Nominated by President Obama in January 2011, and confirmed in March, Eric Postel ’77 joins the leadership team at the U.S. Agency for International Development as assistant administrator for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade. Postel, an experienced economic development expert and financier with a background in emerging markets investments, has worked in Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East as an adviser and financial officer. In 2006, he served as Commissioner on the bi-partisan Senate Helping to Enhance the Livelihood of People Around the Globe (HELP) Commission. A mathematics/economics major at Wesleyan, he is also a four-year veteran of the U.S. Navy and a graduate of Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Joseph Haddad ’78, MD, received the 2008 Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award for his compassionate patient care and as a humanistic role model for students and young physicians. Given by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, the award was presented at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons commencement ceremony last spring. A biology major at Wesleyan, he is a professor of clinical otolaryngology/head and neck surgery, associate dean, and vice chairman of otolaryngology at Columbia. Additionally, he is the director of pediatric otolaryngology/head and neck surgery at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center, and since, 1991, has been traveling twice a year to Honduras to teach and perform surgery for cleft lip/palate and other facial deformities. He received his M.D. from the New York University School of Medicine. An alumni-elected trustee of Wesleyan, he received the Alumni Service Award in 1988.
Joseph Wright ’79, MD, MPH, was appointed to the 14-member Pediatric Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration. The committee advises the commissioner of the FDA on a range of pediatric issues, including identification of research priorities, ethics design and analysis of clinical trials, pediatric labeling disputes, and adverse event reports for drugs granted for pediatric exclusivity and safety issues. He is a senior vice president at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where he heads the hospital’s Child Health Advocacy Institute. A professor of pediatrics, emergency medicine, and health policy at the George Washington University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, he earned an M.D. from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and a master of public health in administrative medicine from George Washington University.
David Rosenblum ’75 was appointed chief operating officer for the Strategy & Operations practice of Deloitte Consulting LLP, an approximately 2,000-person unit of Deloitte. A graduate of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, he has been affiliated with Deloitte Consulting for 30 years and a principal for 20 of those. With a focus on the corporate, financial, and competitive issues of the healthcare and life sciences industries, he continues to serve clients while also maintaining responsibility for daily operations of the practice. Additionally, he has served on the board of the Echo Foundation, which operates an elementary school for hearing and hearing-impaired children, including five years as chair. As an undergraduate at Wesleyan, he majored in economics and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Wanda Hill ’78 was one of six women honored at the 16th Annual Women of Distinction Breakfast, sponsored by The Girl Scout Council of Greater New York. Council Board President Patricia Stensrud says that the honorees “represent powerful role models for our girls, demonstrating that anything they dream of becoming is possible.” Hill is the managing director and director of Strategic Initiatives at BNY Mellon Wealth Management. The Network Journal, an African American business magazine, had included Hill in its 2006 roundup of 25 influential black women. She was a French major at Wesleyan.
Geof Rips ’72, whose book, The Truth, was published in January, received a prize for the novel from the Associated Writing Programs (AWP), the organization of graduate writing programs around the country. Now serving as director of special projects for Austin, Texas, public schools, he was an English major at Wesleyan and holds an MA in English/creative writing from Indiana University. Writer Nicholas Delbanco, an AWP judge, said: “This is a hard book to describe and an impossible one to forget. The Truth is—that rarest of things—an original vision and text.”
Linda Corwin Palmer ’77 was appointed director of corporate compliance at Network Health, a Cambridge, Mass., company that provides healthcare access to low- and moderate-income families. She will oversee the company’s compliance with federal and state laws, as well as with contract requirements, access to information, and privacy issues. Previously she was director of corporate compliance and senior associate general counsel at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. A government major at Wesleyan, she received her doctorate of jurisprudence from Boston University.
Norma J. Williams ’74 has been named the chair of the real property section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. Williams has been a member of the executive committee of the section since 1993 and an officer since 2002. Her law firm, Williams & Associates, represents institutional real estate clients in transactions involving the financing, leasing and purchase and sale of commercial real estate. She majored in American Studies at Wesleyan and later received her law degree from UC, Berkeley.
Katherine O’Brien ’75 was appointed vice president and chief diversity officer at New York Life Insurance Company, overseeing the implementation of best practices in the recruitment and training of a diverse workforce and the maintenance of an environment of inclusion. She joined New York Life in 1995 as a litigator and has held positions of increasing responsibility. Most recently she was with human resources, managing benefits compliance and administration. Previously, she worked with several law firms in New York in general commercial litigation. An English major as an undergraduate, she holds a J.D. degree from Brooklyn Law School.
