2023-2024

Michael C. Ruger, Chair

1985 Political Science and Psychology
1988 Georgetown University Law Center

Michael Ruger graduated from Penn State in 1985 with degrees in political science and psychology. After graduating from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1988, he joined the Federal Communications Commission as an attorney-advisor. He worked with the FCC for six years, specializing in radio, television and cable regulation. From 1994 through 1998, Michael was an associate with Baker & Hostetler in Washington, DC, where he represented clients before the FCC and on Capitol Hill. In 1998 Michael returned to the Philadelphia area where he was a consultant to clients in the communications and Internet industries, which provided him with the flexibility to work at home while caring for his young son. Michael joined Comcast in 2003, where he is currently Vice President of Government Affairs at the company’s headquarters in Philadelphia. Michael lives in Hopewell Township, New Jersey, with his wife and three sons. In 2017 Michael was elected to the Hopewell Township Committee (NJ) and in 2023 was elected as mayor. Michael is a member of the the Board of Directors of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Mercer County, New Jersey. He previously served as Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Juvenile Law Center.

Christopher O. Adeloye

2003 Political Science
2006 George Washington University Law School

Chris is a staff attorney in the Office of General Counsel for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, DC. His experience includes litigating cases in federal court, providing advice to internal agency clients, preparing officials to testify before the United States Congress, and conducting background investigations of individuals who wish to represent VA benefits claimants. Prior to this work, Chris clerked at the Office of Disciplinary Counsel for the District of Columbia, where he investigated complaints against DC-barred attorneys and assisted in prosecuting ethics violations. While at Penn State, he served as a student member of the University Hearing Board and was a student advisor for Undergraduate Student Government Legal Affairs. While attending law school, he interned at the United States Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, VA. Chris leads the Board’s career readiness task force.

AnnaMaría Colom

1994 International Politics, minor in Spanish
2010 M.B.A., International Business Management, Royal Holloway, University of London
2010 J.D., International Business Law, Inter American University of Puerto Rico School of Law

Anna Maria Colom earned her bachelor’s degree in international politics with a minor in Spanish in 1994, followed by a juris doctorate degree from the Inter American University of Puerto Rico and a master of business administration degree from the University of London. She has had a distinguished career with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security where she currently serves as the director of aviation and marine integration, where she leads the development and implementation of government-wide aviation and marine asset management legislation, policies, regulations, and standards.

Before joining the Department of Homeland Security, Anna Maria held several positions with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration and served as the U.S. Government’s overseas representative for engaging with foreign governments to ensure transportation security at U.S. Embassy Buenos Aires and Santiago. Among other prominent positions, she served as portfolio manager for the western hemisphere with the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aircraft Certification Service and as lead program analyst for the Defense Logistics Agency.

William D. DeGrandis

1977 Political Science
1980 J.D., UCLA

Bill is a partner with Paul Hastings LLP, an international law firm, and has over thirty years of experience in the energy regulatory and transactions area. He concentrates in the development, financing and acquisition/sale of energy infrastructure projects, including renewable energy and other power generation projects, as well as electric transmission and gas pipeline facilities. He has been named an outstanding energy lawyer by Chambers USA, SuperLawyers, Law 500 and the International Project Finance Review. He is a former member of the Energy Bar Association Board of Directors and former Chairman of the Board’s Pro Bono Committee.

He and his wife Monica support the Hyde/Political Science Board of Visitors Early Career Professorship and established a program fund in the Department of Political Science for an Early Career Professorship and student scholarship. He was named the 2014 Outstanding Alumnus by Phi Sigma Kappa—Kappa Chapter, and Bill served as Chairman of the fraternity chapter’s $ 1.4 million Capital Campaign.

Steven B. Kelmar

1979 Public Administration

Steve is retired Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs of Aetna, Inc., a Fortune 100 health care benefits company. Previously, Steve held senior leadership roles at Merck & Co., Novartis AG, and Medtronics. He has served on the board of several health care companies.

In addition, Steve had an accomplished career in public service. He served under President George Bush as Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and was the Chief of Staff for two members of Congress.

Steve was honored with the 2011 Outstanding Political Science Alumnus Award from the College of the Liberal Arts.

Spencer D. Klein

1986 Political Science
1989 J.D., Hofstra University

Spencer is a partner with the law firm, Morrison & Foerster LLP, and serves as Co-Chair of its global Mergers and Acquisitions group. In addition, he is a Special Professor of Law at Hofstra University and a member of the Hofstra Law School Dean’s Advisory Board.

He is a past chair of the Board of Visitors. Spencer and his wife, Andrea, established a Trustee Scholarship in the College of the Liberal Arts, in memory of his father, a Holocaust survivor.

David M. Kleppinger

1977 Political Science
1980 J.D., Temple University

David is Chairman Emeritus of McNees Wallace & Nurick, after serving as Chairman of the Firm for 12 years. He now serves as Chair of the McNees PAC and Co-Chairs the McNees Strategic Solutions Group.

David is also a member of the Energy & Environmental and Government Relations Practice Groups. He represents large commercial and industrial consumers of fixed utility services including electricity, natural gas, water/wastewater, and communications, as well as providers of these services. David led legislative and regulatory initiatives to restructure these industries for customer benefit. He has appeared before over 15 state public utility commissions, the FERC, and numerous state and federal appellate courts. David is a registered lobbyist for the Firm and several of the Firm’s Clients. He is also vice chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Pennsylvania State University.

He and his wife, Joanne, support the Hyde/Political Science Board of Visitors Early Career Professorship and the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State. They also support a family program support fund for baseball in Intercollegiate Athletics.

Frank V. McNamara

1987 Political Science
1990 J.D., University of Pittsburgh

Frank McNamara is a Senior Attorney with 30 years of experience, both internationally and domestically. After working in law firms for many years, he then spent over ten years in the pharmaceutical industry and now leads the legal team for the automotive sector of a FTSE 50 specialty chemicals company. Mr. McNamara’s strengths include complex contract drafting and negotiation, collaboration, business partnering and business/legal analysis. He has a proven track-record of closing a wide variety of transactions in a collaborative and team-oriented fashion.

Mr. McNamara began his career as an Associate Attorney at several major law firms in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, PA. He was elected Partner in 2000 at Saul Ewing in Philadelphia specializing in representing biotechnology, health care and manufacturing clients. Mr. McNamara then joined the in-house legal department of AstraZeneca, a major pharmaceutical company, where he functioned as the primary legal support for the company’s new in-licensing and joint venture strategy. He was asked to relocate to Singapore to build a legal capacity for AstraZeneca’s Asia Pacific Region. In that role, Mr. McNamara acted as the de facto General Counsel for all of the company’s operating subsidiaries in Asia Pacific. Before he moved back to the U.S., he also served as Regional Compliance Director, responsible for driving the company’s compliance agenda throughout Asia Pacific. After returning to the U.S., Mr. McNamara then led multi-functional teams as a Senior Transaction Director for Astra Zeneca and closed several major transactions in furtherance of the company’s global partnering strategy. He worked for 5 years as the Sector General Counsel for Johnson Matthey Inc.’s Clean Air Sector. Johnson Matthey is a 200-year-old UK-based company that trades on the London Stock Exchange. The Sector develops and sells automotive emission control technologies. Mr. McNamara is responsible for all legal matters for this Sector where he manages 14 legal professionals in the US, UK, Germany, China and India.

He served as the EVP, Chief Legal Officer of PrimePay, LLC for 3 years. PrimePay is headquartered in West Chester, PA and has over 400 employees with offices across the US. PrimePay provides small and medium-sized businesses with payroll and tax processing services, employee benefit plans and a host of related human capital management software solutions.

Mr. McNamara has recently joined Restek Corporation in Bellefonte, PA as the company’s VP, General Counsel. Founded in 1985, Restek is a leading developer and manufacturer of chromatography columns, sample preparation and collection products, reference standards, and instrument accessories for analytical chemistry needs across various industries (environmental, pharma and biotech, food). Restek is somewhat unique in that it is 100% employee owned. Mr. McNamara is a member of the company’s Senior Leadership Team.

Mr. McNamara holds a Juris Doctor from The University of Pittsburgh School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from The Pennsylvania State University.

Mr. McNamara is a rabid fan of Penn State athletics, attending games throughout the year. He enjoys golfing and traveling. He and his family have traveled extensively throughout Asia and have experienced
The Great Wall of China, Angkor Wat, The Sydney Opera House and Great Barrier Reef, and the cherry blossoms in Kyoto, Japan.

Thomas C. Merchant

1990 Economics

J.D., New York University School of Law

As Deputy General Counsel, Head of Compliance at Franklin Templeton, Tom is responsible for overseeing the company’s Global Regulatory Compliance, Internal Audit, Internal Controls Review and Legal Contracts Review departments for Franklin Templeton. These departments include almost 200 employees located around the world. Tom joined Franklin Templeton in August 2020 when it acquired Tom’s prior employer Legg Mason, Inc. At Legg Mason, Tom was General Counsel, responsible for overseeing the company’s legal and compliance departments, which included over 100 employees worldwide. Since joining Legg Mason in 1998, he was responsible for the company’s corporate legal activities, including acquisitions, financings and public company reporting. During this time, Tom has led all legal aspects of over 25 acquisitions and dispositions, including the $3.7 billion transaction in which Legg Mason exchanged its retail broker-dealer business for Citigroup’s global asset management business, resulting in Legg Mason focusing on the asset management business and Citigroup exiting the retail mutual fund business. Prior to joining Legg Mason, from 1993 to 1998, he served as a Corporate Associate at the law firm Shearman & Sterling in New York.

Tom’s wife, Jill, is a 1990 Penn State graduate in Business, and former actuarial assistant in the reinsurance industry. Tom is a proud father of three. He is an active mentor to Penn State Liberal Arts undergraduate students and supports the Paterno Fellows Program.

James D. Newell, Immediate Past Chair

1984 Political Science
1987 J.D., Georgetown University

Jim is a Shareholder with Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC, a leading law firm, with expertise in bankruptcy and corporate reorganizations. He regularly lectures on the topics of bankruptcy law and bankruptcy legislation for the American Bankruptcy Institute and the Pennsylvania Bar Institute.

He and his wife, Deborah, support the Hyde/Political Science Board of Visitors Early Career Professorship. They also established a program fund in Political Science and a director’s fund in the Penn State Democracy Institute.

Annette O’Donnell-Butner

1991 Political Science
1994 J.D., Oklahoma City University

Annette is a director and Chief Compliance Officer at KKR Asset Management LLC (KAM), a global investment management and advisory firm, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Kholberg Kravis Roberts & Co L.P. (KKR). With KKR since 2009, Annette is responsible for the administration of the KAM compliance and ethics program, and regulatory obligations. Previously, Ms. O’Donnell-Butner was a Senior Vice President and Deputy Director of Compliance for the Private Investment Management division of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. / Barclays PLC. In 2012, Annette joined the Board of Visitors for the Political Science Department of the Pennsylvania State University.

She is a Liberal Arts mentor and was recognized with the 2012 Outstanding Political Science Alumna Award from the College of the Liberal Arts. She and her husband, Chris, established a student enhancement fund in the Paterno Liberal Arts Undergraduate Fellows Program and a Trustee Matching Scholarship to support a Political Science Student. Annette holds a B.A in Political Science from Pennsylvania State University and a Juris Doctor from Oklahoma City University School of Law. She and her husband Chris live in Orinda with their two sons, Christopher and Anderson.

Scott N. Paul

1989 Foreign Service and International Politics
MA Georgetown

Scott is President of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), a partnership established in 2007 by some of America’s leading manufacturers and the United Steelworkers union. Scott and AAM have worked to make American manufacturing and “Made in America” top-of-mind concerns for voters and our national leaders through effective advocacy, policy development, and data-driven research.

He is a sought-after expert on trade and manufacturing matters, testifying before numerous congressional committees and penning op-eds for The New York Times and other leading publications. He authored a chapter in the 2013 book ReMaking America and has written extensively about Alexander Hamilton’s role in forming U.S. national economic policy. Scott also hosts the Manufacturing Report podcast.

Scott presently serves as chair of the Board’s awards task force. He also serves as the Board Chair of the National Skills Coalition. He sits on the Leadership Council of the Alliance for Manufacturing Foresight.

Raised in the small town of Rensselaer, Indiana, he currently resides in the Washington, DC area with his family.

Leon Shahabian

2001 International Politics
2001 French 

Leon G. Shahabian serves as a principal of Global Insights Group LLC, an advisory services firm, and is a senior associate of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS). 

Leon is a guest lecturer at National Intelligence University in Maryland. He has testified to the UN Security Council in New York. Mr. Shahabian is a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the Middle East Policy Council (MEPC), and a life member of the Public Diplomacy Council of America (PDCA). He is fluent in four languages and has received a certificate in National Security and Strategy from the US Army War College in Pennsylvania.

Leon a recipient of the Penn State Alumni Achievement Award (2013), and the Outstanding Young Alumni Award (2017) of the French and Francophone Studies Department at Penn State.

Amanda L. Wetzel

2002 International Politics
2003 LL.M. in Human Rights Law, Queen’s University of Belfast School of Law, Northern Ireland
2008 J.D., Columbia Law School
2008 Master’s in French Law and Master’s in International Commercial Law, Université Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France

Amanda is a litigation associate at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC, where she is based in the Philadelphia office. She specializes in commercial litigation and arbitration and white collar criminal defense and brings particular expertise to matters with transatlantic elements. She has worked as a litigation associate at law firms in New York and Paris and has handled commercial and criminal litigation matters in the U.S. and French courts. She also has experience litigating before the European Court of Human Rights and other international human rights forums. Amanda clerked on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, was the Dean Acheson Legal Stage at the European Court of Justice, and served as a legal fellow on the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where she worked on treaties.

Amanda is a member of the Pennsylvania and New York bars. She is fluent in French and practiced French law as a member of the Paris bar from 2014 through 2016. Amanda holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School, a Master 1 in French law and a Master 2 in international commercial law from University of Paris I, Pantheon-Sorbonne, and a LL.M. in human rights law from the Queen’s University of Belfast School of Law in Northern Ireland. Amanda completed her undergraduate education in international politics at Penn State University’s Schreyer Honors College.

James “Jay” Yonamine

2007 Political Science, Middlebury College
2011 M.A., Political Science
2013 Ph.D., Political Science

Jay is the Head of Technology and Data Science for the Legal Org at Google. Recruited to a coveted chief data scientist position at one of the world’s largest and most influential technology companies, he is at the forefront of using big data to make policy decisions and balancing human experience and data to achieve optimal results.

He has helped revolutionize the way Google has approached patent quality using the power of data science across its 60,000-plus patent portfolio. A few of his recent accomplishments at Google, where he supervises the patent data science team and a group of patent engineers, include leveraging cutting-edge artificial Intelligence to build a patent claims breadth tool, a patent similarity tool, and a series of dashboards to track and enhance patent quality.

As part of customizing Google’s new intellectual property management system, he and his team executed a large-scale automated cleanup of all the company’s patent data, resulting in corrections of over 200,000 records. His groundbreaking work was on display as a doctoral student at Penn State, where he used his social science methodology training to build accurate and nuanced forecasts of various outcomes-of-interest, ranging from civil war onset to equity market fluctuations. His research focused on international conflict, particularly what caused conflicts to start, escalate, and stop. Jay made methodological innovations and collected new kinds of data to arrive at more accurate and nuanced conclusions than previous researchers.

Jay established an undergraduate scholarship in the College of the Liberal Arts. He volunteers at Penn State in the Liberal Arts mentor program, helping students explore career paths and develop realistic post-college plans. He also serves on the California Advisory Board for TechBridge Girls, a non-profit that provides STEM training to girls in low-income public schools. He lives in New York, New York.