Join us on campus to mix and mingle with other students, attend a statement of purpose workshop, hear from Claremont Graduate University faculty in a panel conversation, meet staff, resource offices, and more.
Your day will start with an optional statement of purpose workshop hosted by CGU’s Director of Admissions and the Director of Student Engagement. Next, you will hear from President Len Jessup, CGU faculty members in a panel conversation to learn where a CGU graduate degree can take you and conclude the event with a resource fair.
The resource fair will provide you an opportunity to meet the offices you’ll be working with as a student, receive information about your academic program of interest, tour campus, meet faculty, and start to build your network at CGU!
You can read more about our presenters, faculty, and see the full schedule below.
Paige Piontkowsky
Director of Admissions, host of Statement of Purpose Writing Workshop
Paige Piontkowsky (she/her/hers) is the director of admissions at Claremont Graduate University. As director of admissions, Paige oversees admissions and recruitment for the university. She has worked for CGU since 2014 in various capacities throughout the university.
She holds a master’s degree in organizational leadership and bachelor’s degree in psychology from Azusa Pacific University, where she worked as a resident advisor and manager of short-term programs before joining CGU. Paige is currently pursuing a second master’s from CGU in education and plans to pursue CGU’s PhD in the coming years.
Rachel Camacho
Director of Student Engagement, host of Statement of Purpose Writing Workshop
Rachel Camacho is the inaugural director of student engagement at Claremont Graduate University. As director, she manages the student engagement team in the Office of Enrollment Services. In addition, she focuses on providing an exceptional student experience across the graduate student life cycle, with a particular emphasis on enrollment, retention, and persistence toward graduation. Prior to this position, Ms. Camacho served as the associate director of admissions at CGU.
Prior to her time at CGU, she was an applied researcher and evaluator working with communities, nonprofit organizations, government entities, and educational institutions throughout the Bay Area to increase their capacity to use data to inform public policy, and create opportunities for children, youth, and families to thrive and prosper.
Kevin Wolfe
School of Arts & Humanities
Kevin Wolfe is joining CGU as an assistant professor in the Religion Department with an emphasis on philosophy, religion, and theology. Wolfe’s work focuses on the blurry terrain between religious thought and political theory. He is currently completing his manuscript Justifying Democracy beyond Nietzsche’s Critique for publication, and will be turning his attention to his second book project tentatively titled Democratic Social Criticism beyond Jeremiad. In this project, Wolfe looks at the ways in which social criticism in the U.S. remains circumscribed by the rhetorical form and tropes of the Jeremiad, and thus remains unable to redress contemporary problems of race. By illuminating the mechanisms which limit our political imaginations, his book aims to imagine a way beyond the Jeremiad.
Mark Abdollahian
Division of Politics & Economics
Mark Abdollahian is a full clinical professor in the Division of Politics and Economics at Claremont Graduate University. His research and teaching interests include strategic decision making, international political economy, sustainable development, economics, growth, human social cultural behavioral modeling, econometrics, predictive analytics, computational modeling and simulation, data analytics, and visualization.
In addition to bachelor’s degrees in Political Science, History, and French from Case Western Reserve University, Abdollahian holds a master’s degree in Foreign and Defense Policy and a PhD in Political Economy and Mathematical Modeling from Claremont Graduate University. He is the co-founder of Sentia Group and is currently chief executive officer of ACERTAS.
Gwen Garrison
School of Educational Studies
Gwen E. Garrison is the director of the education evaluation and data analysis program and associate professor in the School of Educational Studies. She is an applied research and data strategist with over 25 years of experience in K-12, higher education institutions, and Washington DC nonprofit association and think tanks. Garrison helps leverage organizational data assets through research, data visualization technology, and data governance so that these assets contribute to critical policy and operational decisions. She has managed large data systems for over 2.5 million records and 10,000 variables with high ethical standards for privacy and security. Garrison has authored over 55 association and academic level publications and presentations.
Katharina Pick
Drucker School of Management
Katharina Pick came to the Drucker School of Management from Harvard University, where she received her PhD in Organizational Behavior. Her research examines the internal group dynamics of corporate boards of directors with a particular focus on the psychology of board membership, speaking-up behavior, and board process in decision making and conflict resolution. Recently, she has written on the subject of boardroom dynamics and board leadership. Other research interests include gender and leadership, role negotiation and social identity in high-status groups, and sense-making and diffusion of deviant organizational behavior.
Jessica Clague DeHart
School of Community & Global Health
Jessica Clague DeHart is a molecular epidemiologist and assistant professor of community and global health. Clague DeHart graduated from the University of Southern California with a bachelor’s degree in health promotion and disease prevention. She completed a master of public health in chronic disease epidemiology from Yale University and a PhD in molecular cancer epidemiology from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health and MD Anderson Cancer Center. As an R25 NCI cancer prevention doctoral fellow at MD Anderson, she focused her research on molecular epidemiology of tobacco-related cancers. Clague DeHart’s postdoctoral work was conducted at City of Hope in the division of clinical cancer genetics and focused on the genetics of breast and ovarian cancer in Hispanic women. As an assistant professor at City of Hope, she developed a research program that uses data from large observational studies to design biologically-based wellness intervention trials.
Yan Li
Center for Information Systems & Technology
Yan Li is an associate professor in Claremont Graduate University’s Center for Information Systems & Technology (CISAT). Her research focuses on data and knowledge management areas such as data mining, data warehousing, and semantic technologies with an emphasis on exploring the synergies between information systems and data analytics. Her other research stream focuses on developing information and communication technology (ICT) solutions for underserved populations in low-resource areas and improving social inclusion in health care.
M. Gloria González-Morales
Division of Behavioral & Organizational Sciences
M. Gloria González-Morales is an associate professor of psychology at Claremont Graduate University. Her research has been funded with scholarships and grants, including a prestigious Fulbright scholarship and funding from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. Her studies involve the disciplines of occupational health psychology and positive organizational psychology that focus on stress, work-life issues, victimization, incivility and civility, and positive organizational interventions to enhance well-being and performance.
Ali Nadim
Institute of Mathematical Sciences
Ali Nadim is a professor of mathematics, director of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and Joseph H. Pengilly Chair in Mathematics at Claremont Graduate University. His research areas include fluid dynamics, mathematical modeling, and scientific computing.
Nadim became an assistant professor of applied mathematics at MIT after earning his PhD in Chemical Engineering there in 1986. From 1991 to 2001, he was associate professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering in Boston University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. Nadim came to The Claremont Colleges in 2001, serving as both a professor of bioengineering at Keck Graduate Institute and professor of applied mathematics at CGU.
Moderator, Michelle Ponce
Director of Career Development
Michelle Ponce is the Director of Career Development at Claremont Graduate University. She has led her career as a progressive and visionary leader with an eclectic style of engaging career professionals through individualized career self discovery and self journey. Her goal is to envision and implement innovative strategies to enlighten life-long learners. She is energetic and creative with a unique ability to influence and integrate collaboration between internal and external stakeholders.
She has dedicated her career to coaching and guiding students and alumni towards exploring and engaging in their career journeys. Her roles have included Assistant Dean and Director positions within Southern California.
Moderator, Cindy Peck
Director of Career Strategy, Drucker School of Management
As the Director of the Drucker Career Strategy Office, Cindy Peck provides students with a wholistic approach to career development and strategy. Her personalized services include coaching in resume development, cover letter writing, online brand management, networking, job searches, and interview techniques. She takes a relational approach that encourages and motivates students to advance in their career path with excellence.
Cindy brings a unique blend of experience, with more than 16 years of experience in higher education, as well as experience in corporate management, retail and direct sales, and hospitality and service management. For more than a decade she led strategic initiatives, career services, and professional development at a university business school, where she also taught business courses as an adjunct faculty member.
