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Alumni Updates
THE DEAN’S CIRCLE OF MERIT
PONSORED BY THE Judy Genshaft Honors College Student Council, the Dean’s Circle of Merit is an award bestowed on graduating students who exemplify the four main values of the College: leadership, service, global engagement, and research. The students are nominated and selected by Honors faculty and staff, and in 2021 eight Honors students were selected to receive the award.
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– Judy Genshaft Honors College Dean Charles Adams
SPRING 2021
• LEADERSHIP: KRISTA CUMMINGS — Krista guided prospective students and families by serving as an Honors Ambassador. She also helped current students build connections and bolster community by serving in multiple positions on the Judy Genshaft Honors College Student Council and on the Student Experience Committee.
• RESEARCH: BRIDGET GODSIL — Bridget’s innovative Honors Thesis focused on the well-being of siblings of children with disabilities, and resulted in two published books about facilitating open conversations regarding challenges. This work has also been incorporated into a non-profit organization’s workshop curriculum for families of children with disabilities.
• GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP: MABEL PROENZA — Mabel consistently engaged in global learning and intercultural dialogue during her time at USF. She participated in multiple study abroad trips to China as well as two internships with the US Department of State, both domestically and abroad in the Philippines.
• LEADERSHIP: MARY BETH WILLIAMS — Mary Beth assisted prospective students and families as an Honors Ambassador, guided firstyear students and shaped the curriculum for the Honors Foundation course as an Honors Peer Mentor, and served as a Resident Assistant in the Honors and Provost’s Scholars Living Learning Communities.
FALL 2021
• GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP: PAMELA ESPINOZA — Pamela exemplified the global mission of Honors College as an international student studying and interacting across cultures on campus. She also studied abroad in Germany, conducted a virtual internship with an organization in the Dominican Republic, and produced a globally-focused Honors thesis.
• GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP: RHITIK JOSHI — Rhitik cultivated his global perspective through study abroad trips and international research. He also served as President of the USF GloBull Ambassadors and guided first-year students in the Honors Foundations course while serving as an Honors Peer Mentor.
• RESEARCH: VICTORIA MADDEX — Victoria made impressive contributions to interdisciplinary research through presentations and published abstracts at a national level. She also mentored other students as an Instructional Assistant for an Honors capstone course.
• LEADERSHIP: ALANNA RAETHER — Alanna served on the Marketing and Public Relations Committee of the Judy Genshaft Honors College Student Council during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and utilized creativity and a variety of media to develop meaningful bonds among students, faculty, and staff.
- Samantha Wilkerson and Amy Harroun
David Arango, ’19 BS Public Health, is currently working on his master of public health (MPH) degree with a concentration in global health at Brown University. His research in the program will consists of evaluating social determinants and treatment for tuberculosis and HIV in global settings. Before starting graduate school, he worked for the Florida Department of Health leading the COVID-19 contact tracing team in Hillsborough County. He also served as Research Coordinator at Moffitt Cancer Center investigating tobacco cessation interventions for underserved populations.
Dr. Jeannette Capella, ’90 BA Biology, ’93 MD
(7-year BA/MD Program graduate), is Associate Director of Trauma at Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines, Iowa (an ACS-verified Level 1 Trauma Center). Dr. Capella trains General Surgery residents and medical students from the University of Iowa. She is interested in Disaster Response and Education, and completed post-graduate training in Acute Care Surgery in 2000. She has served on federal disaster response teams since 2001, deploying to Texas, Haiti, Puerto Rico and New Mexico. Dr. Capella is currently on the American College of Surgeons’ Committee on Trauma, where she helps develop disaster response training modules for practicing surgeons in all specialties and updates the Advanced Trauma Life Support course. Dr. Eric A. Elster, ’91 BA Biology, ’95 MD, is Dean of the School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. This unique program consistently ranks among the top in the nation, and is the country’s only federal medical school. In his current role, Dr. Elster leads the undergraduate medical education of more than 680 uniformed medical students and more than 340 civilian and military graduate students each year. Previously, Dr. Elster was the Chair and Norman M. Rich Professor of Surgery for the USU Department of Surgery and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Dr. Elster has published more than 200 scientific manuscripts in leading journals such as JAMA, Annals of Surgery, American Journal of Transplantation, and Science Translational Medicine, and has received numerous research grants across all aspects of surgery. Dr. Elster recently retired after 26 years as a Naval Officer (Captain) with deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Houda Fakhre, ’15 BS Cellular and Molecular Biology, is a fourth-year dental student at the University of Florida College of Dentistry. She will be graduating with her doctor of medicine in dentistry (DMD) degree in May of 2022. Upon graduating, Houda plans to practice general dentistry in the Tampa Bay area, and is also interested in teaching at the university level. Pallavi Gopee, ’18 BS Management, is currently working at Google as a Staffing Operations Supervisor. She joined Google in July 2021 as a Recruiting Coordinator after graduating from The University of Pennsylvania with a master’s degree in Organizational Dynamics. Prior to this work, she was a Solution Analyst at Deloitte. Pallavi is currently serving as a mentor for the Leadership Connect mentor program, a six-month program that pairs undergraduate students in the Muma College of Business and/or Bishop Center for Ethical Leadership with local community members.
Hunter Goldenberg, ’18 BS Business Analytics and Information
Systems, is an Associate Software Engineer at JP Morgan Chase & Co. He is currently working on a high-profile, deep learning driven application which primarily centers around bridging the gaps in Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) across technology, business, and operations regulatory monitoring. Hunter’s deep learning models have been featured internally as a part of the Project of the Month initiative to draw attention to highly innovative teams. Hunter was invited to participate in roundtable discussions at Google to steer adoption of the TensorFlow machine learning tool, and graduated from JPMC’s Software Engineering Program in fall of 2020. He also recently completed the internal Leadership & Engineering Advancement Program (LEAP) – a precursor for upper management. Hunter stays connected to USF as JPMC’s project sponsor for the USF Computer Engineering Capstone Program, where he sponsors one project each semester in which students work to solve real industry problems.
Ahmed-Zayn “Zayn” Mohamed, ’16 BS Biomedical Sci-
ence, BA Political Science, is an Intellectual Property Attorney at Carlton Fields and fourth year medical student at the USF Morsani College of Medicine. He helps inventors with healthcare industry technologies and is studying to become a radiologist. Zayn aspires to lead healthcare innovation and his passion is using medicine and law to help patients both on the individual level and on a larger scale. Zayn enjoys giving back to the community and being a mentor for students interested in law or medicine.
Luis Monsalve, ’15 BS Biomedical Sciences, is Manager of the Clinical Trials Unit at Bay Area Retina Associates. He has been initiating and conducting clinical research studies to test new treatments for diseases such as Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and an advanced form of dry AMD called Geographic Atrophy (GA). AMD and GA are some of the leading causes of blindness in the world, and there are currently no FDA approved treatments for the latter. One of the clinical trials is on the cusp of becoming FDA approved in 2022 and would effectively become the first treatment for GA. Upon graduating from USF, Luis went on to receive his master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University’s Public Health School. Luis recently negotiated his first $1 million+ study and has many more on the horizon, including a stem cell treatment trial set to start in 2022.
Chris McRae, ’04 BA Communication, ’07 MA
Communication, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida where he teaches courses in performance studies. After leaving USF, he went on to earn a PhD from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale in 2011. His most recent book, Listening for Learning: Performing a Pedagogy of Sound and Listening, brings together his research interests on sound, listening, and pedagogy.
Mekiayla “Meki” Singleton, ’14 BA Psychology and
Gerontology, ’16 MSW, is a Ph.D. candidate in the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California. Her research interests revolve around LGBTQ+ older adults’ access to, and utilization of, long-term care and support services and end of life care and decision making. She recently published an article in the Sexuality Research and Social Policy journal titled “Anticipated Need for Future Nursing Home Placement by Sexual Orientation: Early Findings from the Health and Retirement Study” and a current news article titled “How Much Time Do You Want for Your ‘Progress’? Inequitable Aging for Diverse Sexual and Gender Minorites” in Generations Today, the American Society on Aging’s bimonthly digital publication. Currently, she is collecting data for and writing her dissertation that aims to explore racial differences in advance care planning among older lesbian and gay adults. Meki says that advocacy through research is the driving force behind her work, and is why she aspires to improve the care of LGBTQ+ older adults.
Avalon Jade Theisen, ’20 BA Religious Studies, is pursuing a PhD in Religious Studies at Arizona State University, which followed her post-baccalaureate study at the University of Florida. Her academic and professional life continue to follow the intersection of diverse religions and sustainability. She teaches cultural empathy courses to middle and high school students using curricula she developed, including one course created as part of her Judy Genshaft Honors College Thesis. She currently serves as the Book Reviews Coordinator for the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture. In continued pursuit of global sustainability, she recently obtained certification for the Climate Reality Project’s Leadership Corps and the CLEO Institute’s Climate and Food Policy course. She also continues work with the nonprofit she founded, Conserve It Forward.
Nisuka Williams, ’20 BS Biology, recently completed an internship with the U.S. State Department, and has accepted a position as United Nations General Assembly Assistant with the United States Mission to the United Nations. The Mission is dedicated to conducting United States policy at the UN and covers areas such as economics, political affairs, and management and reform. In her current role, she assists with matters pertaining to the UN Fifth Committee. The Fifth Committee oversees a wide range of administrative issues spanning several UN organizations (UNICEF, WHO, Special Political Missions, etc.) Nisuka says she enjoys the opportunity to work with campaigns and brilliant delegates who advocate for diverse representation. For her future studies, she plans to explore and pursue global issues of women’s health and food security.
- Hayden Mitchell
ATTENTION HONORS ALUMNI
We want to stay connected with you.
Please email us at
alumni@honors.usf.edu
with your updated contact information and any news you’d like to share. We are proud of our alumni and want to promote your accomplishments.
Want to learn more about what’s happening in the College? Connect with us on: • LinkedIn • Facebook • Instagram Be on the lookout for upcoming Honors alumni news and events. Go Bulls!
