Getting to know the 10 under 10
Jared Eisenberg ’17 | Carlos Castell Croke ’18 | Jamir Connelly ’19 | Kate Kiewel ’15 | Olivia White ’21 | Olivia Abrams ’21 | Katie Singletary ’16 | Casey Caruso ’17 | Raven Gaddy ’15 | Peter Luba ’22
Jared Eisenberg ’17
Economics
Eisenberg’s journey at Lehigh and throughout his career has been defined by a willingness to take calculated risks — the kind that build momentum long before the path is fully clear. That mindset, grounded in careful analysis and informed decision-making, has guided each major step he’s taken and continues to shape the way he navigates uncertainty.
It took shape midway through college, when Eisenberg recognized that a future in finance would require a different academic foundation than the one he was building in the College of Arts and Sciences. Unsure whether a late switch would delay graduation, he transferred into the College of Business to pursue economics — a calculated pivot that set the stage for a career built on curiosity, analysis, and decisive action.
After beginning his career at a traditional mutual-fund manager, Eisenberg sensed the industry shifting. Actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were just gaining mainstream traction, and he saw an opportunity to contribute to a segment redefining how investors access markets. Rather than wait for the trend to mature, he initiated dozens of conversations with industry leaders — many through the Lehigh alumni network — to understand the mechanics and potential of active ETFs. Curiosity became specialization, ultimately leading to a career-defining transition.
That forward-looking approach brought him to AllianceBernstein (AB), where he joined the firm’s brand-new ETF effort before a single fund launched. He believed in the long-term potential of building an active ETF platform inside a global asset manager. Three years later, AB has emerged as one of the fastest-growing active ETF issuers in the country, with 22 active ETFs and more than $10 billion in assets. His work at AB spans distribution strategy, product development, capital markets, and advisor education — all tied together by a focus on helping investors understand the nuances of active ETFs.
Eisenberg later expanded his skill set by earning a master’s degree in technology leadership from Brown University, but many of the most meaningful steps in his career still trace back to Lehigh’s community.
Today, he remains closely connected as an active member of the Lehigh Wall Street Council, mentoring students and recent graduates as they navigate an industry that rarely offers clear answers. His goal is to help them approach uncertainty the same way he has throughout his own career: informed, analytical, and willing to move even when the path ahead isn’t fully defined.
Carlos Castell Croke ’18
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Castell Croke grew up as a true New Yorker; completely convinced that his home was the greatest city in the world. The only way to really test that theory, he figured, was to leave it.
Lehigh gave him that chance.
He headed to Pennsylvania to study engineering but ended up with much more than a degree: a deep love of campus, an Ultimate Frisbee nickname (“Scones”), a growing passion for hip hop dance thanks to Bad Company, and eventually a spouse, Katie Barr ’18. Leaving New York turned out to be worth it, just not in the way he expected.
While Lehigh taught him engineering and science, his personal and professional experiences taught him something else: real change is about people. An internship at the New York League of Conservation Voters revealed how policy progress requires conversations, relationships, and teamwork as much as data and research. After graduating, he joined the organization full time, bringing a scientific lens to political and advocacy work while also returning to his beloved home.
But New York politics was complicated, and Castell Croke realized he could make a bigger difference working inside city government. He joined the NYC Department of Transportation as assistant director of government affairs, later becoming deputy director, where he now manages relationships, legislation, and on-the-ground projects that shape daily life for New Yorkers. His work appears at street level: bike lanes, bus lanes, street lights, small business needs, and the constant navigation of bureaucratic mazes to make the city safer and more efficient.
Environmental issues still anchor his approach. Castell Croke has helped secure funding for expanded electric vehicle charging across the city, fought to grow the city’s automated enforcement program, and supported projects that promote safer, reliable low-emission transportation.
Outside work, he chairs his community board’s Environment, Parks, and Recreation Committee, using his political and intergovernmental skills to advocate for the neighborhoods he calls home.
Jamir Connelly ’19
English and Africana Studies
Connelly understands that knowledge is meant to be shared. It’s what pushes him today and inspired him years ago.
As a high school student in northeast Philadelphia, he heard of Lehigh when an admissions counselor visited his school and talked about applying to elite colleges. That spurred him to challenge himself at school, work, and in preparation for college placement tests. His competitive spirit helped him achieve his goals, including attending Lehigh.
Once on campus, Connelly was everywhere. He held jobs at the Clayton University Center, the Center for Gender Equity, the Philosophy Department, and Lamberton, where he rose to assistant manager and helped manage events.
He lived at Umoja House, a space where underrepresented students build community, celebrate culture, and advocate for their needs. He represented Umoja through the residence hall council and built meaningful bonds through their studies, activities, and shared meals.
His commitment to community building continued through campus clubs. He served as treasurer, co-president, and president of the Black Student Union. Despite not identifying as Latino, he also helped revive the Latinx Student Alliance.
With a minor in theater, he performed in numerous campus productions and even helped warm up the crowd before Halsey kicked off the GO Campaign.
After graduating, Connelly entered a world turned upside down by COVID-19. He worked for the city of Philadelphia on the 2020 Census and later for the Department of Public Health during the pandemic. His community leadership was meaningful, but he wanted to do more to share knowledge.
He began teaching English and history virtually at a middle school and now teaches at William Sayre High School in West Philadelphia, where he also serves as a case manager. As he completes a master’s degree in special education, his commitment remains clear: to equip the next generation to level up and to pour into others what was poured into him.
Kate Kiewel ’15
Finance and management, double major
Growing up with Korean and European heritage in Minnesota, Kiewel learned early that identity itself can be an intersection and that not every path is linear. That experience shaped her vision: to earn the right to build something impactful and enduring.
Lehigh is where the vision went global. Programs took her to Shanghai, Nairobi, Singapore, and Dubai, opening her eyes to how differently the world functions and where opportunity hides. LehighSiliconValley introduced Kiewel to venture capital and developed a career framework: the most meaningful work happens at the intersection of human capital and financial capital.
That framework sharpened at The Carlyle Group, where she learned how capital moves at scale, but also noticed where it wasn't moving. Latin America, with its rising mobile adoption and young, entrepreneurial population, represented untapped potential. So she moved to Mexico City and built Khora, a venture platform to support founders in the region.
Kiewel helped launch Mexico Tech Week and spent four years backing entrepreneurs and strengthening the venture capital ecosystem. Her approach crystallized into her “Three Cs”: capital, connection, community — each unlocking the others.
Today, she leads investor relations at Archer Aviation, a company building electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft to create the future of urban air mobility. Different industry, same thesis: Find the intersection, then build.
Outside work, she is in the backcountry where she skis the Tetons, surfs in Puerto Escondido, and tends to her bees in the Catskills.
At Lehigh, Kiewel chairs the undergraduate Dean's Advisory Council for Lehigh's College of Business, helping create the kind of spaces that once shaped her: ones where students discover their own intersections and chart their own paths forward.
Olivia White ’21
Marketing
White understands how music can unite and inspire, both as a musician and through her work shaping the next generation of industry leaders at GRAMMY U, the Recording Academy’s network for emerging talent. With more than four years at the Recording Academy, she brings a wealth of institutional knowledge and experience to her current role as membership coordinator.
The Recording Academy represents the voices of performers, songwriters, producers, engineers, and other music professionals. GRAMMY U extends that mission by supporting nearly 8,000 members nationwide and internationally through education, mentorship, and direct access to working professionals.
White is passionate about helping young creatives find their footing in an industry that is eager to support their growth and development. She is especially passionate about showing students and recent graduates that a career does not need to be linear. It’s a message she shares often: Your degree is a starting point, not a boundary.
Her Lehigh education prepared her well for the role. She draws on her marketing degree daily to promote GRAMMY U’s year-round impact, uses analytics and computer science skills to manage large volumes of data, and relies on psychology to build strong relationships and collaborate effectively.
At Lehigh, White found community through the Lehigh Echoes a cappella group and University Choir. Today, she keeps her musical passions alive by singing barbershop, playing guitar, and line dancing.
Olivia Abrams ’21
Political Science
Abrams had a drooling mastiff. Her father would use microfiber towels to wipe the dog’s jowls when dribbling. One time, as he cleaned the dog’s face, a tick got caught in the towel’s fibers. It gave him an idea that he shared with his daughter.
She understood the ordeal of tick bites, having been bitten as a child in upstate New York and developing a severe case of Lyme disease. She also understood the entrepreneurial mindset — her parents ran a business together and talked about topics like franchising over dinner.
At this point, Abrams was already at Lehigh, where she minored in marketing and entrepreneurship. She went to LehighSiliconValley and had a West Coast NASDAQ internship. She dreamed of being named a Forbes 30 Under 30 and even interned at Forbes, where she wrote about sports and business schools with the investigative journalism techniques she developed at The Brown and White.
While she had entrepreneurial ideas, none of them ignited her passion until that moment a tick got stuck in a slobbery towel. She began shaping what would become Tick Mitt, a simple, effective tick-removal product designed to prevent infections in people as well as dogs and educate users about tick-borne diseases.
COVID-19 slowed most everything, but Abrams persisted. While exploring manufacturing and branding, she also began her career, completing the Human Relations rotation at Morgan Stanley before eventually jumping to a venture capital firm. Tick Mitt officially launched in March 2023, several months after she left her job to focus on the business full time.
Momentum came quickly. She pitched the product on Shark Tank, moved thousands of units in hours on Good Morning America, and accelerated growth through Amazon. Tick Mitt earned Outdoor Magazine’s 2024 Product of the Year and TIME magazine’s Best Inventions of 2025.
Her dream came true: Forbes 30 Under 30. The business continues to grow with sales, staff, retailers, and research and development. Those things have come at a good time as 2025 marked one of the worst years for tick-borne illnesses in decades.
Katie Singletary ’16
Theatre
Singletary had earned her MBA and was driving home with her husband after a family reunion in Detroit, Michigan. For years, she had been kicking around the idea of opening her own competitive cheer gym. Hearing family updates and sharing her own had gotten her thinking. Finally, her husband broke the silence on the long car ride back to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Now is the time to open your cheer gym. The moment she pulled into the driveway, she started writing her business plan.
She had been doing competitive cheering since age five. Pushed reluctantly into a tryout by her mother, she fell in love with the sport and excelled. Her coach at All Star Cheer saw something in her and pushed her a bit more. By age six, she won her first individual trophy. Over the next decade, she continued to collect individual and team trophies while balancing USA Gymnastics and All Star Cheer.
At Lehigh, she shifted into the recreational cheer team so she could focus on academics, but performance remained part of her identity. A theater course sophomore year rekindled that passion, eventually leading to a major. She performed, worked backstage, and ran crews for both the department and Mustard and Cheese.
But she knew Broadway wasn’t her path. Entrepreneurship was, even if self-doubt kept her from pursuing it immediately.
After encouragement from her husband and conversations with her former coach, Singletary rented a space, formed teams for ages 4–18, and co-founded Unleashed Athletics with her best friend.
Over the last three years, the teams have won and grown. The founders are now working with a realtor to find their own space. Singletary continues to hustle, working a job, raising two daughters (one of whom loves cheering), and inspiring a new generation of children to fall in love with a sport.
Casey Caruso ’17
Integrated Business and Engineering
Caruso is on a quest. Professionally, that quest is at the forefront of early-stage frontier technology at Topology, a venture fund she founded, raising a $75M debut fund that is being deployed across emerging technology.
Personally, that quest combines her idiosyncratic interests: psychology, philosophy, evolution, and family.
Family led her to Lehigh. Her brother, Harry Caruso ’15, was already on campus. They are best friends from a close Italian family. She applied nowhere else and dove into the work.
That mindset defines her. At age 14, she began programming and fell in love with code. She gave it intense focus and developed a deep community of digital friends. Attending LehighSiliconValley opened her eyes to industries, people, and interests that mattered to her. It was like finding a second home. She again got laser focused. Soon she was living in a tech house and interning at startups in the valley.
Google was her dream job, so naturally, she went for it. She worked there for four years as an engineer in search and research systems. Those familiar with Alphabet, Google’s parent, know how the company encourages growth and exploration. Caruso took advantage of that, focusing on investing. She fell in love again.
Soon she balanced two jobs: her 9–5 at Google and her early morning and late evening job at Bessemer Venture Partners. But neither ever felt like working; she was able to learn and explore interests. Balancing both did require a clear schedule, good to-do lists, and discipline.
Her drive landed her on Forbes 30 Under 30 in Venture Capital. She earned a master’s in computer science at Lehigh and completed research at Johns Hopkins, where she worked in the Intelligent Systems group. She was accepted into additional graduate programs at Harvard and Stanford but withdrew. She thought she’d learn more by following her passions and working in the right areas.
Reflection matters to her. She reads widely, journals often, and talks often with family and coaches to understand her choices and live intentionally. It helps steer where she is headed and helps her trust what people and ideas deserve her support. She’s looking for theories that can change the world and remarkable people with amazing insight who can bring those ideas to life.
It must be working as she plans to begin a second fund in the coming year. Her companies, she says, are like her children, and with her focus and attention, she will continue to watch them grow.
Raven Gaddy ’15
Global Studies and Africana Studies, double major
Curiosity and a drive for global impact seem hardwired in Gaddy. At age 14, she traveled to Rome, Italy, for three months of study. She also completed service trips in Fiji and Costa Rica to help others and build her leadership skills. It seemed natural that she would consider a foreign college experience. She set her sights on the American University of Paris and was accepted, but that’s when her mother, who always had Gaddy’s best interests in mind, finally put her foot down. It didn’t help her case that Gaddy didn’t speak a lick of French.
She turned to her advisor, who mentioned Lehigh. Sight unseen, Gaddy applied. The first time she laid her eyes on South Mountain was move-in day. Having attended a boarding school since age 14, the freedom of college felt familiar, but she was swept up into the fun with her new friends that first semester and landed on academic probation. That’s when she realized her mother’s view of her maturity may have been right.
Jack Lule, Iacocca Professor Emeritus and Fulbright Specialist in Journalism, took Gaddy under his wing and helped her articulate clearly her interest in making an impact in the world. Soon Gaddy was in Italy for six weeks, focused on human rights.
In the spring of her sophomore year, Gaddy traveled to Kenya for a course taught by Mark Orrs, then director of Lehigh’s Sustainable Development Program. The trip helped her to view her service to others from a new lens — one that was less ego-driven and ethnocentric.
It changed how she saw service.
And she was service oriented! Gaddy served as manager of the men’s basketball team, orientation leader, Umoja House president, and charter member of the historically Black Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc.
During her senior year, she went to Morocco for four months and took a different approach. She studied Arabic and lived with families in Rabat. She spent weeks traveling throughout the country and talking with sub-Saharan migrants and activists to document the victimization of migrant women.
When graduate school appeared on the horizon, she again set her sights on Paris. Soon, she was earning her master’s in international affairs at the American University of Paris. Interested in international law, she took related courses and completed a two-week practicum in the Hague, observing trials at the International Criminal Court.
When her visa expired, she joined the Peace Corps, inspired by the experiences of Bruce Whitehouse, associate professor of anthropology. Gaddy went to Madagascar to teach English at a technical school on the northern coast. Beyond that assignment, she used her time to make an impact — helping educate orphans about hygiene and teaching sewing to imprisoned women.
COVID-19 ended her time in the country when all volunteers were called back home. She hit a job market alongside 8,000 evacuees as the global economy was forced to pivot. She landed at the Department of Justice as an administrative officer to the assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division.
After three years, she joined the National Counterterrorism Center, the central node to help connect agencies, policymakers, military personnel, and state and local law enforcement, as a strategic analyst.
Gaddy continues to serve Lehigh alumni through her work at BALANCE, the Black and Latinx alumni network for community and equity. She started as the social media chair and eventually became co-chair of the affinity program. The group works to support students, mentor young alumni, and reminisce together. Her support for Lehigh is also evident through her involvement with the Lehigh University Alumni Association, the regional club for Washington, D.C., Sendoffs, and Soaring Together.
Peter Luba ’22
Computer Science and Business
During his senior year of high school, Luba and classmate Dhruv Sringari were approached by an assistant principal with a problem: hall passes. Paper passes were inefficient, easy to abuse, and contributed to lost learning time. Luba and Sringari built a simple digital solution.. SmartPass was born, and teachers loved the improved monitoring and safety it provided.
At Lehigh, Luba continued developing the app alongside Sringari, who was studying at Penn State. Coursework in computer science and marketing fed directly into SmartPass, while Lehigh’s entrepreneurial energy motivated him to keep refining it.
Even as the app grew, Luba didn’t initially view it as a business. After graduation, he joined Salesforce as an associate product manager and moved to San Francisco.
But when students returned to school after COVID-19 lockdowns, behavioral issues skyrocketed. SmartPass use took off, and after seven months at Salesforce, Luba left to work on SmartPass full time. The app had grown from 200 schools to 1,000 and served 2 million students.
Today, SmartPass is used in more than 4,000 schools across all 50 states. Luba and Sringari were named to the 2024 Forbes 30 Under 30 Education list, and the company was acquired by Raptor Technologies, a global leader in school safety software solutions, where Luba serves as director of product.
