Faculty
Meet Your Co-Chairs
Shaun B. Keister
Shaun B. Keister, a veteran fundraiser with experience in higher education, arts, and conservation philanthropy, became UC Davis' first vice chancellor for development and alumni relations in 2011.
He functions as the campus's chief fundraising officer and also serves as president of the UC Davis Foundation. He led UC Davis in successfully completing its first comprehensive fundraising campaign, "The Campaign for UC Davis," raising more than $1.1 billion from nearly 110,000 donors. Under his leadership, UC Davis became one of the top two percent of fundraising programs in the United States according to the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).
Keister has served in a series of high-level development posts at Florida State, Iowa State, and Penn State universities. In his previous positions he has played a key role in the launch of three major campaigns.
He is a nationally-renowned fundraising expert having been quoted in local and national media outlets including "CNN Money," The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Currents magazine, The Sacramento Bee, and Fox 40 News. Additionally, he has nearly 20 years as an independent fundraising consultant serving clients including the San Francisco Opera, Steppenwolf Theatre, World Wildlife Fund, and the Nature Conservancy, and more than 60 public and private universities.
Keister has served as a CASE member and volunteer, speaking at more than 20 international conferences. He is the 2005 recipient of the CASE Crystal Apple Award for excellence in teaching.
He has a bachelor's degree in political science from Pennsylvania State University and master's and doctoral degrees in sociology from Iowa State University of Science and Technology.
Dale Wright
Dale Wright serves as associate vice chancellor for advancement at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign (UIUC). In this role, besides managing a small portfolio of donors and prospects, he provides vision, strategic leadership, mentoring, and coaching to a portfolio of chief advancement officers and deans and academic and university leaders.
Prior to this position, he served at UIUC as the associate dean & chief advancement officer for The Grainger College of Engineering with responsibility for the strategy and operations in fundraising and constituent engagement. As campaign director for the college’s $550M goal, as part of the "With Illinois" $2.65B campaign (original goal of $2.25B), he led the college in exceeding the goal by 21%. Additionally, the college secured 25% of the overall campaign total.
Over the last 20+ years, Wright has held a variety of alumni and fundraising engagement roles in higher education. He has guided several deans, academic leaders and university leadership through the campaign planning process and execution, over three $1B+ comprehensive campaigns. He is an experienced principal and major gift fundraiser, mentor, and leader, designing engagement programs to help teams and volunteers meet philanthropic goals.
Wright is an active CASE volunteer, having served on district and national committees, and presently as a faculty member/speaker at CASE conferences and other CASE educational programs. Wright also holds membership in organizations such as the African American Development Officers Network, the Association of Fundraising Professionals and is involved in other non-profit work, including serving on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors for the American Legion Boys State of Missouri (Missouri Boys State). He earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Missouri (Mizzou).
Faculty
Heather Colwell
Heather Colwell is an Executive Advisor of Development in McMaster’s University Advancement department. As part of the University’s highly professional and award-winning fundraising team, she has implemented effective advancement strategies, designed transformative development structures and established innovative partnerships and collaborations. Heather oversees development strategies in McMaster’s faculties of heath sciences and science, as well as the nuclear portfolio and the estate giving and legacy planning team. Throughout her time at McMaster, Heather has been instrumental in driving revenue growth across the University.
Heather has been with McMaster since 2016 in multiple development leadership positions within the Faculty of Science as well as Gift Planning. Prior to that, Heather held development roles at a number of independent schools in Ontario and Quebec, Canada.
Heather received her B.A. in Biomedical Sciences from SUNY at Buffalo and holds a Master of Philanthropy and Non-Profit Leadership from Carleton University. Heather is a Certified Fund Raising Executive.
Jay Davenport
Jay Davenport, CFRE, serves as vice president of Development and Alumni Relations for Virginia Commonwealth University and VCU Health.
As VCU’s chief development and alumni officer, Jay leads fundraising and engagement efforts for the VCU enterprise, including the Monroe Park Campus, the health sciences campus and VCU Health. Areas under his purview include Advancement Solutions, alumni relations, annual giving, corporate and foundation relations, development and alumni communications, donor engagement, planned giving, presidential advancement, principal giving, regional philanthropy and the universitywide development staff.
Jay joined VCU and VCU Health in 2017 in the middle of a $750 million campaign and helped steer the campaign to a successful conclusion, raising over $840 million. In the past six years, Jay has helped VCU and VCU Health raise over $1 billion and is currently designing the first comprehensive campaign for the VCU and VCU Health.
Jay has previously led fundraising teams at Wake Forest University, including as assistant vice president of college development, assistant vice president of major gifts and associate vice president and campaign director. He has also served as director of development and team leader at Rice University and held fundraising positions as a college development director at the University of Memphis College of Business and Wright State University College of Engineering. He began his higher education career as an assistant dean of admissions at Wittenberg University.
Jay has served on the board of directors for Make-A-Wish of Greater Virginia and the Benedictine Schools of Richmond. Jay holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Xavier University and a master's degree in higher education administration from Ball State University.
Maureen MacDonald
Maureen J MacDonald received her Honours BSc in Chemistry from Acadia University, Canada, in 1991 and her MSc (1993) and PhD (1998) in Kinesiology from the University of Waterloo, Canada. After post-doctoral research fellowships at the University of British Columbia and the University of Western Ontario she started her academic career as a faculty member at Wilfrid Laurier University. Since 2000 she has been a faculty member in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada, where she is a full professor and the Dean of Science.
Dr. MacDonald the director of the Vascular Dynamics Laboratory and is an active member of the Exercise Metabolism Research Group in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster. Her research interests are in exercise physiology with specialization in the application of ultrasound techniques to the assessment of the peripheral blood vessels. Most recently, together with her research team, she has been examining impact of high intensity interval training on the blood vessels and heart in individuals with coronary artery disease and the use of heat therapy as an alternative to exercise training and focussing on inclusion of women in these areas of research. She has directly supervised over 200 undergraduate and graduate students since her appointment in 2000 and was awarded the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology Mentorship award in October 2018. Dr. MacDonald has been continually funded by The Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada since 2001, and currently is also funded by Canadian Institutes for Health Research.
Dr. MacDonald is a member of the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology, the American College of Sports Medicine, the American Physiological Society, and the European College of Sports Science and. Two research leaves at Stanford University (July 2006-June 2007) and Loughborough University (July 2013-June 2014) provided Dr. MacDonald with international academic exposure and fostered lasting international research collaborations. She retains a Visiting Professor position in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University and is currently on research leave and appointed as a Global Chair at Manchester Metropolitan University in the Institute of Sport.
Kelechi C Ogbonna
After an extensive national search, Kelechi “K.C.” Ogbonna, Pharm.D., M.S.H.A., was named dean of Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy in December 2022 having served as interim dean since June 2022. VCU School of Pharmacy is the only public School of Pharmacy in the Commonwealth and ranked in the Top 20 of Schools of Pharmacy nationwide. Prior to that appointment, he served as associate dean of admissions and student services at the School of Pharmacy, overseeing recruitment and student support for the Doctor of Pharmacy program.
Dr. Ogbonna has a fantastic record of innovation and delivering results for students, patients, faculty and staff. As a pharmacist and educator, Dr. Ogbonna has focused on connecting communities with health care, improving health disparities and expanding access to the health professions. As the pharmacy school’s head of admissions and student services, his innovative approaches strengthened student outcomes and expanded student success services, while the school hit historic highs for on-time graduation rates.
Dr. Ogbonna has received VCU’s Riese-Melton Award, the 10 Under 10 Award from the Virginia Pharmacists Association, the President’s Award from the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, and the Black History in the Making Award from VCU’s department of health administration.
Dr. Ogbonna was a pre-pharmacy/chemistry major at Fairleigh Dickinson University and earned his Pharm.D. at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences and a Master’s in Health Administration from VCU. He completed his PGY-1 general pharmacy practice residency and PGY-2 geriatric pharmacy residency within the Veteran Affairs Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven, Connecticut where he focused on older adult populations post combat. He joined VCU School of Pharmacy in 2012 as an assistant professor, teaching geriatrics and helping to create the Richmond Health and Wellness Program, the precursor to the VCU Health Hub at 25th. Dr. Ogbonna was also founding director of the school’s postgraduate geriatric residency program. He currently holds the rank of professor at VCU.
Speaker
Estella Atekwana
Estella Atekwana began her tenure as dean of the College of Letters and Science in August 2021. She provides academic and administrative leadership for the largest college on campus, overseeing 37 departments and academic programs with more than 900 faculty across the arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematical and physical sciences.
Atekwana is a renowned geophysicist whose research interests include biogeophysics, near surface geophysics, tectonics, geodynamics and continental rifting.
She previously served as dean at the University of Delaware’s College of Earth, Ocean and Environment and as head of the Boone Pickens School of Geology at Oklahoma State University. She also serves as a member of the governing board of Botswana International University of Science and Technology. She has a collaborative National Science Foundation project in Uganda to study the Albertine rift, and has received approximately $11.7 million in research funding, primarily from the U.S. Department of Energy, the NSF and industry.
She is a fellow of the Geological Society of America and a member and recipient of outstanding educator awards from the Association of Women Geoscientists and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. Her contributions to exploration geophysics were recognized with the 2021 Reginald Fessenden Award from SEG, as well as the SEG 2020 Virtual Near Surface Global Lecturer award. She also belongs to the American Geophysical Union, the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers, the Geochemical Society and the National Association of Black Geoscientists.
Atekwana received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geology from Howard University and her doctorate in geophysics from Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada.