![Alumni Engagement Strategies 2021 Header](/sites/default/files/styles/header_default/public/media/image/FY22_Alumni%20Engagement_1920x1080_WEB%20HDR.png?h=d1cb525d&itok=ptwQK1fi)
Speakers
![Joseph Blancas](/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/media/image/Blancas-Joseph.jpg?h=2a95826d&itok=yH61ellP)
Joseph Blancas
Joseph Blancas serves as an assistant director for the Alumni Career Engagement team, which focuses on the development and implementation of large-and small-scale career programs for alumni and students. He currently oversees programs, such as the UCLA Alumni Mentor Program, the Career Coaches webinar series and other niche professional development programs and initiatives for alumni. Joseph also serves as the staff liaison for the Bruin Professionals network. His prior experience at UCLA Alumni Affairs includes providing administrative and general programmatic support for the UCLA Spirit Squad and the Student Alumni Association. Joseph earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in gender studies from UCLA in 2014.
![Christian Chavez](/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/media/image/Chavez_Christian.png?h=3ca7f166&itok=GLSQLTNE)
Christian Chavez
Christian Chavez serves as Associate Director, Alumni Career Engagement for UCLA Alumni Affairs. In his role, Christian leads initiatives that support career development for UCLA alumni and current students. In addition to managing his portfolio of programs and resources offered by the UCLA Alumni Association, he works with multiple campus partners at UCLA to bring professional development opportunities to diverse UCLA communities on and off campus.
Before joining UCLA Alumni Affairs in 2016, Christian served as a student affairs coordinator for the UCLA Division of Undergraduate Education. In this role, he counseled a diverse population of UCLA and visiting students on academic courses and experiential learning programs offered during the summer.
Christian is a Southern California native and graduated from UCLA in 2013 with a B.S. in Psychobiology.
![Gerald Corporal](/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/media/image/Corporal-Gerald.jpg?h=9cbee7f4&itok=JNVgx9d6)
Gerald Corporal
Gerald Corporal (he/him) serves as Director of Alumni Career Engagement at UCLA Alumni Affairs. He manages a slate of alumni-to-student programs and initiatives, stewarding alumni, faculty, prospective employers, and community partners to execute transformative career programs for undergraduate students. Prior to UCLA, he served as a career advisor and academic advisor at the USC Marshall School of Business. Gerald earned his Bachelor of Arts in Cinema Studies and Communication at the University of Washington, and Master of Education in Postsecondary Administration and Student Affairs at the University of Southern California.
![Barbara Cosentino](/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/media/image/Cosentino-Barbara.jpg?h=9cbee7f4&itok=vq54daZW)
Barbara Cosentino
Barbara Cosentino joined The Avery Coonley School in 2014 as the Assistant to the Head, before moving onto the role of Associate Director of Alumni and Community Relations. Previous to that, she worked for 13 years at Northeastern Illinois University as the Assistant Director of Career Services and as the Civic Engagement Coordinator/Associate Director of Student Services. She also worked for several years as both an Internship Coordinator and a Crisis Counselor. She has an M.A. in Counseling Psychology from St. Xavier University, and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
![Melissa Degravelles](/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/media/image/Degravelles-Melissa.jpg?h=9cbee7f4&itok=Ns-xCcdv)
Melissa Degravelles
Melissa DeGravelles has 10 years of experience at UCLA. As Assistant Director of Alumni Career Engagement, she is the lead for UCLA ONE, the Bruin professional networking platform, and supports digital programming for the Alumni Association. Under her stewardship UCLA ONE engages academic departments and student and alumni groups, and has grown to over 53k users. Prior to assuming her role in alumni affairs, Melissa worked closely with international students and non-traditional continuing education students at UCLA Extension.
Jenna Fuentes
Jenna is an innovative, creative, and international community builder who is passionate about facilitating belonging, cross-pollinating industries, developing people as well as developing solutions for social impact. She contributed to scaling the Edtech startup, Trilogy Education Services, which grew from 20 to 1,000 employees within three years and, later, was successfully acquired by 2U, Inc. Her three-year study abroad and work abroad experiences in Spain and Argentina changed her life, worldview, and her creative approach to solving problems. Her mission and purpose are to help others maximize their potential and create transformational, global, and human-centered community experiences.
![Cameron Garrity](/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/media/image/Garrity-Cameron.jpg?h=9084eb2a&itok=8INya4-o)
Cameron Garrity
Cameron Garrity is a Graphic Designer at Daemen College. In his role, Garrity develops visual communication pieces including print campaigns, billboards, social media and web collateral, and assets for virtual and in-person events. His signature project, creating a puppet and cartoon-version of the college’s mascot during the COVID-19 pandemic, has earned Daemen multiple earned-media television features and over 120 million views on GIPHY.com. He received a PRSA Excalibur Award—Silver Award for internal communications campaign, for “Daemen Forum | A Panel Series”. Garrity received his bachelor of fine arts in graphic design from Daemen and is also the co-host and producer of the podcast Puppet Tears: Puppetry Shop Talk, which features in-depth interviews with the world’s most passionate puppeteers.
![Shilpa Gokhale](/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/media/image/Gokhale-Shilpa.jpg?h=9cbee7f4&itok=gccZZnMD)
Shilpa Gokhale
Shilpa is the former President of the Avery Coonley School Alumni Council, a current member of the Council, and a member of the Board of Trustees for the school. She is also the Director of Professional & Continuing Legal Education at Northwestern Pritkzer School of Law. Prior to her role at Northwestern, she worked as an attorney in both Chicago and New York in the area of executive compensation and also previously worked at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law as the Director of Program Development for the Master of Science in Law Program.
![Kathryn M. Hammer](/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/media/image/Hammer-Kathryn.jpg?h=9cbee7f4&itok=j6uwPJk2)
Kathryn M. Hammer
Kathryn Hammer is the Director of Alumni Relations at Daemen College. She manages alumni programs including events, social media, print & digital communications, and oversees the National Alumni Board of Governors. As moderator of the Student Alumni Ambassadors, the organization has received 15 CASE ASAP honors. Through CASE ASAP, Hammer hosted a District 2 Conference, a Twitter Chat Recap on Student Philanthropy, and authored for blog.case.org, “How One Thank You Makes a Difference”. Hammer is the recipient of the Community Service Award from the Buffalo Urban League Young Professionals (BULYP) and Outstanding Adviser by the Council for Advancement of Education Affiliated Student Advancement Programs (CASE ASAP) District 2. Hammer received a PRSA Excalibur Award - Silver Award for internal communications campaign, for “Daemen Forum | A Panel Series”. Hammer received a bachelor of fine arts in painting from Daemen and a master’s degree in higher education student affairs administration from Canisius College.
![Gloria Ko](/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/media/image/Ko_Gloria.jpg?h=6c83441f&itok=rMynXVb0)
Gloria Ko
Gloria Ko serves as the senior director for Alumni Career Engagement leading career initiatives for alumni and students. She currently oversees programs, such the Alumni Mentor Program, UCLAONE and other career and professional development programming. Her prior experience at UCLA Alumni Affairs includes leading Young Alumni Engagement and the Student Alumni Association.
Gloria serves as the Opportunity and Inclusion Chair on the CASE District VII Board. She has served on faculties for the Young Alumni and Student Engagement Institute. Gloria graduated in 2006 with a bachelors in communication studies and in 2007 with a M.Ed. in counseling in student affairs.
![Camilo Lopez](/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/media/image/Lopez-Camilo.jpg?h=9cbee7f4&itok=Z8j7pqCh)
Camilo Lopez
Camilo Lopez is the founder of CareerCaddy and has a passion to empower young professionals to find purpose-driven career paths. He leads the product vision and execution of CareerCaddy. Camilo is known for his relentless optimism, curiosity, and big-picture thinking. Camilo earned his Masters's in Business Administration from ESADE Business School in Barcelona Spain. Earlier in his career, Camilo worked on laser systems that helped astronomers see further back in time after earning a Masters of Science in Applied Physics at the University of Central Florida and a Bachelors of Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology.
![Patricia Châu Nguyễn](/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/media/image/Nguyen_Patricia_Ch%C3%A2u.jpg?h=eb6658bb&itok=E0KoGVXj)
Patricia Châu Nguyễn
Patricia Châu Nguyễn (she, her, hers) serves as the flagship Senior Director of Diversity Programs & Initiatives for UCLA Alumni Affairs. In her role, she supports 10+ identity-based alumni associations, works on diverse student to alumni pipelines, and creates holistic programming to advance issues of diversity and inclusion in UCLA’s alumni community. For the past fifteen years, she has served in multiple roles in merging student affairs and diversity, equity and inclusion work in higher education – ranging from starting up multicultural centers, improving intercultural living and learning communities, multicultural Greek life, summer bridge programs, and other social justice education initiatives in higher education.
Nguyễn also consults nationally on issues related to diverse alumni engagement, interfaith conversations, ethics, meaning-making and intersectionality in practice. She serves as a founding member of Racial Aikido, an affinity-based identity retreat that equips students of color at predominantly White institutions.
Nguyễn received her Master of Education in higher education and student affairs administration from the University of Vermont, and her Bachelor of Science in cellular and developmental biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She currently a doctoral student the UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences researching diverse alumni engagement and philanthropy in higher education.
Nguyễn’s experiences working with marginalized college students has fueled a commitment and passion to push institutions of higher education to build capacity towards diversity. She hopes to engage all members of the university, including alumni, to build inclusive campus communities and help new graduate manifests the benefits of higher education for themselves, their families and their communities.
![Sandy Nguyen](/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/media/image/Nguyen-Sandy.jpg?h=9cbee7f4&itok=AugjmzbG)
Sandy Nguyen
Sandy Nguyen currently serves as the Director for Engagement Operations at UCLA Alumni. In her role, she supports the organization's engagement data collection and reporting, redefining the process to improve accuracy and timeliness. She also oversees the facilities operations and client relations of their unique multi-use alumni center. Nguyễn project manages long-standing traditions such as UCLA Awards and a leadership development program for network volunteers. Nguyễn has over 11 years of experience in building relationships with a wide array of constituents, from parents of current students to young alumni to leading industry professionals. She believes that success and innovation comes through cross-sectional collaboration and intentional planning while letting the purpose or mission guide you. Nguyễn graduated from UCLA in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in cultural anthropology.
![Emily Olson](/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/media/image/Olson-Emily.jpg?h=9cbee7f4&itok=YJsv2MYt)
Emily Olson
The Morehead-Cain is the first merit scholarship program established in the United States, founded at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As the Assistant Director of Alumni Engagement, Emily Olson is responsible for the Foundation’s alumni relations initiatives, including the Alumni Speaker Series and the Morehead-Cain Mentoring Program. She also manages regional alumni groups and events and Morehead-Cain Alumni records. Emily earned her bachelor of arts degree in anthropology from the University of Arizona, her master of arts in history and archaeology from Washington University in Saint Louis, and her PhD in art history at UNC-Chapel Hill. She also studied abroad in Italy, Greece, and Turkey.
![Cory Rosas](/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/media/image/Rosas-Cory.jpg?h=9cbee7f4&itok=HeeYPkII)
Cory Rosas
Cory Rosas (he/him) serves as the program coordinator for UCLA Alumni Diversity Programs & Initiatives where he supports UCLA's identity-based alumni networks and implements social justice programming. Prior to UCLA, Cory was a communications fellow in the Los Angeles Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs through AmeriCorps Vista. He also completed a term of service with the AmeriCorps Volunteer Infrastructure Program in Santa Ana, California where he developed outreach and training for volunteers engaged in the 2017 Point-in-Time Count and Survey of Orange County's homeless population. Cory worked in the National Park Service (NPS) Intermountain Regional Office as a NPS Centennial communications and outreach intern focusing on Latinx and Indigenous outreach and program promotion in the region's National Parks, Monuments, Historical Sites and Recreation Areas. Cory holds a B.A. in Political Science with a concentration in American Politics and minor in Film, Television and Digital Media from UCLA.
![Thomas P. Wojciechowski](/sites/default/files/styles/portrait/public/media/image/Wojciechowski-Thomas.jpg?h=9cbee7f4&itok=bGX-z0YJ)
Thomas P. Wojciechowski
Thomas Wojciechowski is the Executive Director of Web Communications at Daemen College and the President at Higher Education Web Professionals (HighEdWeb). Wojciechowski is responsible for the strategic, creative, and technical direction of the college's website. This includes maintaining the content management system (CMS) and working with faculty and administrative offices to help facilitate the creation and editing of site content. He creates and sends out the weekly electronic newsletter, The Daemen Voice along with creating and maintaining the college's online magazine DaemenToday. Wojciechowski was a contributor in a 2017 PRSA Bronze Award for developing Daemen Voice into one of the premier higher education newsletters in the region. He received a PRSA Excalibur Award - Silver Award for internal communications campaign, for “Daemen Forum | A Panel Series”. Wojciechowski has also been recognized as Conference Chair in 2015. He also was recognized as the Conference Vice-Chair for the 2013, 2017 and 2021 HighEdWeb Annual Conference. Wojciechowski received a bachelor of fine arts in digital arts from the University of New York at Buffalo and a master’s degree in executive leadership and change from Daemen College.