Kent State Works
Honors College ranked high when graduate Josh Budd was deciding whether to attend Kent State because it offered him a challenging experience through its thesis programs and its education-abroad program. Studying abroad helped him develop more empathy and connection with people of backgrounds different from his own.
For Madelyn Orcutt, an interior designer who works for Richardson Design in Cleveland, the Kent State’s personal touch, beautiful campus and proximity to her Canton, Ohio, home influenced her decision to attend the university.
As an entrepreneurship major at Kent State, Schumann learned operations, production and finance in the classroom and gained on-the-job experience working with an entrepreneur in Cleveland. In 2020, Schumann of Chagrin Falls gained the opportunity to put his Kent State education to work when he and his wife Marisa Sergi-Schumann acquired L’uva Bella Winery and Brands, a company that the Sergi family started more than 15 years ago.
As the first Black woman to graduate from Kent State University’s flight program in 1991, Capt. Stephanie Johnson knows what it takes to aim high for a dream and reach it. Now, she wants other young students from diverse backgrounds to be able to envision and achieve their biggest dreams as well.
Victoria Lorenzon and Holly Csaszar are proud to count themselves among an increasing number of women flight instructors at Kent State University Airport.
While aeronautics has long been a fixture at Kent State University, with the advent of a new career field called “Advanced Air Mobility,” the university is in a unique position to help support growth of cutting-edge technologies – and job opportunities – in this space today.
After 27 years of travel and pivoting to various international endeavors, Sonia Karkare, a native of Mumbai, India, is now back at Kent State as an adjunct professor with the Ambassador Crawford College of Business and Entrepreneurship’s Executive MBA (Master of Business Administration) program. She is teaching diverse types of courses, including the Digital Transformation in Healthcare course.
Two-time Kent State University alumnus Eli Kalil, who is finishing up his first year as a Presidential Management Fellow at Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center, said his degrees prepared him well for the field of healthcare administration
Brian Neff, assistant dean of flight and operations at Kent State University’s College of Aeronautics and Engineering, was recently featured on Spectrum News 1 Ohio with a Kent State aeronautics student, to shed light on the national pilot shortage and explain what Kent State is doing to help fix this shortage.
Alumnus Michael Christoff is bringing balance and perspective to the field of architecture. With over 17 years of practice under his belt, Christoff’s community-focused perspective has earned him coveted spots on Crain’s Cleveland Business’ 40 under 40 list, Inside Business Magazine’s Northeast Ohio 25 under 35 Movers & Shakers and the Cleveland Bridge Builders. But, he’s not done making a mark on Cleveland or the architecture industry as a whole.