10 Under 10

Some alumni move mountains in a decade. 

It’s one of the factors that helps them land on our list of 10 Under 10 — 10 alumni who graduated in the past 10 years and have advanced their field, accomplished lots, earned accolades, and/or made a global impact. 

The 10 featured here were nominated and selected by their peers, members of the Lehigh Young Alumni Council. In addition to their achievements, nominees were also engaged in the Lehigh community, demonstrated outstanding character, and/or created a positive impact in the community.

While today we hold up these 10, we are searching for our next 10. Please submit your 10 Under 10 nominations. Members of the Young Alumni Council will review and select recipients in March. Over the course of 2024, those selected will speak at young alumni virtual events and then be featured in a story.

Meet the 2023 10 Under 10.

Elle Sander ’14
Bioengineering
Co-founder and CEO, Lifelet Medical

Forty million. That’s the average number of heartbeats for a human over the course of a year. Sander is squeezing the most out of each of those, one day at a time. It starts each morning with a 6 a.m. ocean swim in the frigid waters off the Irish coast (sans wetsuit) and often ends at night on the hardwood where she volunteers to coach girls basketball. Between those bookends, she is developing and testing a polymer-based heart valve replacement. 

Her grandfather who raised her was a physician and instilled in her the desire to ease human suffering. She too planned on a career in medicine, but fate intervened. She worked one summer teaching golf to children in Ireland. She returned to that camp in the summer following graduation. It was supposed to be a gap year when she’d apply to medical schools, but she discovered a regenerative medicine master’s program in Galway. She applied, was accepted, and shortly after wrapping up that degree, she met her eventual Lifelet Medical co-founder, an interventional cardiologist, and joined his lab to work on the technology. 

Most valve replacements today rely on tissue from pigs and cows, are costly to manufacture, and are prone to deterioration over time. Lifelet's patented polymer is sustainable, inexpensive, easy to manufacture, and aims to add value in a device that doesn’t require open-heart surgery. In five years, the founders have secured millions in innovation grants, consortium projects, accelerator support, and private funding, and Sander has landed on lists like MIT Innovators Under 35 in Europe. 

“Science is optional for some girls in secondary school in Ireland,” she says. “I want girls to know STEM careers are an adventure, and that they can be anything: a scientist, innovator, and entrepreneur.” 

Claire Zhu ’17
Finance
World Traveler and Social Media Entrepreneur

Like many college graduates, Zhu nabbed a great finance job at a top place. She then moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. After a few years working as a financial analyst and then a consultant, she felt a common post-COVID-19 work malaise and joined the Great Resignation in 2022. Prior to her departure from work, she and her partner, Peter, had saved nearly $50,000 for a gap year. Inspired by other millennials on YouTube, they too would travel the world. 

Sounds fun, right? Not so fast. “I am fatigued 90% of the time,” Zhu says. While she is happy to explore the globe and has seen and experienced amazing things, they are constantly solving problems and making decisions, posting it all on social media. “I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me five years ago that I’d be working in social media,” she says. “Let alone that my life partner would be my travel and business partner.” 

That year abroad brought many highlights including the magnificent size and splendor of the Faroe Islands and landscapes of North Vietnam as well as a brief hospital stay in the Philippines. Shockingly, they have never had a departure (plane or train) canceled or delayed.

That first year has led to a second as they soon head toward South America and spend New Year’s in Antarctica. “During my junior year at Lehigh, I spent the semester on the Gold Coast of Australia,” Zhu says. “It sparked my travel bug. I wouldn’t be where I am today without Lehigh.”

Dylan Dreyfuss ’20
Economic and Journalism
Podcast Producer, Including Showtime Basketball and Forgotten Seasons

Senior year didn’t go exactly as planned for Dreyfuss. He was in Mexico on spring break when the on-campus semester was canceled due to COVID-19. Then he lost his graduation ceremony. While friends in his fraternity had lined up some positions at top banks and accounting firms, Dreyfuss had an offer in sales. While jobs shifted for some because of the pandemic, he worked from his “home office” at his parents’ place. 

Needless to say, he had time on his hands. That’s when he relied on the skills he honed at The Brown and White and began an Instagram account called Forgotten Seasons that shined a spotlight on basketball players he grew up watching. His posts blew up. That’s when he extended that brand with a podcast, interviewing players and coaches about a particular game and season. 

As that took off, Dreyfuss left the sales job to pursue his burgeoning business. The stakes rose when a retired NBA player came on his show and asked Dreyfuss to come work with him at Showtime Sports. He now produces several podcasts all about basketball. 

“I had a skewed sense of what success should look like when I left Lehigh but learned that following a passion and keeping at it can pay off,” he says. And he puts his money where his mouth is, winning the championship in his New York City Basketball League.

Photo: Dreyfuss stands far left with two other producers as well as former NBA players Jason Williams and Stephen Jackson.

Giana Jarrah ’22
Biomedical Engineering
Founder and CEO, With Meraki Co.

Most women understand the difficulty stemming from a urinary tract infection (UTI). While UTIs can be annoying and unpleasant, the antibiotic therapy used to treat them often is met with resistance, and soon medications are ineffective at treating a recurring infection. Jarrah dealt with such an infection, but as a biomedical engineering major, she used her smarts to fight back. 

Jarrah began to read about the bacterial strains needed to maintain a healthy vagina. Soon her knowledge turned into an idea that inspired her to enter a campus pitch competition. She won. Then she won another. When summer break came after graduation, she participated in the Ventures Lab Boost Program, earning a $10,000 grant that she used to develop her first batch of a probiotic supplement. She worked with formulation scientists on a product that would populate the vagina with probiotic strains without causing gas and bloating, in order to restore and maintain vaginal pH. 

“Not only are less than 3% of research funds dedicated to female reproductive health, most people are stigmatized by the word ‘vagina,’” Jarrah says. “As a first-generation Syrian woman living in the United States, I know too well how my mother feels about that word!” 

Taboos aside, her product sold out quickly, and orders soon backed up. While she works a full-time job at a biotechnology manufacturer in the Lehigh Valley, Jarrah didn’t have the time, space, or capital to keep up with demand. So she decided to audition for the local StartUp Lehigh Valley pitch competition, facing off against a pool of 2,000 applicants. She was selected as a finalist and had to stand up against strong business ideas and a company that had already appeared on Shark Tank. 

Not only did she win a $5,000 award for tech services, Jarrah also took home the $20,000 grand prize. The money went to scale production and better prepare the product for market — a market that already seems ready for the product, based on the 2.2 million video views on TikTok.

“I want to take my seat at this table with a product for women by a woman,” she says. “I have to be fearless to help break this stigma and inspire other young women in STEM, reproductive health, and entrepreneurship.”

Stacy Sawin ’14
IBE and Chemical Engineering
Co-founder and Executive Director, Finability

It takes an average of seven attempts before a woman leaves an abusive relationship. One of the biggest constraints keeping women in violent households: financial instability. Sawin, who spent three years seeking legal protection from a stalker, has interviewed hundreds of survivors and volunteered at a number of women’s shelters, one of which had 40 beds and a two-year waitlist. 

As she pursued her MBA at the London Business School, Sawin began to create Finability, leveraging her startup mindset from her IBE program along with her experience from five years of working at Deloitte as an analyst and consultant to nonprofit organizations. She was propelled to leave her 9-5 gig after winning $5,000 in a pitch competition. In three years’ time, she now can draw a salary. 

“We have an amazing group of women, 30 volunteers, 10-member board of directors, and eight survivor advisers,” she says. Together, they have created a digital-first approach to share tools and knowledge with survivors who escaped intimate partner violence. Finability offers a toolkit with 20 modules, virtual classes, and one-on-one counseling. To date, its courses have had over 130 attendees, and more than 25,000 people have used its tools. State by state, Sawin is building relationships with local domestic violence coalitions to help scale and expand her offerings to bring financial acumen and confidence to survivors in need.

Alejandro Alvarez ’14
Finance & Marketing and Real Estate Minor
Cushman & Wakefield

After immigrating to the United States at the age of 9, Alvarez learned how tough it would be to find success as someone who didn't speak English, lacked generational wealth, and didn't have a strong network. He had to work hard to pave his path, cognizant that both luck and taking advantage of opportunities helped him along the way. "It opened doors," Alvarez says of his Lehigh education and the university's expansive alumni network. 

As his interest in commercial real estate grew, he found a trusted group of alumni in New York City who were happy to provide support and mentorship. Over his 10-year career in the field, he has earned many accolades, including the 7 Under 7 award from his employer and the 30 Under 30 award from Commercial Observer, one of commercial real estate's most trusted publications. His success has required time, patience, effort, optimism, and a long-term vision. 

While he has proven himself to the leaders above him, he has also worked to pave the way for others. Alvarez champions diversity, equity, and inclusion by building a diverse team, founding C&W’s first Latino Employee Resource Group, and helping connect new hires to strong mentors. 

"As a more senior Latino broker in the office, I am working to make an impact and have our team reflect the cross-section of cultures that our clients seek," he says. "It is powerful to show how we can align talent to customers’ needs and win corporate business."

Corey Caplan ’18
Computer Science and Business
Co-founder, Dolomite

Calculated risks. That’s what many investors take when they enter the digital economy. It’s also how Caplan sees the Lehigh experience. “Lehigh is a melting pot of smart people who turn assignments into ideas, ideas into projects, projects into hackathon products, and products into full-fledged companies,” he says. Seems apt for a guy who, along with business partner Adam Knuckey ’18, earned a $350,000 angel investment prior to graduation. 

Together they had begun to dive deeply into cryptocurrency exchanges in 2017. They saw how offshore exchanges lacked transparency, fiduciary responsibility, and regulatory oversight and were mistakenly used and purposefully abused for financial gain. They wanted no part of it. 

Instead, they spent their free time on South Mountain helping launch an open-source decentralized exchange. The company they helped offered cash bounties to incentivize programmers to help get its product over the finish line. Caplan and Knuckie had earned enough bounties that the company instead asked for a business plan. 

The next thing you know, Dolomite has a substantial angel investment. Today it just wrapped a successful $2.5 million fundraising round. Their use of smart contracts, block chain, and open source creates a level of transparency that makes borrowing, lending, and trading cryptocurrency a breeze. 

Over the last five years, they have brought Lehigh with them, hiring four recent graduates and maintaining contact with professors, like Hank Korth, computer science and engineering, who nudge students forward and support them along the way. “Our Lehigh degree comes with weight and provides us with credentials that we can use for the rest of our lives,” Caplan says.

Jonathan Chang ’16
Computer Science and Business
Associate Director-Technology, Software Delivery Services, AT&T

Imposter syndrome is something that Chang overcame by listening well, being willing to learn, and dispelling any sense that he didn’t belong through accomplishments. He has a series of accomplishments that all started as provisional: patents. He’s earned five and has several more pending. Those novel ideas are things people appreciate every day on their phones, like 5G technology during network congestion and AI-assisted technology when calling first responders. 

As the youngest associate director of technology in software design at AT&T, he is managing a number of teams and an array of projects where he assists with strategy, budgets, resources, best practices, planning, and code delivery. It helps that his approach to leadership is to build strong relationships, ask for more than is expected, and deliver it all with quality. That’s why he has also won numerous awards from AT&T for innovation and service. Chang encourages others to adopt his work ethic by mentoring those interested in STEM careers and helping at hackathons held by his company at universities in Georgia. 

“Failure is inevitable, so young people must learn to fail forward,” he says. “Embrace the errors you make, learn from them, and still believe in yourself.” He brought that message when he recently spoke in front of 3,000 AT&T employees about building their platform for the future.

Sam Bencheghib ’19
Business, Journalism, and Entrepreneurship
Founder, Sungai Watch

After graduating from Lehigh, Bencheghib started running. He started in New York City. His destination was Los Angeles, but his goal was to draw attention to and educate Americans on plastic since they are the biggest producer and consumer of plastic in the world. He ran 117 marathons over the course of 191 days. While he engaged many audiences on the topic, he didn’t have a solution to share that would reduce plastic use or waste. 

Solutions matter to him. Years earlier, he led an expedition in his kayak on the Tukad Teba river in Bali, one of the world’s most polluted. He documented the journey, and the video had 50 million views on Facebook and helped push the president of Indonesia to order 7,000 military officials to clean the river. “In a beautiful place like Bali, many visitors see what’s in front of them but miss what is destroying this paradise,” he says. 

Cleaning a river still didn’t eliminate the litter that makes its way to waterways and, eventually, the ocean. That’s where Bencheghib saw a solution: a river barrier. His organization, Sungai Watch, has placed 200 barriers in rivers and hired 120 staff to sort the waste at eight facilities. Thus far the barriers have prevented three million pounds of trash from flowing into the ocean, collecting 3,000-10,000 pounds a day. As the organization grows, he challenges Lehigh. “Look at your plastic consumption and your investment in fossil fuels in order to make the world a safer and cleaner place,” he says.

Annie Wu Henry ’18
Journalism
Social Media Producer and Consultant

Just Google her name, and you will see results with a constant refrain calling her the “TikTok whisperer” for the ways she activated the platform and helped U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman earn the Pennsylvania seat over celebrity rival Dr. Oz. Her well-timed posts garnered millions of views and national attention — a 1,700-word profile in The New York Times and a Q&A with Slate. 

She got her start, like many on South Mountain, at The Brown and White, where as a senior, she managed the social media accounts, tripling engagement in just months. While her skill and timing in the digital space are spot on, the bigger challenge is helping political campaign colleagues understand as well as trust her vision and platform knowledge. Seems that is now in solid place. It then allows her to highlight a candidate’s values as authentically as possible while having fun at the same time.