2025 Graduates: What's Next

Harrison Jenkins ’25
Mechanical Engineering with a Minor in Aerospace Engineering
Destination: Georgia Institute of Technology
Position: Doctorate in Robotics with a Concentration in Aerospace 

Journey:
Blessings have rained down on Jenkins in ways he clearly sees, appreciates, and marvels at. It began with Lehigh. As a high school student, he wanted a college where he could play football and study engineering. When the Oakland, California, native was selected to be a POSSE Scholar, Lehigh seemed like a natural fit. The campus beauty and long-standing traditions helped him feel at home on a new coast. 

During his first year on campus, he knew he needed to position himself for an aerospace sector internship. He applied for and earned the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship, which empowers extraordinary Black students to find their first opportunities in aerospace. He spent the summer in Denver, Colorado, at ispace, where he worked with the propulsion team on its lunar lander. 

Being away meant missing much of summer football training, so the next summer, he planned to remain on campus. It didn’t stop him in the fall from applying to a single internship at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. He forgot all about it until an acceptance letter arrived in late spring. He spoke to his team and coaches, who said he’d be out of his mind not to jump at the opportunity. Off he went to Pasadena, California. The knowledge he gained on the project was remarkable. 

During his junior year, he began to work in the lab under Keith Moored, associate professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics. The work had Jenkins developing control algorithms for fish robots as the team studied the hydrodynamic force and fuel dynamics of fish swimming as a school. That project kept him on campus during the summer, finally allowing him to train with his teammates for what would become a breakthrough senior season. 

While it was wonderful to win the Patriot League Championship, beat Lafayette at home, and win in the playoffs, Jenkins had lots more going on as he proposed to his Lehigh girlfriend, applied to graduate programs, and drafted an NSF graduate research fellowship proposal. Of course, his blessings kept pouring down. She said yes, he gained admission, and the fellowship was granted. 

At Georgia Tech, he will focus on that fellowship project: building robots to assemble large-scale solar farms in space. Jenkins is eager to take these blessings and use them to serve others and improve their lives. Now he will transform those blessings into a lifelong mission.

Aubrey Hunt ’25
Biochemistry with Minors in Spanish and Health, Medicine, and Society
Destination: Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple-St. Luke's 
Position: Medical Student

Journey:
The journey to medical school for Hunt required a regimen, balancing coursework with extracurriculars, focus and fun. That fun, academically, came in the form of two minors that helped her explore her interests and have something more than core classes. Lawrence Tartaglia, associate professor of biological sciences, helped guide those academic choices by focusing on where Hunt was in her journey, while Linda Lowe-Krentz, professor and chair of biological sciences, helped with any schedule questions and registration blunders. 

Fun outside the classroom came in several forms. Hunt tutored chemistry for several years. She joined Lehigh EMS, earning her EMT certificate after her first year and then rising through the ranks as crew chief and first lieutenant. Thursday night shifts often brought a range of interesting calls. She also worked at her hometown ambulance crew, where she responded to psychiatric emergencies and traumatic injuries, among other types of calls. 

She was active in LehighMED, the pre-medical association, where she started as a nervous first-year guided by upperclassmen willing to show her the way. That’s where she also began consulting with Autumn Zaborowski, pre-health advisor in the Center for Career and Professional Development. Soon, Hunt was working as a pre-health career ambassador, helping to provide advice for other Lehigh pre-med students. 

She shadowed medical professionals through St. Luke’s externship program as well as at Nemours Children’s Hospital in Delaware, where she took a greater interest in pediatric medicine and care. 

Of course, research played a part in her Lehigh experience. As a senior, Hunt worked in the lab for Johanna Kowalko, associate professor of biological sciences, studying the genetic and sensory differences of cave-dwelling fish. A love of animals had Hunt volunteer at the Carbon County Environmental Education Center during breaks, where she helped rehabilitate opossums and hawks. 

While getting into medical school is no easy task, Hunt had options and was excited by the sense of community she felt at Temple and the relationships she’s built in the Bethlehem community that she will continue to call home over the next several years of study.

Delfina Szigethy ’25
Management with Minors in Population Health and Global Studies
Destination: Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati
Position: Brand manager

Journey:
Entering Lehigh in the College of Arts and Sciences, Szigethy quickly realized that business was where her interests lay. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise since she had worked in a yoga studio and helped the owners with the core principles of opening the business. During Szigethy’s first class in the College of Business, the Center for Career and Professional Development was on hand to talk about resume building. Szigethy took the advice seriously. 

That’s when an opportunity to lead presented itself. The upperclass members of her club field hockey team all had to step away to focus on the demands of their class schedules, so Szigethy assumed the role of club president and used her creative skills to build and lead the team. 

She enhanced those skills further as an orientation leader. What that meant for a career was still unclear. But she had a conversation with Robert Kuchta, a full teaching professor in the Department of Management, who asked her some pointed questions about what she wanted her work day to look like. Szigethy knew the answer had to center around people and problem-solving. 

That’s when she found the Standout Emerging Leaders Camp at Procter & Gamble, a weeklong program designed to give top sophomore students immersive experiences at the P&G headquarters. She applied and went through a series of interviews — some went smoother than others, but she learned and prepared and got an invite to join the camp. 

She loved it and was invited back the following summer for a full-time internship. Her 12-week project focused on a gap in retail sales with a certain demographic for a haircare product. She felt like the hub of a wheel that connected sales, marketing, manufacturing, and supply chain. She found the work challenging and satisfying. 

She must have done it well, as it led to an offer prior to the start of her senior year. She returns to Cincinnati headquarters in July and will continue to work in haircare.

Zachary Porter ’25
Computer Science and Business with a Minor in Actuarial Science
Destination: AXA XL, Exton, Pennsylvania
Position: Actuarial Analyst

Journey:
Porter’s path to becoming an actuary was unexpected and yet inevitable. While his father is an actuary, Porter didn’t intend to follow in his footsteps despite interning in his father’s office as a high school student. Porter came to Lehigh to study business, interested in computer science and business and mathematics. 

Then he took a course with Andy Dalton, adjunct professor in actuarial science and a former colleague of Porter’s father, and really enjoyed it. That course led to another, and soon Porter was exploring the industry and actuary exams. He has since completed three of those exams. He has continued to work in the summer with his father at Milliman, helping to prepare the company’s annual report on public pension plans in the United States. 

Soon, computer science fell away as a focus. Porter has ramped up his studies, taking 18-20 credits a semester and completing his Lehigh degree in three years. The Center for Career and Professional Development helped him refine his resume and consider his cover letter. It prepared him for his search for an actuarial position in his hometown of Philadelphia. He landed at AXA XL in Exton, Pennsylvania, which will keep him close to home and his Lehigh fiancée. 

Arianna Morataya ’25
Accounting with a Minor in Spanish and International Business certificate
Destination: PwC in NYC
Position: External Audit Associate

Journey:
Finding an internship as a sophomore can be a tall order, so Morataya spoke with alumnae whose advice was clear: Start now on getting ahead. She began at the Center for Career and Professional Development, where she got resume help and tips to prepare for interviews. She also consulted with Parveen Gupta, professor of accounting, so she could figure out how to adjust her schedule to graduate with the 150 credits needed to begin her CPA examinations. 

She then applied to Destination CPA, a three-day in-person immersive PwC program with future CPAs from across the country. She was accepted and traveled down to Orlando, Florida. The program also offered her a PwC internship for the summer following her junior year. 

During her sophomore summer, she traveled with Lehigh to Milan, Italy, for a six-week, six-credit course. She interned as a market research intern at a Milan firm and gained corporate social responsibility insight through her class with Gupta, the professor leading the course. 

As a junior, Morataya attended many accounting and business events on campus, meeting employees, recruiters, and alumni, especially those from PwC. She remained busy with credits, taking a January course in Vietnam for a Lehigh Business Immersion program. 

That summer, she interned at PwC with an audit team in the consumer industrial products and services sector. The experience had her work with a variety of people at the firm, both virtually and in person on days she commuted into the New York office. At the end of that experience, she had an offer to return post-graduation. 

She continued her service in the Bethlehem community as a site leader for an after-school homework program under America Reads/Counts, an organization Morataya has been a part of for four years through Lehigh’s Community Service Office. Through the program, Morataya worked on reading skills with elementary school students; over the four years, she built relationships and saw the progress. 

She served as co-vice president of Beta Alpha Psi, the accounting honor society, for her senior year. Her work has been recognized with numerous awards from the accounting department, including the 2025 Association of Certified Fraud Examiners Student Award and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Scholar award. She also received recognition for the Harold S. Greene scholarship awarded by the College of Business to undergraduate business students who hold great promise to advance ethics in business. She plans to complete two of four CPA exams this summer prior to starting her new career.

Sarah Wilhelm ’25
IDEAS – Environmental Engineering and Environmental Studies
Destination: Langan, Princeton, New Jersey
Position: Environmental engineer

Journey:
Wilhelm liked the flexibility of the IDEAS program because it allowed her to bring her full self to a degree in engineering. That full self is someone who cares about sustainability and the environment. 

It explains why she took a non-traditional entry point into Lehigh by joining Lehigh Launch, an immersive first-year program that brought her to the American West during her first semester. Her first three weeks “on campus” had her backpacking in the outer reaches of Wyoming with no cell service. Jennifer Jensen, professor of political science, led the hands-on learning that makes Lehigh so distinctive. 

When Wilhelm joined her peers on South Mountain, she was active as an Eco-Rep and in the Office of Sustainability. That’s when she met her adviser, Bill Best, professor of practice in electrical and computer engineering and co-director of Lehigh's innovative IDEAS. His good questions and listening helped her find her best fit and path at Lehigh. 

During her sophomore year, she spent two months in Bermuda studying microbiology as part of the Iacocca International Internship Program. As a junior, she sought an internship and landed one at Langan. She spent the summer gathering water and air samples, conducting soil borings, and drafting reports for the Department of Environmental Protection. 

She returned to Langan during the January break of her senior year. By that time, she had an offer there for full-time work. But she accepted it but had a catch. While she was happy to start her new role in July, she hoped to take off in August. Wilhelm had been asked to return to Lehigh Launch as a program assistant. The company agreed. 

So she will spend four months in the American West again, this time guiding first-years through day-to-day activities, managing field learning trips, and helping them understand the Lehigh experience … even if far away from campus.

Jessica Berman ’25
Population Health
Destination: Yale University
Position:  Master of Public Health in Chronic Disease Epidemiology

Journey: 
During her senior year at William H. Hall High School, Berman took an advanced placement research course, where she had a year to conduct her own study. The question she chose to pursue was a personal one. Her grandfather had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and she felt helpless as she watched him decline. She wanted to know what could be done. 

Her preliminary research found that the Mediterranean diet could curtail the symptoms, but what remained unclear was whether facilities used the diet. She began to cold call memory care units in Connecticut, talk to dietitians, and study their meal plans and menus. Berman found that nearly half used the diet, but it was largely coincidental, not a conscious decision to aid their patients. 

This spurred Berman to rethink her college plans. Rather than be a physician who treated disease, she wanted to study public health to prevent disease. She came to Lehigh to study population health and never looked back. 

During her first year on campus, she reached out to Fathima Wakeel, associate professor, about research opportunities. Soon, Berman was helping Wakeel analyze focus group transcripts with neurodivergent youth transitioning into young adulthood as well as their parents and health care providers. 

The emphasis on experiential learning is a defining characteristic at Lehigh, as noted by Berman when she sat on the College of Health Student Advisory Council executive board. She loved that her courses used real datasets from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each course had her and her classmates active, like when she audited local parks and correlated that data with how well area residents slept. 

Berman’s strongest sense of community was formed as a TRAC writing fellow. While she liked helping students with their thinking and writing, she really enjoyed how the fellows were trained in mindfulness, empathy, and gratitude. 

Those skills came in handy as Berman awaited acceptances into a master’s program. Yale, of course, was her top choice. Her personal statement leveraged her Lehigh learning, skills, and experiences, but it also drew upon her interest in her high school research. At Yale, she plans to focus on the mitigation and prevention of chronic disease.

Janeya Allen ’25
Psychology
Destination: Helping Hands Community Support Services, Philadelphia
Position: Applied Behavioral Analyst

Journey:
Allen came to Lehigh thinking she’d be a neuroscience major based on her interests and strong grades in math and science, but the material didn’t excite her like she thought. As a first-generation college student, she found the experience at Lehigh a bit overwhelming, despite her support and friendships in the Black Student Union and African Student Association. So Allen took a semester off to figure out what she wanted to study and how she wanted to navigate Lehigh. 

She came back to campus excited by working with children who suffer from mental health issues. She clicked with her psychology classes, both the cognitive and clinical studies. She had compassionate faculty, like Jessecae Marsh and Gordon Moskowitz, whose understanding and flexibility only increased when Allen became pregnant. Around that same time, Lori McClaind, associate dean of students, became a strong advocate for Allen. Later, she met Stacy Vance and Christopher Borick, who were equally compassionate as she navigated being a mom, losing her own mother, and juggling coursework. 

Balancing classes, a newborn, and a work schedule wasn’t easy, but Allen did it and graduated on time. Her resilience comes in part from her deep faith — that this journey she’s been on is in God’s hands. 

Prayers are what helped with her new career. The roles that most appealed to Allen took her too far away from her family in Philadelphia. She asked for help, and the position she landed was posted, keeping her right between South Mountain and home. She starts in May and expects to keep learning as she plans to advance to become a registered behavior technician.

Eddie Fuhrer ’25
Journalism with a Minor in International Relations
Destination: Rod Campbell Award Fellowship
Position: Motorsports Journalism

Journey:
Fuhrer fell in love with racing before he could even walk. Watching the races with his father and grandfather was a Sunday tradition. Posters of drivers and cars covered his bedroom walls. When his father passed, Fuhrer lost his connection to the sport momentarily as he grieved. 

Then that connection came roaring back. During his sophomore year at Lehigh, Fuhrer attended the Mid-Ohio Indy Car event. Of course, the big race was on Sunday, but the junior races took to the track on Friday and Saturday. Fuhrer saw an opportunity: Those junior drivers often hunger for sponsors and the spotlight. Fuhrer launched U.S. Open Wheel Nation to help get the names of junior racers out there. 

That’s when he started to build his Lehigh course schedule to accommodate his travel to tracks. Over his time on campus, he has visited races in Ohio, Florida, Indianapolis, Louisiana, and Wisconsin. While at a race, he interviews 30-40 up-and-comers and generates 15-20 articles. He is often posting stories by the time the checkered flag waves and then rushes down to the pit for more content. The Student Opportunity Fund on campus has helped to subsidize the cost of some trips. 

While this has kept him busy, he still has visited the Center for Career and Professional Development for interview and resume tips; that team was also an active part of his senior seminar. It has paid off as he interned with the NASCAR team at Fox Sports and at NBC U.S. headquarters for the Summer Olympics. 

He now has earned a unique journalism honor: The Rod Campbell Award Fellowship. He will have a paid apprenticeship, spending three months rotating among eight motorsport media companies. Without fail, he will find the perfect fit at the one that gets his motor running and begin a career trackside.

Anoushka Nambiar ’25
Biology
Destination: University of Pittsburgh
Position: Doctor of Dental Medicine

Journey:
While growing up in Hershey, Pennsylvania, didn’t help her sweet tooth, Nambiar never really expected she’d turn those childhood cavities into an adult career opportunity. She knew she wanted a career in health care, but dentistry only became her focus after meeting Caroline Palmer ’23. The two of them were on the Bhangra dance team, where Palmer served as the captain. Palmer was in the process of applying to dental programs, which spurred Nambiar’s curiosity. 

So during the winter break of her first year, Nambiar shadowed a dentist at home. She found her health care passion. Upon returning to campus, she joined the Dental Society and has seen the group grow from 10 members to nearly 30. She served as secretary during her sophomore year, vice president during her junior year, and president during her senior year. 

She also joined Lehigh EMS and earned her EMT certification during her sophomore year. She assisted night shifts on campus and has clocked over 600 service hours in two years. 

On campus, she worked as an admissions tour guide and then as a fellow who interviewed prospective students and assisted on admitted students days. At the Center for Career and Professional Development, Nambiar worked at the front desk during her first year and soon was helping Autumn Zaborowski, pre-health adviser, with the Medical Mentors program, advising other pre-health students. 

Zaborowski helped Nambiar craft a strong application to dental programs. Nambiar took a full summer to prepare for the dental admissions test. No application is complete without some research. Nambiar worked as a data cleaner in the CARE lab run by Susan Woodhouse, associate professor of education. 

Nambiar, like her role model Palmer, also participated in the Martindale program, traveling to Taiwan to study the country’s precision health approach to medicine and response to COVID-19. Nambiar stayed active in Bhangra and will miss FUSION and Dancefest when she leaves campus.

Sarah Kearns ’25
Civil Engineering
Destination: WSP, Philadelphia
Position: Civil engineer

Journey: 
In her first-year engineering courses, Kearns enjoyed civil engineering best, and as the cohort who shared her passion became more concentrated during her sophomore year, she knew she had found her people. Over the next three years, they had the same courses and professors and supported each other through every lab and core project. 

During her junior year, she knew she wanted an internship and began to use the online help and resume preparation offered through the Center for Career and Professional Development. Kearns landed a role at AECOM in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where she focused on structural engineering projects to update older railroad bridges. She felt her courses had her overprepared, thanks in part to the rigor of Shamim Pakzad, professor and chair of civil and environmental engineering. His advice, class assignments, and mentorship prepared Kearns for all she faced. 

During her senior year, she narrowed her career search to her hometown market: Philadelphia. A Lehigh alumnus who interviewed her at WSP will now be her boss. She’s eager to get to work and feel at home.

Nick Pecora ’25
Finance and Accounting
Destination: Leerink Partners, Manhattan
Position: Investment Banking Analyst

Journey:
When asked where he went to college, Pecora often answered that he played lacrosse for Lehigh. The sport had been his focus since age 12, when his talent took him to private schools with premier lacrosse programs far from his home. His success continued when he and his teammates won the Patriot League title in his first year. 

But his outlook shifted during his junior year. His twin brother, another gifted lacrosse player, had spent his college years balancing Division III lacrosse and academics; as a result, his brother had just landed a full-time offer following graduation. Pecora realized he hadn’t cultivated his career prospects or focused as rigorously as he could on his life after lacrosse. So he buckled down. 

That started with a clear emphasis on grades, resume, networking, career readiness as well as lacrosse. He began by assembling a spreadsheet of 250 Lehigh alumni who worked across banking. He emailed each one. Almost all of them responded, offering time, tips, and assistance. With some, the connection ran deeper. 

As a first-generation student, Pecora had a goal of showing his parents that their investment in him over the last decade paid off. He added an accounting major. He interviewed for and was offered a slot in the Dreyfus Portfolio, the flagship student-run investment fund. He began to create strong connections with alumni like Chris Hite ’89, Taylor Ingerman ’20, and Jake Nieslanik ’14. Their time, connections, and advice were invaluable. 

With his focus less on the field, he played lacrosse for a different reason: a love of the game. That shift brought back his joy, and he started to play the best of his life. He was named starting goalie that season and held it in his fourth year, when the team won another Patriot League title. 

Pecora’s career aspirations, though, were less solid. He earned a summer internship at PNC Bank in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but the focus was a bit too much on sales. He hungered to apply more of his academic knowledge. When he began the process again during his fourth year, he made it to late interview stages, but an offer didn’t materialize. 

He eventually got one in institutional asset management, but another offer came through at the last moment thanks to a strong relationship Perora built. The summer before his fifth year, he interned at Leerink, and by the end of that experience, he was offered a full-time position. 

He learned through this journey that everything is what you put into it and that nothing happens without help. Now, when folks ask where he went to college, he says Lehigh.