Christopher Adeloye (2003) is a staff attorney in the Office of General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C. His work includes litigating cases in federal court, advising internal agency clients, preparing officials to testify before Congress, and conducting background investigations of individuals seeking to represent VA benefits claimants. Previously, Adeloye clerked at the Office of Disciplinary Counsel for the District of Columbia, where he investigated complaints against D.C.-barred attorneys and assisted in prosecuting ethics violations. While at Penn State, he served as a student member of the University Hearing Board and as a student advisor for Undergraduate Student Government Legal Affairs. Adeloye earned his JD from the George Washington University Law School and interned at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, Virginia, during law school. He currently leads the Board’s career readiness task force.

AnnaMaría Colom (1994) is director of the European Division for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where she oversees international agreements with multiple countries and leads capacity-building initiatives to advance the agency’s priorities and budget allocations. She manages CBP offices at eight U.S. embassies in Europe and represents the agency at the World Customs Organization. Colom earned a degree in international politics with a minor in Spanish from Penn State (1994), a JD from the Inter American University School of Law in Puerto Rico (1998), and an MBA in international business management from Royal Holloway, University of London (2010). Previously, she directed aviation and marine integration at the Department of Homeland Security, where she guided the management of $20 billion in federal assets and chaired the DHS Aviation and Boat Forces Governance Boards. She has also served as a DHS attaché in South America and is fluent in Spanish, Italian, French, Catalan, and Portuguese.

Member Emeritus Bill DeGrandis is an attorney with more than forty-four years of experience in energy industry matters. Before retiring in January 2025, he practiced for thirty-eight years at Paul Hastings, a global law firm with more than 1,100 lawyers, where he was a partner in the Energy/Infrastructure Group and led the firm’s Energy Regulatory Team. In that capacity, he worked extensively on regulatory and transactional issues involving renewable and non-renewable generation, electric storage, transmission, and data center projects. After retirement, DeGrandis founded his own consulting firm, continuing to advise clients on energy regulatory and transactional matters. He also serves as chief regulatory advisor to Grid Reform.

DeGrandis earned a BA in political science from Penn State (1977, with highest distinction) and a JD from the UCLA School of Law (1980), where he was comments editor of the UCLA Law Review. He and his wife, Monica, established a program fund to support both an early professorship and a full professorship in the College of the Liberal Arts. He received the college’s Outstanding Service to Society Award in 2019 and was recognized in 2014 as an Outstanding Alum of Phi Sigma Kappa—Kappa Chapter.

Michael Gilotti is a consultant and advisor to the financial services and insurance industry with more than forty years of experience in insurance and investments. He joined GRNEAM in 2007 as a new business development professional, responsible for marketing strategy and business development for the firm’s insurance company investment and capital management services and retired from that role in 2015. Previously, Gilotti was chief executive officer of Advisors Financial Solutions, Inc., and executive vice president for wholesale distribution and marketing at the Phoenix Companies, Inc. Earlier in his career, he led bank and broker-dealer operations at Aetna Financial Services, was a senior executive and partner at Eden Financial Group, and served as group vice president at Security First Group. He began his career as an agent with Northwestern Mutual.

Gilotti is a past chairman and board member of the Insured Retirement Institute and a recipient of its Hall of Fame Award. He earned a BA in political science from Penn State and is a member emeritus of the university’s Political Science Department Board of Visitors in the College of the Liberal Arts.

Steven Kelmar (1979) is the retired executive vice president of corporate affairs at Aetna Inc.; a Fortune 100 health care benefits company. Over the course of his career, he held senior leadership roles at Merck & Co., Novartis AG, and Medtronic, and he has served on the boards of several health care companies. Kelmar also had a distinguished career in public service, including serving as assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under President George H. W. Bush and as chief of staff to two members of Congress. He was honored with the 2011 Outstanding Political Science Alumnus Award from Penn State’s College of the Liberal Arts.

Spencer D. Klein (B.A. in political science, 1986; J.D., Hofstra University, 1989) is a partner at Morrison & Foerster LLP, where he serves as co-chair of the firm’s global Mergers and Acquisitions group. He is also a special professor of law at Hofstra University School of Law and chairs the Hofstra Law Review Alumni School Dean’s Advisory Board.

A former chair of the Board of Visitors for the Department of Political Science, Klein and his wife, Andrea, established a trustee scholarship in the college to honor his late father, a Holocaust survivor.

David M. Kleppinger was appointed to the Penn State Board of Trustees by Governor Tom Wolf in January 2017. He was elected vice chair in 2020 and assumed the role of chair in 2024.

Kleppinger earned his BA (1977) from Penn State and his JD (1980) from the Temple University School of Law. He is chairman emeritus at McNees Wallace and Nurick LLC, a law firm in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, after serving as chairman for 12 years. He served as vice chair of the board of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry from 2015–2018 and as chair from 2019–2020. At Penn State, he is a member of the College of the Liberal Arts Political Science Department’s Board of Visitors, for which he served as chair from 2013–2015.

Thomas C. Merchant is general counsel of Franklin Templeton, where he oversees the company’s global Legal, Compliance, Internal Audit, and Luxembourg fund operations functions. These departments comprise nearly 500 employees worldwide. Before assuming this role, he was deputy general counsel and head of compliance, responsible for global regulatory compliance, internal audit, and multiple legal departments.

Merchant joined Franklin Templeton in 2020 following its acquisition of Legg Mason, Inc., where he had served as general counsel. During his twenty-two years with Legg Mason, he directed legal activities involving acquisitions, financings, and corporate reporting, and led more than twenty-five transactions, including the landmark $3.7 billion exchange of its retail brokerdealer business for Citigroup’s global asset management unit. Earlier in his career, Merchant was a corporate associate at Shearman & Sterling in New York. He earned a JD from New York University School of Law. Merchant and his wife, Jill (Business ’90), have three children and remain active supporters of Penn State.

James Newell (1984) is a shareholder with Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC, where he focuses on bankruptcy and corporate reorganizations. He has extensive experience guiding clients through complex restructurings and regularly lectures on bankruptcy law and legislation for the American Bankruptcy Institute and the Pennsylvania Bar Institute. Newell earned a JD from Georgetown University (1987). With his wife, Deborah, he supports the Hyde/Political Science Board of Visitors Early Career Professorship, and they have established both a program fund in the Department of Political Science and a director’s fund in the Penn State Democracy Institute.

Annette O’Donnell-Butner is managing director and chief compliance officer at KKR Credit Advisors (US) LLC, a global alternative investment management and advisory firm and subsidiary of KKR & Co. Inc. She has led the firm’s compliance and ethics program since 2009. Previously, she served as senior vice president and deputy director of compliance for the Private Investment Management division of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. / Barclays PLC.

A Penn State political science alumna, O’Donnell-Butner earned her juris doctor from Oklahoma City University School of Law. She is a Liberal Arts mentor, has served on the Political Science Department’s Board of Visitors since 2012, and received the college’s Outstanding Political Science Alumna Award that same year. She and her husband, Chris, established a student enhancement fund in the Paterno Fellows Program and a Trustee Matching Scholarship for political science students. They live in Orinda, California, and have two adult sons, Christopher and Anderson.

Scott Paul is president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), a nonprofit partnership founded in 2007 by leading U.S. manufacturers and the United Steelworkers union. A Penn State graduate (BA in foreign service and international politics, 1989), he earned his MA in security studies (2004) from Georgetown University.

Under Paul’s leadership, AAM has elevated American manufacturing and “Made in America” as top policy priorities through strategic advocacy, policy development, and data-driven research. A sought-after expert on trade and manufacturing, he has testified before numerous congressional committees, published op-eds in The New York Times and other leading outlets, and authored a chapter in the 2013 book ReMaking America. He also hosts the Manufacturing Report podcast.

Paul is the past chair of the Department of Political Science Board of Visitors awards task force and previously served as board chair of the National Skills Coalition. Raised in Rensselaer, Indiana, he lives in the Washington, D.C., area with his family.

Michael Ruger is vice president of local government affairs policy and operations at Comcast’s headquarters in Philadelphia. A Penn State graduate (BA in political science/BA in psychology, 1985), he earned his JD from the Georgetown University Law Center. He has worked for the Federal Communications Commission, the law firm of Baker & Hostetler, and as a consultant.

Ruger lives in Hopewell Township, New Jersey, with his wife, Tracy Vogler, and their three children. Elected to the Hopewell Township Committee in 2017, he has served as mayor and deputy mayor and is currently a committee member. He chairs the Political Science Department Board of Visitors at Penn State and the board of directors of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Mercer County, New Jersey, and previously served as vice president of the board of directors of the Juvenile Law Center. He received a Heartland Regional Emmy Award in 2007 for a program on teen eating disorders.

Leon G. Shahabian is a principal of Global Insights Group LLC, an advisory services firm, and a senior associate of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS). A Penn State graduate (BA in international politics/BA in French, 2001), he also holds a certificate in national security and strategy from the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania.  Shahabian is a guest lecturer at the National Intelligence University in Maryland and has testified before the United Nations Security Council in New York. He serves on the executive committee of the board of directors of the Middle East Policy Council and is a life member of the Public Diplomacy Council of America. Fluent in four languages, he received Penn State’s Alumni Achievement Award (2013) and the French and Francophone Studies Department’s Outstanding Young Alumni Award (2017).

Amanda Wetzel is a litigation associate at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC in Philadelphia, where she focuses on commercial litigation and arbitration as well as white-collar criminal defense, with particular expertise in matters involving transatlantic elements. She has practiced at law firms in New York and Paris, handling commercial and criminal cases in both U.S. and French courts, and has litigated before the European Court of Human Rights and other international human rights forums. Wetzel clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, served as a Dean Acheson Legal Stage at the European Court of Justice, and worked as a legal fellow on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. She earned an LL.M. in human rights law from Queen’s University of Belfast (2003), a JD from Columbia Law School (2008), and dual master’s degrees in French and international commercial law from Université Paris I (2008).

James “Jay” Yonamine (2007) is head of technology and data science for the Legal Organization at Google, where he leads the patent data science team and a group of patent engineers. He has helped transform how Google approaches patent quality across its 60,000-plus patent portfolio, developing tools that leverage artificial intelligence to assess patent breadth and similarity and creating dashboards to track and enhance patent quality. Yonamine also spearheaded a large-scale cleanup of Google’s intellectual property data, correcting more than 200,000 records. He earned an MA (2011) and PhD (2013) in political science from Penn State, where his research on international conflict advanced forecasting methods for civil war, market fluctuations, and other outcomes. Yonamine has established an undergraduate scholarship in the College of the Liberal Arts, mentors students through the Liberal Arts Alumni Mentor Program, and serves on the California Advisory Board for TechBridge Girls. He lives in New York City.