E R PA C K time job at Facebook in California as a front-end software engineer.

Anthony D’Orsa ’19, ’21 is a new health and physical education teacher at the Dowell J. Howard Center in Winchester, Va. Jamie Burritt Johnson ’19 teaches pre-kindergarten at George G. Blaisdell Elementary School in Bradford.

were resident assistants at Pitt-Bradford. They tied the knot in Hungry Horse, Mont.

Tyler Zelinski ’20 was named to Pennsylvania Business Central’s Foremost Under 40 list. The list “recognizes a rising generation of business leaders that has adapted and innovated to meet the unique challenges of the past two years.” Zelinski is an employee benefits consultant at the DuBois office of Swift Kennedy and Associates, an insurance brokerage firm and an active member of the Greater DuBois Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development.

Robert Mitchell ’19 was promoted to first assistant fire chief with the Bradford Township Fire Department. He is also a volunteer peer support group leader with the Wounded Warrior Project and serves on the board of directors of the Defenders of Freedom Pittsburgh Veterans Service Organization.

Mindi Carley ’21 is a new English Language Arts teacher at Ocoee (Fla.) High School.

Jayden Pire ’19 is an inbound marketing specialist with protocol 80 inc. in Bradford.

Caitlin Cipriano ’21 is a preschool teacher at Cleveland Heights (Ohio) Cooperative preschool.

Brittany Watson ’19 married Cody Reid. She is a business representative for Walker Business and Staffing in Bradford.

Brandon Davis ’21 is a new health and physical education teacher at Wayland-Cohocton (N.Y.) Central School District.

2020s

Zachry Ensell ’21 is an associate cost accountant for Zippo Manufacturing Co. in Bradford.

He lives in Olean, N.Y.

Brittany Florentine ’20 and her husband, Rennie, welcomed a baby girl, Claire Nicole, in November.

Colin Irwin ’20 is a physical education teacher at Easton (Pa.) Arts Academy Charter School.

Hannah Jaroszynski ’20 is a crisis counselor in the emergency room at UPMC Chautauqua.

Dorine Lavache ’20 is pursuing a Master of Medical Sciences at Boston University.

Krystal Perrett ’20 is a nurse at UPMC Kane, Pa. She and husband, Dan, have a young son, Benny.

Tateana Wertman ’20 married Benjamin Hayes ’19 in July.

The couple met while both

winter 2022

Kyle O’Donell ’21 is a new teacher at Prospect Elementary School in Salamanca, N.Y. Alyssa Sedgwick ’21 is a new 9th-grade biology teacher at Sharpsville (Pa.) Area High School. She lives in Mercer, Pa. Alayna Seggi ’21 is an English and language arts teacher for 7th and 8th graders at Smethport (Pa.) Junior-Senior High School.

Justin Tanner ’21 is teaching health and physical education at Smethport (Pa.) Junior/Senior High School.

Doris Zuchowski ’21 is an

Harry Halloran Passes Longtime ARG CEO and campus supporter

Harry Halloran Jr., second from left, visited campus in 2007 after making a gift to establish the university’s energy institute. He’s shown here with, from left, then-president Dr. Livingston Alexander, his wife, Kay Halloran, and ARG COO Harvey Golubock.

A

merican Refining Group owner, CEO and board chairman Harry Halloran Jr. died in December.

Halloran became part of the Bradford community in 1997, when American Refining Group purchased the Bradford refinery, an anchor of the local economy, from Witco Corp.

He maintained the university’s longtime relationship with the refinery started by inaugural Advisory Board Chair and Kendall Refining Co. President J. Bertram Fisher in the 1960s.

In his years supporting Pitt-Bradford, Halloran helped to enhance its physical plant and academic focus.

Halloran’s gifts to the university through ARG and Halloran Philanthropies include a $500,000 gift in 2007 to endow scholarships and launch the university’s energy institute, which is named in his honor. The institute stimulates thinking about renewable energy and provides energy-related education, including establishing the campus’s existing energy science and technology major as well as a new energy engineering technology major.

In 2006, ARG donated 130 acres of land on West Corydon Street to the university, nearly doubling the size of the campus.

The forested property is used by students as a living laboratory and site for recreation.

The university awarded Halloran and ARG’s late Chief Operating Officer Harvey Golubock its Presidential Medal of Distinction in 2008.

Halloran continues to make contributions to the university through Halloran Philanthropies.

emergency room nurse at Penn Highlands DuBois (Pa.) She lives in St. Marys, Pa. Juliah Laemmer ’21 was accepted into the University of Pittsburgh’s School of

Dental Medicine.

Logan White ’22 accepted a job as a graduate federal associate consultant with the professional services team at VMware in Reston, Va.

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Do you know a student who would make a great Panther?

ALUMNI REFERRALS ARE ONE OF OUR STRONGEST SOURCES OF STUDENT RECRUITMENT. The Refer a Future Panther Program provides alumni the opportunity to connect prospective students with Pitt-Bradford.

Referred students will be sent a package that includes exciting information about the many opportunities available on campus as well as some Pitt-Bradford swag!

As a token of our appreciation, alumni who refer students will receive a gift.

Encourage these Future Panthers and their families to visit campus and register for one of our admissions events.

TO REGISTER FOR AN ADMISSIONS EVENT, VISIT: www.upb.pitt.edu/visit-campus.

www.upb.pitt.edu/visit-campus

WHERE THERE’S A WILL, THERE’S A WAY. READY TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE? Planned giving is a distinctive way to make a personal and long-lasting contribution to the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.

Contact Philanthropic and Alumni Engagement at 814.362.5091 to learn more about charitable gift planning or visit us online at upb.pitt.edu/giving to learn about ways to give.

Office of Philanthropic and Alumni Engagement 300 Campus Drive Bradford, PA 16701 ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

Campus officially broke ground on our new Engineering and Information Technologies building in August. Pictured unveiling a sign of the new building are supporters of the building, from left, Sarah Duke; Dr. Richard E. McDowell, president emeritus; Tim VanHorn, executive vice president of operations for Zippo Manufacturing Co.; and Chris Napoleon ’86-’88, who owns Napoleon Engineering Services in Olean, N.Y. The building makes possible new majors in mechanical engineering technology and energy engineering technology.

Scan the code with your smart phone to read more about our new engineering technology majors.

SYDNEY HERDLE