Alumni: Staying Connected

The Moses Brown Alumni Association is proud to announce the winners of the 2025 Spring Alumni Awards who will be honored at this year’s Reunion celebrations. 
 

The 25th Reunion Achievement Award
Since 1966, the Moses Brown Alumni Association has presented the Achievement Award to a member of the 25th Reunion Class in recognition of professional excellence and outstanding service to the community. 

Kristen Lorello ’00

Kristen Lorello is the owner of Kristen Lorello, a contemporary art gallery in New York City, that opened in 2014.  She specializes in developing the careers of emerging artists from the United States and abroad.  She currently represents fifteen artists working in the mediums of painting, sculpture, and photography, and has placed their works in prestigious collections including the RISD Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Museum of Arts and Design, NY.  Kristen developed her career in New York City from 2005-2012 at Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, where she held various roles, including Director of Operations, Associate Director, and Archivist.

Kristen graduated from Barnard College summa cum laude, phi beta kappa in 2004 and holds an MA in the History of Art from Hunter College.  In 2006 she received a prestigious Fulbright Grant to conduct research on contemporary art in Rome, where she immersed herself in the complex relationships between artists, curators, and institutions for contemporary art.  She went on to lecture, publish, and curate exhibitions in the United States featuring Italian contemporary artists.  In her free time, Kristen enjoys cooking, traveling, learning French, and continuing to improve her Italian.  She lives in New York City with her husband, Christopher Saunders, their daughter, Céline, and their miniature poodle, Stella.
 

The Distinguished Alum Award
The Distinguished Alum Award recognizes an alum for significant, long-term success in personal and professional achievements, who has made outstanding contributions to their profession and has rendered distinguished service to the public welfare, thus honoring Moses Brown School.

Ted Widmer ’80

Ted Widmer is Distinguished Lecturer at the Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York. Before that he taught or directed research centers at Harvard University, Washington College, the Library of Congress, and Brown University. He earned an A.B. degree in the History and Literature of France and America and a Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization, both from Harvard. In addition to his teaching, he served as a foreign policy speechwriter and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, and later as a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, and the New Yorker. He also serves as a trustee of the Massachusetts Historical Society and Robert College in Istanbul. In 2020 he published Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington, which won the Lincoln Forum Book Prize and the first book prize of the Society of Presidential Descendants. With support from the Guggenheim Foundation, he is working on a book project relating to Boston in April 1968. 

Faculty/Staff Member of the Year
Each year, the Moses Brown Alumni Association honors a member of the faculty or staff for impact on the school community. Chosen from many fine teachers, and members of the staff, the recipient is recognized as an outstanding professional, educator, mentor, and friend.

Karim Sow

Born in Mali, Karim grew up in the Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea. He arrived at Moses Brown in 1994 after hearing about a position when he gave a ride to a job applicant. He has since been teaching French and Spanish in Middle School, coaching soccer and more recently became a basketball liaison. Karim has contributed significantly to the school as diversity coordinator, advisor and mentor and regularly shares his Fulani wisdom. It is a testimony to Karim’s passion for soccer that his 30-year tenure tree faces Wasserman Field.

Karim graduated from University of Niger (1981) and University of Aix-en-Province (1983) in French Modern literature. He then returned to Niger and Cote d’Ivoire to be a French teacher for 15 years. In 1992, he moved to the US as a political refugee after the repression of the Ivorian teacher’s union for which he was the ghost writer. 
 

The Moses Brown Alumni Association is proud to announce the winners of the 2024 Fall Alumni Awards who will be honored at this year’s Homecoming weekend. Alumni and friends are welcome to join us at the reception held on Thursday, October 17 at the Hope Club, Brown University. Register

Outstanding Young Alum Awardee

The Outstanding Young Alum Award recognizes a recent graduate for outstanding accomplishments and service in their professional, personal, or civic life.  Their achievements inspire young alumni and bring honor to Moses Brown.

Jamie Marshall ’15

Jamie Marshall is the co-founder and COO of Snackpass. After graduating from Moses Brown, Jamie studied at Yale University where she teamed up with fellow student Kevin Tan to found Snackpass in 2017. Snackpass is a social mobile ordering app for restaurants that users can use to order ahead, earn loyalty points, and connect with friends by gifting points and food.

Snackpass has gone viral on college campuses across the country including Yale University, Brown University, University of Michigan, University of California Berkeley, and more. As a result of working closely with restaurant operators for several years, Snackpass launched SnackOS, a restaurant operating system which helps restaurant operators become even more productive and profitable. Today, Snackpass has 50 team members primarily based in New York City and San Francisco. 

Jamie and the Snackpass team raised venture capital from Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Craft Ventures and Y Combinator. Jamie was featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, is a recipient of the Yale Startup Miller Prize, and was one of twenty annual recipients of the Thiel Fellowship. Jamie lives and works in New York City.

Karin Morse ’79 Service to Alma Mater Award

The Karin Morse ’79 Service to Alma Mater Award recognizes an alum for outstanding service to Moses Brown School. This person’s voluntary contributions have been long term, extend beyond the work of most volunteers, and speak to MB’s proud tradition of service to community.

Vin Porcaro ’83, P’11 ’24

Vin was a dedicated member of the MBAA Board from 2015-2021 when he joined the Board of Trustees. A member of the Governance and Budget & Finance Committees, Vin served until June 2024.

Vin was incredibly active on the Local Committee and from 2015-2019 Vin led the MBAA Turkey Tailgate, a beloved event which brought together alumni, families, students, faculty/staff, and friends on a grand scale.  He and his wife, Sue, have been dedicated to the school and the student experience by actively volunteering in a variety of ways.  In addition to adding special touches like grilling for guests at the Newport Polo Reception, they have organized tailgates for home and visiting football teams, established concessions for basketball games, and for the past five years Vin has also regularly recorded upper and middle school games, ensuring that the teams benefit from video analysis.

A successful business owner, Vin is President of Vincent Porcaro, Inc. (VPI), which he founded in 1996. Vin has built a performance-driven, third-party logistics company specializing in cost-efficient merchandise distribution for major clients like Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Yankee Candle, Foster Grant International, A.T. Cross, TJ Maxx, Nordstrom, and Dillards. VPI operates globally, providing expertise in logistics, distribution, transportation, and warehousing for retail products throughout North America.

Vin is an alumnus of Providence College, where he played and coached football.

The Moses Brown Alumni Association is proud to announce the winners of the 2024 Spring Alumni Awards who will be honored at this year’s Reunion celebrations. 
 

The 25th Reunion Achievement Award
Since 1966, the Moses Brown Alumni Association has presented the Achievement Award to a member of the 25th Reunion Class in recognition of professional excellence and outstanding service to the community. 

Dr. Albert S. Huang ’99

Albert is a Principal Engineer at Cruise, LLC - a General Motors subsidiary building self-driving vehicles. He has 19 years of experience working on autonomous vehicles, drones, and manufacturing robots. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, where he was a technical lead on MIT's 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge team to build and race a self-driving car. He co-founded and was CTO of Optimus Ride, a self-driving vehicle startup acquired by Magna Electronics in 2021. Prior to that, Albert led navigation and perception efforts at Google's autonomous aerial delivery drone Project Wing, and was the software architect for the Baxter manufacturing robot at Rethink Robotics. Albert has published a book on Bluetooth and is an author and inventor on numerous papers and patents on robotics and autonomous vehicles.

The Distinguished Alum Award
The Distinguished Alum Award recognizes an alum for significant, long-term success in personal and professional achievements, who has made outstanding contributions to their profession and has rendered distinguished service to the public welfare, thus honoring Moses Brown School.

Samuel M. Mencoff ’74

Samuel M. Mencoff is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Temple Hall Group, a privately-held diversified industrial manufacturing holding company headquartered in Chicago. He is a Founding Partner and former Co-CEO of Madison Dearborn Partners, one of the nation’s leading private equity investment firms. He retired from Madison Dearborn in 2023, concluding a 42 year career, and currently serves as a Senior Advisor to the firm.

Mr. Mencoff was elected the 21st Chancellor of Brown University in 2016, after having served on the Brown Corporation as a Fellow since 2009. He previously
served on the Board of Trustees from 2003 to 2009. He currently serves as a Commissioner of the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery, Vice Chair of the Board of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he serves as Chair of the Committee on American Art, and is Lead Independent Director of Packaging Corporation of America.

In addition, Mr. Mencoff is a past director of NorthShore University HealthSystem, the Regional Transportation Authority, and World Business Chicago, as well as numerous public and private companies, including Boise Cascade, Buckeye Cellulose, Georgia Marble Company, Graphic Packaging, Great Lakes Dredge Dock, Huntway Refining, Smurfit Kappa Group, and Nuveen Investments.

Mr. Mencoff and his wife, Ann, are active collectors of American furniture, paintings, sculpture, and decorative art. They are deeply committed to the study and preservation of significant examples of American architecture, and have restored and maintain historic properties in Virginia, Rhode Island, Illinois, and Indiana.

Mr. Mencoff earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in
Anthropology from Brown University in 1978, and an M.B.A. from Harvard
Business School in 1981. 

Faculty/Staff Member of the Year
Each year, the Moses Brown Alumni Association honors a member of the faculty or staff for impact on the school community. Chosen from many fine teachers, and members of the staff, the recipient is recognized as an outstanding professional, educator, mentor, and friend.

Karin Morse ’79

Karin is presently senior alumni relations officer, middle school world language teacher and boys' varsity tennis coach.  She has truly enjoyed her alumni relations work, especially her partnership with the Alumni Association. For many years, she also taught French, some middle school Latin, and German and world history in the upper school and was dean of students for 13 years. Over the years, she has coached girls' varsity soccer, boys' and girl's squash, girls' ice hockey, girls' tennis and since 1985 boys' tennis. She was an upper school advisor for 25 years and advisor to various clubs including the Cheese Club and PAWS Club, and the group that created S.P.A.F.  Karin was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2003 and served on the MBAA Board from 1985-1995.

Karin earned her A.B. from Brown University in 1984 with a concentration in German and Comparative Literature and her Ed.M. in 1992 from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Administration, Planning and Social Policy. 

At a time where students are beginning to make decisions about their future, what better way to explore their options than to tap into Moses Brown’s extensive alumni network? Over 40 alumni and community members from all over the world came to campus on March 1, 2024 to share with 11th and 12th grade students their professional experiences in a wide range of industries: arts and entertainment; building and construction; business, media, and communications; education; engineering, and tech; entrepreneurship; finance; government and public service; healthcare; law; non-profit/NGO; environmental sciences; psychology; marketing and sales; sports management; and venture capital.

Photo gallery below:

The Moses Brown Alumni Association (MBAA) and Advancement Office, in partnership with the Upper School, hosted MB Connects: Career Explorations Day for current juniors and seniors. The event provided an invaluable opportunity for students to gain insights into various professions, discover potential academic and/or career paths, and receive guidance on navigating the exciting journey ahead.

“I think it's important for these students to hear about people's different career paths as they begin their journey,” said alum Erin Shippee ’95, founding member of Steward Asset Management, about why she returned to campus to meet with current students. 

Alumni and community members from a vast array of career fields were in attendance, such as CEO of Wistia Chris Savage ’01; Steve DeLeo ’15, press secretary for U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse; founder of SquadLocker Gary Goldberg ’87, Emmy Award-nominated television producer Danielle Weiss Medina ’92; reporter/anchor at WPRI12 Kim Kalunian ’07; Associate Judge for the State of Rhode Island Hon. Melissa R. Dubose P’19 ’22; and national best-selling novelist Dawn Tripp P’19 ’24.

Ahead of the event, students selected sessions to attend based on career paths and industries that they wanted to learn more about, and they were each placed in two of their top choices. Before the sessions began, upper schoolers were encouraged to be open to what they might learn and to consider what connections they could make that might be beneficial in the future.

“Make a connection that feels really promising and forward moving,” encouraged Head of Upper School Laura Twichell.  “There's an incredible opportunity today to connect with people who may be real resources for you later.”

Each session featured two to four panelists of professionals who provided career insights to a small group of students. The panelists shared how they decided to pursue their chosen field, what levels of education were required, and what it’s like to work in their profession day-to-day. The panelists also saved time for one-on-one breakout sessions so that students could ask questions and receive personalized advice. 

Many of the day’s visiting professionals noted that it’s difficult to know in high school exactly what direction your career path will take you in the future.

“You just really never know what's out there,” shared Jo Ruano Ames '10, vice president of sales at Garner Health. “I think it's really important to have an open mind as you go through today,” she said. 

The opportunity was not only valuable for the students, but for alumni as well, as it brought their MB experience full circle. 

“I was so excited to be able to come and share some of my 30 years of work experience with the folks here at MB,” said Adrienne Schaberg Filipov '91, managing director and partner, chief human capital officer at Warburg Pincus. 

We hope many of today’s students will be inspired to share their own professional experiences when they become alumni, passing on the tradition for generations to come.

Legendary faculty member and track coach adds to his immeasurable legacy at MB

King B. "Doc" Odell, Jr., the longest-serving faculty member in Moses Brown's history and the track and cross country coach for 40 years, has added to his immeasurable legacy by including in his estate plans the lead gift to support the renovation and revitalization of the outdoor track that was named in his honor in 2005. A revered member of the Moses Brown School community, Doc passed away on September 26, 2023.

In the final months of his life, Doc had several conversations with Karin Morse ’79, Senior Alumni Engagement Officer, and Elizabeth Breidinger, Director of Advancement about his estate plans. Having already made plans to leave the school a transformative gift to support faculty, Doc spoke with Karin and Elizabeth about how much he valued his four decades coaching cross country and track. He wanted his ultimate contribution to the school to reflect his dedication to both teaching and coaching.

“I feel fortunate to have spent time with Doc and am honored to have heard many stories from him and Karin about their lives at Moses Brown,” said Elizabeth Breidinger, Director of Advancement. “When Doc shared his wishes, I was inspired, knowing all that Doc had done for this community over six decades of service. Countless alumni, faculty, and staff have shared the profound impact Doc had on them, and this extraordinary donation is a testament to the impact the Moses Brown community had on Doc. He was excited about this project and said “there is nothing more beautiful than a track meet at night.”  

Doc was best known for his high standards and relentless expectations as a teacher of French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Latin, and as track coach extraordinaire. He came to Moses Brown in 1953, teaching geography to students in grades 6 - 8.

Doc served as the head winter track coach from 1964 to 1997 and the head varsity coach of cross country and spring track from 1964 to 2004. Under his leadership, the teams achieved three Rhode Island Interscholastic League Winter Championships, 22 New England Prep School Track Association Winter Championships, eight New England Cross-Country Championships, 14 spring New England Track Championships, three victories at the Peddie School Relays, and a second-place finish at the Prep School Mile Relay of America at the Penn Relays. While Doc’s track coaching accomplishments are remarkable, his mentorship, guidance, and friendship are what his former students and athletes remember most. 

“One theme I’ve heard consistently from alumni in my first six months at MB is the distinctiveness of the faculty-student relationship,” said Head of School Katie Titus. “Through the voices of alumni at our Memorial Meeting for Worship for Doc Odell this fall, I came to appreciate the many ways in which Doc was a true standard bearer for our school and its faculty; an exemplar of what it means to be fully committed to the intellectual and personal growth of each student. I am in awe of his fierce belief in this school, its Quaker mission, and its people, and am humbled by his ultimate expression of care and generosity.”

Alumnus Ken Hoxsie ’68, shared the tremendous impact Doc’s passion for teaching, and winning, had in shaping his time both at and beyond Moses Brown.

“[Doc was] passionate about teaching, he was tough and demanding in class, insisting on rigor in thought and speech, and everyone who survived those demands emerged the better for it. He was equally tough and demanding as a coach, and he was competitive! As athletes, we were naturally competitive, but Doc’s intensity made us push ourselves and refuse to be satisfied. We re-captured the 4x160 relay state record in 1967 because we knew he wanted it, and that is how inspiring leaders motivate. He always expected nothing less than our best, and he made us expect the same of ourselves.”

Inspired by Doc Odell’s lead gift, the school is launching an intensive fundraising effort to ensure the Odell Track replacement is fully funded through donations. In order to complete the project by Fall 2024, 100% of the project costs need to be secured by mid-March. 

The $3.5 million Doc Odell Track renovation and revitalization project includes the construction of a new track foundation and the installation of a sandwich system, resin-based running surface built to NCAA specifications. The project will include new high jump, pole vault, triple jump, and long jump areas as well as all new track equipment, improved drainage, ADA accessibility, and the infrastructure for future stadium lights.

If you would like to learn more details about the project or making a gift, click here or please contact Elizabeth Breidinger, Director of Advancement at (401) 831-7350 x234 or ebreidinger@mosesbrown.org.