Notable Alumni
Shareema Abel '96
Abel was appointed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo as Special Counsel to the Commissioner for Ethics, Risk and Compliance for Homes and Community Renewal. She serves as litigation attorney in the Teacher Performance Unit of the New York City Department of Education, where she was lead counsel on disciplinary hearings of tenured pedagogues.
William Baldwin '85
“Billy” Baldwin is best known for his acting roles in more than 25 films, including the award-winning The Squid and The Whale and action drama Backdraft. He had notable appearances on television’s Parenthood and Gossip Girl.
Jay Benet '74
Benet is vice chairman and chief financial officer of Travelers. Previously, he served as worldwide head of financial planning, analysis and reporting for Citigroup. Prior to that, he was CFO for Citibank's global consumer business in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Neil Berg '86
Berg is the composer for the musical version of Grumpy Old Men: The Musical, based on the Warner Brothers movie classic. He's the creator and co-producer of Neil Berg's 100 Years of Broadway, which is now the No. 1 Broadway touring concert in the U.S. He owns Leftfield Productions, Inc., an entertainment company which has produced more than 1,000 Broadway concerts worldwide.
Michael Berman '79
Berman is chief financial officer and executive vice president of GGP, overseeing the company's capital markets, finance, accounting, tax and external communications functions. GGP is a member of Standard & Poor's 500 stock index (S&P 500) and one of the world's ten largest real estate companies with a total market capitalization of over $45 billion.
Yang Chen '87
Chen is executive director of the Asian American Bar Association of New York, a position he has held since 2009. He is the organization's first executive director. Chen was previously a partner at Constantine Cannon, a firm specializing in antitrust and complex commercial litigation.
Marjorie Cohn '78
Cohn is head of television for the combined DreamWorks Animation Television and Universal television animation business, overseeing all television development and production, including the content for DWA TV's groundbreaking multi-year deal with Netflix.
Stephanie Courtney '92
Courtney has been playing the role of Progressive’s “Flo” since 2008. Ad Age recently named her one of the top female ad icons of all time, on a list that includes Rosie the Riveter and Betty Crocker. Courtney is a long-time performer at The Groundlings Theatre & School in Los Angeles. She was a main company member for several years and still performs regularly in the “Crazy Uncle Joe Show,” a weekly long-form improv show.
Vincent Daniel '94
Daniel's contrarian approach to investing is highlighted in the motion picture The Big Short. Considered one of the heroes in the movie, Vincent understood the shaky underpinnings of the real-estate bubble and invested millions on the assumption that the mortgage market would collapse.
Faisal Farooqui '99
Farooqui is founder and CEO of Mouthshut.com, a product and service review and discovery platform. The Mumbai, India native credits his magazine writing course at Binghamton with the inspiration for MouthShut.com.
Jami Floyd '86
Floyd is senior editor for the race and justice unit at New York Public Radio. She is also the legal editor in the WNYC Newsroom. In a career that spans two decades, Jami has worked on everything from breaking news to exclusives to long-form investigations.
Rob Goldstein '94
Goldstein is BlackRock's chief operating officer and global head of BlackRock Solutions. He is a member of the Global Executive Committee and the Global Operating Committee. Goldstein helps oversees the day-to-day global business of the firm and ensure that the organization, including its investments, client, risk and technology functions, have the necessary connectivity, coordination and operating processes.
Stuart Douglas Hirsch '95, '10
Hirsch is the founder and chief mission officer in command of ARCHANGEL AIRBORNE - 1st Humanitarian Special Operations Group/AIR LAND SEA – Expeditionary Mission Team. This nonprofit organization utilizes a proven military special operations model to insert rescue teams into areas of great disaster.
Sunny Hostin '90, LLD '18
Hostin is a former federal prosecutor who is co-host of The View and senior legal correspondent for ABC News. She's a three-time Emmy Award winner.
Frances Mazze Hurwitz '66
Hurwitz is senior materials research engineer at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, where she leads the development of high-temperature thermal materials. Over the course of her career with NASA, she has worked at the frontier of materials problems associated with aerospace technologies. Since 2007, she has spearheaded NASA's development of aerogels for use at temperatures above 700 degrees Celsius.
Amy J. Hyatt '78
Hyatt is U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Palau. She is a career Foreign Service Officer of more than 30 years, with the personal rank of Minister Counselor. She has had eight previous overseas postings, serving as Deputy Chief of Mission in Helsinki, Consul General in Melbourne, and Management Counselor in Cairo. Her other overseas postings were in Seoul, Bangkok, Manila, Prague and Oslo.
Hakeem Jeffries '92
In 2012, Jeffries became the first Binghamton University graduate elected to United States Congress. He represents portions of the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens in the House of Representatives. In 2022, he was elected House Democratic leader, making him the first Black person to lead a party in Congress.
Bill T. Jones
Jones is a Tony Award-winning choreographer, Kennedy Center Honor recipient and MacArthur Fellowship "Genius Award" recipient. While attending Binghamton University, Bill T. studied classical ballet and modern dance. Binghamton is also where he started his first dance company in 1973.
Michael Kerner '86
Kerner is a senior advisor and former CEO of Zurich Insurance, which he joined in 1992 from the Continental Insurance Company. He has held a number of senior executive positions, including chief operations officer for Zurich North America Specialties and head of ceded reinsurance for Zurich North America from 2002 to 2005.
Ron Klempner '84
Klempner is senior counsel for collective bargaining at the National Basketball Players Association, the union for current professional basketball players in the NBA. He has been with the organization since 1993, following five years as an associate with Weil, Gotshal & Manges.
Steve Koren '88
Koren started his writing career by handing jokes to Dennis Miller, Kevin Nealon and David Letterman in the halls of Rockefeller Center, where he was a tour guide. This led to a writing position with Saturday Night Live, where he earned several Emmy nominations. Koren eventually became a writer/producer on Seinfeld. Among his well-known episodes are "Serenity Now" and "The English Patient."
Gary Kunis '73, LHD '02
In December 2002, Kunis retired from his role as vice president and chief science officer at Cisco Systems, Inc. and executive sponsor of Cisco Japan. He has overseen the design and development, sales and marketing, global deployment and services of Cisco products. He now spends his time pursuing private entrepreneurial and philanthropic interests.
Todd Lituchy '89
Lituchy is executive producer of the NBC television series The Mysteries of Laura, starring Debra Messing, Josh Lucas, Laz Alonso, Janina Gavankar and Max Jenkins. The show is based on a Spanish format that Lituchy's company, New Media Vision, sold to Warner Bros.
Aaron Mair '84
Mair was elected president of the Sierra Club in 2015. An epidemiological-spatial analyst with the New York State Department of Health, Mair brings more than three decades of environmental activism and over 25 years as a Sierra Club volunteer leader to his position as the club's first African-American president.
Susan Marenoff-Zausner '87
Marenoff-Zausner was named president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in 2011, making her the first woman in the history of the institution to hold the position. She joined the museum in 2003, serving as chief marketing officer and executive vice president for business development and then its executive director.
Monica Martinez '99
In 2018, Martinez made history by being the first Latina and woman elected to represent New York state's third senatorial district. She had previously served as assistant principal of Brentwood’s East Middle School where she dedicated much of her time to enriching the lives of her students. She successfully campaigned for the office of Suffolk County Legislator in 2013 and was elected to represent the ninth legislative district.
Scott Mautz '91
Mautz is an award-winning, inspirational keynote speaker and 20+ year executive at Procter & Gamble (where he currently runs a multi-billion dollar business). He has also been named an Inc. "Top 50 Leadership Innovator" and is the author of Make it Matter: How Managers Can Motivate by Creating Meaning, a book named to the "Best of 2015" list by Soundview Business Books.
Robert W. Ostrow '76, MS '79
Ostrow was involved in the manufacture and testing of the Hubble Space Telescope. Most of his career has been at Bloomberg LP where he is still employed. At Bloomberg, he has been instrumental in the design and coding of the system and application software used daily by more than 325,000 financial professionals worldwide.
Karl Ravech, MA '90
Ravech is primary host of ESPN's Major League Baseball (MLB) studio and pre-game show Baseball Tonight, and has been a regular part of the Monday Night Baseball team since the 2016 season. He joined ESPN in 1993 and has hosted the network's studio coverage of the MLB playoffs and World Series since 1995.
Ruben Santiago-Hudson '78
Santiago-Hudson played Bayard Rustin in the blockbuster film Selma. He was writer and executive producer of Lackawanna Blues, telecast on HBO. He received a Tony Award for his performance in August Wilson’s Seven Guitars and an Obie for his autobiographical one-man show Lackawanna Blues.
Eric Schwartz '79, LLD '14
Schwartz is dean of the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota following a 25-year career in senior public service positions in government, at the United Nations and in the philanthropic and non-governmental communities. He was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2009.
Thomas Secunda ’76, MA ’79
Secunda is co-founder, vice chairman of the board of directors and serves on the Management Committee of Bloomberg L.P. He played an instrumental role in building the Bloomberg Terminal, the world’s most powerful technology platform for financial professionals seeking real-time news, data and analytics. Today, the service remains an indispensable tool for professionals looking to make smarter, faster and more informed business decisions.
Fatima Shama '95
Shama is executive director of The Fresh Air Fund, a nonprofit organization that allows children living in low-income communities to get away from hot, noisy city streets and enjoy free summer experiences in the country. She was previously commissioner of the NYC Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs, where she created Blueprints for Immigrant Integration, a guide to help other cities enhance immigrant integration efforts.
Bob Swan, MBA '85
Swan earned his MBA from Binghamton University’s School of Management. A dynamic career has followed; Swan was the CEO of Intel, one of the largest technology companies in the world, overseeing 110,000 employees, $78 billion in sales, and increasing annual sales by over $20 billion during his tenure.
Deborah Tannen '66, LHD '93
Tannen is University Professor and professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University and author of many books and articles about how the language of everyday conversation affects relationships. She wrote You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, which was on the New York Times best seller list for nearly four years.
Michael Timmeny '73
As senior vice president and chief government strategy officer, Timmeny leads Cisco’s government relations worldwide. He manages a global team charged with advancing issues that support Cisco’s robust corporate and technology policy agenda.
Jay Walder '80
Walder is CEO of Virgin One Hyperloop, a firm working to develop high-speed, frictionless, air-free tube transport systems for people or goods. The company was founded as Hyperloop Te. He was previously CEO of Motivate, a global bike sharing company that operates systems in 10 cities around the globe including Citi Bike in New York City, as well as head of the MTA in New York City and the MTR railway system in Hong Kong.
Peter Ungar '85
Ungar is Distinguished Professor and chair of anthropology at the University of Arkansas. He has written or coauthored more than 150 scientific works on ecology and evolution for books and journals including Science, Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. These have focused mostly on diet in living primates, feeding adaptations, and food choice in human ancestors and other fossil species.
Howard D. Unger ’82, LHD ’19
Unger founded Saw Mill Capital in 1997 and oversees the firm and is a director for each of its portfolio companies. He is also a presidentially-appointed council member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and a member of the Committee on Conscience, fighting for the prevention of modern genocide.
Jenna Wolfe '96
Wolfe is a TV journalist and lifestyle and fitness expert. She has been sharing her passion for fitness (and fun) with America for two decades, most recently at NBC's TODAY Show, where she was the first ever lifestyle and fitness correspondent. She spent 12 years as a sportscaster before joining TODAY in 2007.
