Chris Majkowski engineers and produces the Mets’ radio broadcasts on WFAN. It’s a job he landed in 1993, four years after graduating from Fordham, where he was sports director at WFUV. And he hasn’t missed a day of work for the Mets since his sister’s wedding the year he started.

What does your average Mets game day look like?
If it’s a night game, I’ll get to the ballpark around 3 p.m., about four hours before first pitch, and just set up the booth—do all the cabling, check all the connections, check the studio.

And then it’s, “Okay, what are we doing on the pregame show today?” Then we have other segments during the game: “This Date in Mets’ History” and the “Electrifying Play of the Game.” The sound needs to be edited for that and I will do research for “This Date.”

Then the broadcasters and I go through the news and the notes from the day, not just for our game but for the rest of the league. We make sure we go through the commercial log. And then I’ll get something to eat and it’s “play ball.”

And then what are you doing during the game?
If something comes up during the game, like [play-by-play announcer] Howie Rose, says, “Hey, I remember back in … ” or whatever, I’ll look into that. And the whole time, I’m also mixing the show. If something’s happening and the announcers are yelling and the crowd is loud, you have to balance that.

I also do the posts for the Mets Radio Booth X account to keep the masses informed and say, “Hey, something’s happening. Maybe you want to tune in.” Don’t ever say that there’s a no-hitter going, though, because then the fans tell you that you jinxed it all if it doesn’t happen.

Next year, you’ll potentially work your 5,000th consecutive game. Do you get sick of hearing or thinking about that streak?
So, the funny thing is, I recently worked an event for Bloomberg Radio, and Cal Ripken Jr., who of course has the streak of 2,632 straight games that he played, was there as a guest. I’m not one to ever ask for a picture or anything, [but] I wish I had because I think that that would’ve been pretty neat.

Back in August, I worked my 5,000th game overall. The 5,000th straight game will happen sometime next year. Well, 5,000 is a nice round number, so maybe I’ll take the next day off.

Do you have any favorite road cities or ballparks?
San Francisco, Chicago, San Diego for the city. Boston as well. That’s not an every-year stop, but Fenway is great, and Boston as a city is great. We had a couple games against the Phillies in London back in June, and we went to Tokyo in 2000.

Maybe I’ll start cutting back so I can go back for a trip to London or maybe a trip to Tokyo where I don’t have any responsibilities and can just be a tourist.

Was there a moment you realized this year’s team might have something special?
Maybe you look back and you say, “That was the moment,” but that’s only looking back. Earlier in the season, we were thinking, “Oh, this is one of those years,” and it’s all down and out. And then suddenly, we’re flying to California for a League Championship Series and hopefully beyond. So yeah, it has been remarkable.

We’ve had a couple of years—2015, now this year—where you have the moments when the stadium becomes more of a home. This is our place now. It’s not just another ballpark, not just another booth, but this is home.

RELATED STORY: New York Mets Radio Engineer Shares 5 Most Memorable Moments

How did you decide to go to Fordham and get involved with WFUV?
At Herricks High School [on Long Island], there was an English teacher who was a Fordham alum, and he always tried to steer one or two of us a year to Fordham. Around that same time I had started listening to One on One, FUV’s sports call-in show on the weekend. So, through Mr. Desmond at Herricks High School, and then listening to FUV, I was introduced to Fordham, and I applied and got in.

When I got to Fordham, I thought I would go more toward writing and just never made it to the newspaper. A bunch of friends and I were all commuter students and instead of hanging out in the commuter lounge, we hung out in the hallway at FUV.

I started doing some stuff on air. By the time senior year rolled around, I was the sports director. We were doing the play-by-play for football and basketball and even some baseball. There’s a group of us from the radio station who still are close, and we get the whole gang together when we can.

And you still do public address work at Fordham too?
Yep. I was still in school, and I started doing the public address for some of the women’s basketball games. I’ve continued to do that to this day. Joe DiBari and the folks over in the athletic department are very accommodating. They’ll say, “Hey man, whenever your schedule allows, we’d love to have you up to still do the game.”

So I still do a couple of football games a year and about 20 basketball games between the men and the women. In a way, it’s like I never left because I’m still up there all the time. Once Fordham gets in your blood, it’s tough to get it out.

Interview conducted, condensed, and edited by Adam Kaufman, FCLC ’08.

This story was updated on October 25.

On Sunday evening, the show won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Scripted Variety Series—its ninth win in a row—and as senior writer on the show, Vali took home his eighth Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series, a dynastic run of critical success that he calls “humbling.” The show, which each week takes an irreverent deep dive into a broad range of issues like net neutrality, televangelism, and predatory lending, also earned Vali a prestigious Peabody Award in 2018. Fordham Magazine spoke with the 2010 Fordham College at Rose Hill grad about the role comedy plays in tackling big issues, why Oliver is so good at what he does, and, naturally, the thrills of ice climbing.     

What are some of the big differences you encountered going from a print/digital publication to working on a weekly TV show?
I think the biggest thing is that here, there’s such a heavy research element to the show. Obviously we did research at The Onion, and we wanted things to be accurate in the world of the stories, but we weren’t really consulting experts from Harvard about anything.

To give you a rundown of how we make a story, a topic is pitched and the research team will compile a document that can be 100 pages, like “I’ve talked to people at Boeing, I’ve talked to people who are experts in aviation at various universities.” And meanwhile, the footage department will compile documentaries and news reports, all sorts of footage, as well as funny clips that we could potentially use. Most stories here are a four- or five- or six-week process.

Another element I’m really interested in is that you’re writing for a specific person—a specific voice—in John Oliver. How did you get used to writing things for his particular delivery?
It was its own bit of a learning curve. But then once you know where the boundaries are and what works and what doesn’t, you can just have fun.

To John’s credit, I think he does a great job of adopting elements of our comedic voices as writers. So there are definitely jokes where he’s obviously speaking as himself, but I am injecting my comedic sensibility in there as well, and he is manifesting that. It’s a cool two-way street where we’re writing for his voice, but he is also giving us the freedom to write in our own voices and he will find his own way to perform it.

How would you describe what makes something funny coming from him?
He has a humongous comedic range, which is why I think he’s able to manifest different writers’ voices. I always write long runs with him being obsessive over weird things, where he’ll zero in on some weird esoteric thing that is only tangentially related to the topic of the show and talk about it for six minutes—where he’ll be really into weightlifting or really into horses or really into aquatic life. Those are always really fun for me. I feel like it gives us the opportunity as writers to obsess over those topics.

While it’s not necessarily focused on electoral politics, Last Week Tonight is certainly a political comedy show in some ways. What do you see as the societal role of that style of comedy?
I think everyone falls on a different spot on that map of making people laugh versus taking a more activist approach towards what you’re writing. The kind of comedy and satire that I find to be the most effective is when you’re talking about something that’s a really difficult issue, but you’re finding a moment of catharsis that everyone can collectively feel.

I don’t know if we’re going to change anyone’s mind on anything. I’m guessing that most of the people who watch this show are probably more politically aligned with us than not. But I do think if you can make them think about something in a way that they hadn’t before, that’s a success. And if you can do that while making them laugh and entertaining them—that’s what I strive to do.

One thing that I think is smart about the show is that there are often built-in calls to action—and some of those are really funny calls to action that speak to the absurdity of a situation.
Totally. And I think we like highlighting things that are maybe on the more boring side or technical side of politics—something as technical as gerrymandering or zoning. It’s cool to put a magnifying glass on things that can go under the radar but that are actually really important.

Between seasons, I’m sure there’s a lot of work being done, but presumably you have at least a little bit of a break there. How do you spend that time?
Yeah, we usually get about seven or eight weeks between seasons. It’s really nice to have a break to decompress and work on my own personal writing. And I also really like ice climbing, so I go to western Colorado and ice climb for a few weeks, which is always fun.

Oh wow, ice climbing?!
Yeah, I started getting into it around 2019. I tried it for the first time and I started getting super into it. There’s a place in southwestern Colorado called Ouray that actually has an ice climbing park. It’s a gorge that they water and they actually make ice on it. I’ve been going there for a few weeks every year for the last few years. Just getting to play in this ice wonderland for a few weeks is a nice way to decompress after the season, and then I feel like I’m rebalanced and ready to go for the new one.

Interview conducted, edited, and condensed by Adam Kaufman, FCLC ’08.

That support is one of the reasons behind Blaney-Petralia’s ongoing philanthropy. In fact, giving back isn’t just something she does for Fordham students; she’s dedicated her career to it and had a profound impact on the city she loves.

As the development lead for Bloomberg Philanthropies, she’s responsible for finding sponsors and funding for a variety of projects, from the National September 11 Memorial & Museum and the Perelman Performing Arts Center in Lower Manhattan to Everytown for Gun Safety. “Projects are sustainable the more people you have involved,” she said, so she tries to get people engaged with “causes that really affect us all—from climate change to feeling secure in your homes.”

From the Outer Boroughs to the Heart of Manhattan

Another reason she continues to support Fordham? As a student from working-class Jackson Heights, Queens, Blaney-Petralia wouldn’t have been able to attend the University without the scholarship she was awarded.

“Fordham really stepped up to bring in kids from the outer boroughs,” said Blaney-Petralia, who majored in political science at Fordham and went on to earn a law degree from St. John’s University. “Lincoln Center really embraced … good, smart, hardworking kids that couldn’t have otherwise afforded a college education.”

The school also made sure she and her classmates, all commuters at the time, got to know the city—and feel at home exploring it, she said. Professors took them to “all kinds of interesting places” around Manhattan, from museums and Broadway theaters to movies and the opera.

“You got to experience so much, and at the same time, you always had a safe haven at Fordham,” she said, adding that her professors’ expertise made the outings all the more enriching. ”I don’t know that I would’ve really understood whatever the opera was that we went to see. It gave me an appreciation for areas I might not have even ventured to explore.”

Back on Campus

Today, as a member of the Fordham President’s Council, she works with the University and other alumni philanthropists to fund key initiatives and help make sure students get the same financial and moral support she did.

She serves as a mentor, helps students attain internships at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, and visits Fordham classrooms to share career tips and advice. In fact, each year, she and her “best friend from college,” Anne Williams-Isom, FCLC ’86, New York City’s deputy mayor for health and human services, form a “tag team” and speak to pre-law students about the skills and career paths a law education can provide.

‘The Fordham Way’

Blaney-Petralia’s advice for Fordham grads is simple: Show up. Mentorship—both giving and receiving—is the “Fordham way,” she said. “At some point, we have to give back to [our fellow]Rams.”

And she tells students and recent grads that they can find career success by learning the workplace culture and being a part of it. But they shouldn’t be too hard on themselves, she said.

“Give yourself a little slack. You’re not going to know it the first day, but if you work hard and if you are lucky enough to find good mentors, the sky’s the limit.”

Fordham Five

What are you most passionate about?
My family—my son, my daughter, my husband, and my golden doodle!

What advice do you have for Fordham students and grads?
Never stop learning, never stop exploring, never feel like you are in one area and you’re sort of pigeonholed. Fordham didn’t do that, right? Fordham is the place where you can specialize, but you don’t have to compartmentalize.

What’s your favorite place in New York City?
The World Trade Center site, where you find the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum and the Perelman Performing Arts Center—the places to go to remember and honor, and to celebrate life, respectively.

In the world? The Serpentine Galleries in Kensington Gardens, London.

Name a book that has had a lasting influence on you.
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Who is someone at Fordham who made a difference to you?
There was my advisor, Susan Abrams Beck, associate professor of political science emerita. I can still picture her. And she was amazing: She was always available, and she really gave me direction. She wrote great references and was just so approachable. I really remain feeling blessed that she was my advisor.

If you walk through the “Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism” exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art—on view through July 28—you might be struck by many paintings and sculptures in their own right. But as you pass from gallery to gallery, you may also feel like you’re being guided through a conversation with everything you see.  

That kind of conversation—between works of art and viewers—is one that Fabiana Weinberg, FCLC ’07, hopes to facilitate in her role as senior exhibition designer at the Met.

“For me, it’s always a question of how do you breathe new life into these things every single time and provide the space for a dialogue with them?” Weinberg says. “I like the permanence of material culture, but also the ability to constantly think about it and marinate on it.”

The Harlem Renaissance exhibit gives people plenty to think about, including how to bring a “still-neglected art history out of the wings and onto the main stage,” as New York Times critic Holland Carter put it. The exhibit does that by featuring Black American artists from the 1920s to the 1940s like William H. Johnson, Laura Wheeler Waring, and Aaron Douglas—whose 1934 large-scale painting, Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery Through Reconstruction, inspired the soft color palette for the gallery walls—along with portrayals of the African diaspora by European artists like Henri Matisse, Edvard Munch, and Pablo Picasso.

“This show is really exciting because there are a lot of paintings but also ephemera and magazines and books and sculpture,” Weinberg says. “It’s a really immersive experience going through the galleries. A lot of these works are on view for the first time, and it’s really about expanding the canon.”

Weinberg majored in visual arts and art history at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, and after graduating in 2007, she earned a master’s degree in architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design. She uses all that academic training to think broadly about the aesthetic and design choices that go into museum exhibits—from sketching design ideas, to using 3D-rendering software to move pieces of art around in a virtual replica of a gallery, to collaborating with tradespeople to build out the physical walls and cases and with curators to decide how to best showcase their selected works.

Her way of thinking about how people engage with art, though, began much earlier.

An Artistic Childhood and an Ideas-Driven Education

Weinberg grew up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. As a kid, she trained to be a dancer, and her parents—a mother who was a photographer and a Fordham grad and a businessman father who became a high school teacher after earning a Fordham degree—frequently brought her to museums and exposed her to a wide range of performing arts.

At Fordham, she initially focused on natural sciences, but something clicked when she took an art history course—she decided to change majors. She says that Fordham’s core curriculum also gave her a foundation that added texture to her studies. “One thing I really always liked about Fordham’s approach is it was always ideas-driven, like, ‘What are you trying to say? What are you trying to do?’ And what it looks like—that comes later.”

After finishing her master’s in 2012, Weinberg moved back to New York and worked a variety of jobs across the design landscape, from scenic design to lighting design. The following year, she saw a posting for an exhibition designer position at the Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea. Although she had no experience in exhibition design, she heard back from the Rubin’s head of design, John Monaco, a former sculptor who saw promise in her application. She went on to spend four years at the Rubin before moving on to the Met in 2017.

‘Every Single Thing is a Decision’

In her time at the Met, Weinberg has designed or co-designed several premier shows, including 2020’s “Making the Met,” which looked back at the institution’s 150-year history; 2021’s Alice Neel retrospective; and “Before Yesterday We Could Fly,” an Afrofuturist period room that opened in 2021 and remains on display.

Last December, she gave a group of Fordham alumni a private, behind-the-scenes look at “Africa & Byzantium,” which highlighted the artistic connections between these two geographically distant ancient civilizations. Before seeing the exhibit, which was darkly lit and made use of striking gold wall text, the alumni gathered in a conference room in the museum’s design department, where Weinberg demonstrated the Vectorworks 3D design software she and her colleagues use to plan out exhibitions.

“There’s still nothing like having a drawing that you see in your mind and then spatialize in a 3D model and then go into the gallery and see it being built,” she says of the work. “It’s thrilling.”

For the Harlem Renaissance exhibit, Weinberg says she tried to give viewers a sense of scale from room to room—and offer a contrast between some of the more esoteric written pieces on display and other sections with bursts of color and city life.

“At the beginning,” she explains, “there’s an introduction to the thinkers of the time, and we really wanted to create intimacy with these figures that really set the stage for what you’re going to see later. And then we have another gallery about city life that we wanted to open up. … So, using paint color and proportions of the space and dimensions, [we] give those different senses of scale between the intimacy of more domestic spaces and then more open, larger spaces.”

Weinberg says the breadth of her experience—from childhood museum visits to her understanding of space through dance—has helped her develop her eye for design. And while museum exhibition design wasn’t something she consciously thought about on all those childhood trips, it’s now front of mind for her. “When I go to museums, I can’t unsee how the spaces are designed,” she says. “Every single thing is a decision.”

Reopening: The Broadway Revival debuted in early 2022 as part of PBS’ Great Performances series, with DiLella as host and executive producer.

It was another high point in his nearly two-decade career as an entertainment journalist, one that began with an internship at Spectrum News NY1 when he was a Fordham student. Today, he’s best known as the host of On Stage, NY1’s acclaimed weekly theater show. His numerous celebrity interviews and in-depth reporting have endeared him to artists and fans alike, and earned him 11 New York Emmy Awards.

Since 2013, he’s also been sharing his knowledge and experience with students. He teaches a course, Theater Journalism, at the University’s Lincoln Center campus, and has been mentoring a new generation of Fordham-educated Broadway professionals.

He sat down with Fordham Magazine just before the Tony Awards to reflect on his career path and share one of his most memorable celebrity stories.

You are a huge cheerleader for all things Fordham. What initially drew you here?
Fordham was my first choice. I grew up in Philadelphia, and both my parents went to Saint Joseph’s University, which is the Jesuit university there. So we were very familiar with Jesuit, liberal arts education—the idea of coming to college and exploring, and truly having this university journey of figuring out what you want to be and what you want to do.

And at Fordham, you marry that with the greatest city in the world, New York City, which has always felt like my home away from home—and has now been my home for 20-plus years. It doesn’t get better than Fordham.

You achieved great success by blending your passion for theater with a new one that you found here. What kind of mentorship did you receive?
I came into Fordham thinking that I was going to pursue acting, but I took an intro to communications course, and my professor, Lewis Freeman, polled the class: “How many of you have thought about being a reporter?” I remember raising my hand. I grew up loving shows like Dateline NBC and 20/20.

He said, “If you are lucky enough, get yourself an internship at Spectrum News New York 1—you can explore and learn what it takes to be in the business and they have an amazing internship program.” That summer, I applied. I was also up for a role in a professional production of Hair in Brooklyn. And I kind of told myself, “Whatever is meant to be is meant to be.” I got NY1 and never looked back.

Photo courtesy of Frank DiLella

You came here with dreams of breaking into the theater world, and now you’re such an integral part of it. What is it like to be part of the Fordham community on Broadway?
We’re called the “Fordham Posse.” When it’s revealed to someone that you went to Fordham, it’s like, “Oh, we’re part of the same family.”

I think of John Johnson, who is a celebrated theater producer who graduated in 2002, the year I started, but would always come back—again, this family mentality. He’s someone I definitely looked up to. Van Hughes, who has gone on to be in various Broadway shows, was part of my crew. Taylor Schilling from Orange is the New Black. Kelley Curran was my close friend. Paul Wontorek too—he’s the editor-in-chief for Broadway.com, and we are very much working colleagues. There is definitely a lot of Fordham love to go around.

You’ve interviewed just about every famous actor that has come through Broadway over your time at NY1. Do you have a favorite story?
I got to know Elaine Stritch very well. She had a residency at the Café Carlyle for years, and like clockwork, every spring I would sit down with her. Towards the end of her life, I got a call saying, “Elaine would like to speak to you to do a story.” I went to her residence, and she couldn’t sit up, so she said to me, “Frank, get in bed with me. Just talk to me about my life.”

Now, this is a woman who was very close to Judy Garland. She went on a date with JFK. She was close friends with Ethel Merman. To me, she is what we think of when we think of legends of Broadway, absolute legends of entertainment. I mean, the stories that she had, I’ll never forget that. We had so much fun. We had so many laughs.

There’s a clip of Hugh Jackman ending an interview with you saying, “Thanks Frank, you’re the best.” How does it feel to be such a trusted figure among these incredible artists?
Having access and trust with these artists—for them to open up to me and feel comfortable opening up for me—that is a true gift. And that’s one of my favorite things about this job. I’m so grateful to get to be with these people to tell the stories.

Interview conducted, edited, and condensed by Franco Giacomarra, FCLC ’19.

Related Story: What to See on Broadway This Summer
Frank DiLella shares his recommendations—from the latest Tony winners to the next big hits.

Beyond her own projects—including Callaloo, a children’s book and media brand that got the attention of PBS Kids—she’s been making her mark on Broadway as a co-producer of shows such as The Wiz and the Alicia Keys musical Hell’s Kitchen, for which she and her fellow producers were nominated for a 2024 Tony Award.

Tell me about how you got into acting and how you found your way to Fordham.
I grew up in D.C. My mom is from Trinidad, and my dad is African American. At home, the arts and storytelling were celebrated. I studied musical theater in high school at Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and the dream was to come to New York and be on Broadway.

What intrigued me about Fordham was the fact that you could double major. I was interested in so many different things that I didn’t want to just go to an acting conservatory. I was very invested in the Fordham Theatre program itself and how the University could help me grow.

Did your thinking about your career change during college?
I wasn’t coming out of Fordham saying, “I want to own my own business.” I wanted to be an actor. For about a year after graduating, I auditioned and hustled, and I found that I wanted to do other things. Fordham taught me a lot with my extracurricular involvement. I was part of the Black student club, and a lot of the skills that I was learning—building out events, budgeting, marketing events, bringing an audience together, cross-collaboration with other student clubs—those were all skills that taught me how to produce.

Tell me about your production company, Sepia Works. What has the trajectory been like?
The growth has been incredible. The company started with my one-woman play Girls! Girls? Girls., which took me out to LA and I started doing more film and TV work. My second piece, Callaloo, started off as a play but then turned into a book series and a show with puppetry. Then these bigger companies—Sesame Street, PBS Kids—started calling. And because I was creating my own stories and my own narratives, I had more power in the room.

Why did you decide to start the Canady Foundation for the Arts?
I realized that Callaloo was impacting young people, and we needed more support in the nonprofit space to serve children with literacy and early child development work. The foundation has also grown exponentially since 2015. We now have a staff, we have ongoing programming. We serve young people from 3 all the way to 18. Partnership and collaboration have been such a huge part of the growth.

What does your average day look like?
Every day is different, and I love that. But my days are made up of routine: I get up, I get my daughter to school, I work out in the morning, and then I try to schedule something. I have to have some type of structure. Being a mom also has forced me to prioritize and to know that at a certain time, I have to stop working. I can’t work the way that I worked in my 20s.

How do you balance not only the work but those parts of your identity—thinking like both an artist and an entrepreneur?
Honestly, it’s very hard. And it took me a long time to figure out my workflow and my balance. I would say at this point in my life, I have an amazing team that can manage a lot of the business stuff for me, but in the early stages, I did everything. And I think that makes the best leaders. You have to be able to have a grasp of every role, and be able to roll your sleeves up and do the work. And I think you also just have to carve out time to rest and to focus on your craft.

At times when I get overwhelmed, I like to step back and take time for gratitude and acknowledge that there’s creativity in everything that is going on in the room, whether it’s the business side or the actual creative side. That’s what makes it fun.

Interview conducted, edited, and condensed by Adam Kaufman, FCLC ’08.

“It’ll be the first time that my husband and I are bringing our daughter to the Fordham campus,” she said of Jubilee Weekend, to be held May 31 to June 2. The couple were married in the University Church in 2015 and welcomed a baby girl this spring. They’re among hundreds of alumni planning to return to campus for the festivities.

“I’m really looking forward to meeting up with some friends who also have kids—who will be bringing them to Fordham for the first time—because it’s just such a special place for us and we’re really looking forward to introducing them to it,” said Schwall-Pecci, a 2009 Fordham College at Rose Hill graduate.

Building a Skillset

Meeting her husband, Robert Pecci, GABELLI ’08, on campus isn’t the only reason Fordham holds a special place in the Long Island native’s heart. Rose Hill is also where she found faculty mentors. She majored in biology and minored in chemistry and sociology, which helped her build both the hard and soft skills needed to launch a successful career in health care communications, she said.

Working closely with professor Ipsita Banerjee, Ph.D., during her sophomore year, Schwall-Pecci researched nanotubes and protein hormones with the potential to advance drug delivery and the treatment of diabetes. She later earned a Clare Boothe Luce fellowship, which enabled her to conduct research in Germany the summer before her senior year. And after graduating from Fordham, she earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry.

A Sense of Belonging

She also found that Fordham’s Jesuit identity instilled in her—and other students—“a sense of belonging and wanting to give back, and feeling like you’re a part of a community that is responsible for helping better the world around you.”

That commitment to giving back is why she’s chosen a career path that enables her to promote better public health. As a senior vice president at BGB Group, she works to make complex scientific concepts and information accessible for patients. She’s also a longstanding volunteer with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She first began volunteering with the organization after her father died from cancer when she was a student at Fordham.

When her father was diagnosed, she “was overwhelmed and naive to the fact that anything bad could actually happen to him,” she recently wrote for BGB Group. Her mother felt “numb, in denial, confused, frustrated, overwhelmed, helpless, and hopeless,” Schwall-Pecci shared. It’s an experience that fuels her commitment to helping patients and their families process their diagnoses, ask the right questions, and make informed decisions about their health care.

Staying Connected with Her Fellow Rams

Following graduation, Schwall-Pecci was a member of the Young Alumni Committee, an advisory and programming board for graduates of the past 10 years. She’s past that 10-year cap now, but she’s stayed connected to Fordham however she can—participating in panels, mentoring students, and speaking at events. And her first impression of the Rose Hill campus still rings true.

“I just felt like the people who were going there, who had chosen to go to Fordham, had a similar kind of mindset and values as I had and were the kind of people that I wanted to surround myself with,” she said.

Fordham Five

What are you most passionate about?
Health education and access to quality medical care and information. Medicine is inherently defined by specialized language that may not be the easiest to digest, especially when you are newly diagnosed. I want everyone to feel empowered to make decisions with their care providers and ask informed questions.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Take what you do seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously! It’s all about enjoying the journey—be committed to what you are passionate about, but don’t worry about making mistakes or changing your mind along the way.

What’s your favorite place in New York City? In the world?
This is so hard—how do I choose? In NYC, it is honestly probably the Fordham campus in the Bronx, as cheesy as that sounds. That is where I met my husband and we got married, so it will always be one of my happy places. And in the world, it is likely Abisko, in the very north of Sweden, where I saw the northern lights!

Name a book that has had a lasting influence on you.
Probably The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. It is a fascinating look at the evolution of our approach to understanding and treating cancer. It appeals to me both professionally and also personally, as I lost my dad to leukemia when I was a student at Fordham.

Who is the Fordham grad or professor you admire most?
There are too many to name, but Ipsita Banerjee, Ph.D., in the chemistry department was my research mentor while at Fordham. She is so passionate about the research she conducts and the students she mentors, which inspired me to commit myself to my own work and always put forward 110% in my studies.

Interested in hearing more of Schwall-Pecci’s story? Listen to her episode of the Fordham Footsteps podcast.

Directed by serial entrepreneur and executive director Al Bartosic, GABELLI ’84, the Foundry also oversees the Fordham Angel Fund, which offers investments of up to $25,000 to the University’s active student and alumni founders.

Fordham Magazine caught up with a handful of alumni who received funding, coaching, or other support from the Foundry to find out where they—and their businesses—are now, and how they got there.

Mary Goode, FCRH ’20
Founder and CEO, Nantucket Magic
Fordham Degree: B.A. in Economics

The launch: I grew up on Nantucket Island and watched the tourist landscape change dramatically over the years, becoming increasingly popular yet harder to navigate. The company uses local expertise to offer hotel-like concierge service and amenities to vacationers in Nantucket, Massachusetts, and Palm Beach, Florida, including pre-arrival fridge stocking, dinner reservations, private chefs, backyard movie nights, beach picnics, wellness experiences, and more.

The challenge: Our biggest challenge has been navigating how to scale the business while maintaining exceptional service. To surmount this, we have recruited hospitality experts to work seasonally in both locations.

The assist: The Foundry has played a huge role in the success of my business! I learned so much during the process of the pitch competition alone. The actual funds I won helped us pay for marketing campaigns as well as expand our team, among other things.

The goal: I have been trying to broaden the definition of what success means to me. No matter what happens in the future, what I have created so far feels like an immense personal success, chiefly because of the incredible people I have worked with over the past three years.

Marquice Pullen, GSE ’21
Co-Founder, DAB Pickleball
Fordham Degree: M.S.E., Curriculum and Teaching

The concept: DAB Pickleball is a one-stop shop for pickleball players worldwide. Comprehensive infrastructure, certified coaching tips, quality equipment, competitive prices. Events, tournaments, and a thriving community. Your ultimate pickleball resource. I can’t take credit for the idea. My business partner and brother, Antonio, stumbled upon the sport at Acworth Community Center in Georgia.

The process: We participated in three pitch challenges: Fordham Foundry Rams Den, Fordham vs. Bronx, and Black Ambition, all within one year, and were successful in all three, thanks be to God. Social media marketing, risk management, inventory management, tax filing, bookkeeping, and opening our first facility in July 2023 were all challenging aspects of the process. However, we found our momentum in late December 2023.

The foundation: Initially unfamiliar with Fordham University, my enrollment through the Army Civilian Schooling (ACS) program, driven by my aspiration to become an instructor at the United States Military Academy, inadvertently initiated our entrepreneurial journey. Rooted in Jesuit principles, my education at Fordham eventually led me to the Fordham Foundry. Without Fordham University as a catalyst, I might not have discovered the Foundry or ventured into entrepreneurship.

The win: Success is evident through our community of players and dedicated volunteers and supporters. Seeing the smiles on our consumers’ faces as they enjoy the game of pickleball and, more importantly, witnessing the competitive spirit of our elderly pickleball players, is a success story in itself.

Rachel Ceruti, GSAS ’20
Founder and CEO, Reclypt
Fordham Degree: M.A. in International Political Economy and Development

The vision: I kind of fell into the sustainable fashion scene in New York City and upcycling—when you or designers take something that was going to be thrown away and repurpose it, diverting textiles from landfills. I started a blog that transitioned into a marketplace for fashion, but our community told us they wanted to do the upcycling, not just buy it. We listened, and our mission is to use our platform to explore circular economy structures, with Reclypt as a hub that explores how we create change.

The challenges: Funding really comes to mind. You can’t rely on unfair wages and volunteers. Another challenge, too, is letting people know why circular fashion is needed and what it is.

The assist: I would go into the Foundry space and pop ideas off of the other entrepreneurs and the Foundry team. I benefited from the free office hours with a lawyer. The business aspects that are behind the scenes, I would have never been able to navigate without the Foundry.

The next step: We want to host consistent events; be able to grow and hire, including start monetizing my team’s time; gain more visibility; and establish a steady revenue stream.

Usman “Ozzy” Raza, PCS ’14, GABELLI ’21
Founder and CEO, Equepay
Fordham Degrees: B.A. in Economics, Executive M.B.A.

The concept: Equepay is at the forefront of simplifying billing and payment processing, not just in health care but extending our innovative solutions beyond. We aim to convert the complex financial operations in hospitals and clinics into streamlined, user-friendly processes, ensuring easy and efficient financial management for all involved.

 The launch: Equepay was born out of discussions with friends in the health care sector who highlighted ongoing challenges with payment processing and collections. Recognizing the untapped potential in this underserved market, I founded Equepay. Since launch, Equepay has been expanding its solutions across various hospitals in the U.S.

The foundation: My EMBA from Fordham has been crucial in shaping my entrepreneurial journey. The knowledge and skills acquired laid a solid foundation for Equepay’s strategies and operational methodologies.

The goal: Success is an evolving target. Our immediate goal is to integrate our platform into 196 hospitals by the end of the year, continuously enhancing our services to meet the growing needs of the healthcare sector.

Emmit Flynn, FCRH ’21
Co-Founder, Awful Cloth
Fordham Degree: B.A. in English

The brand: We started Awful Cloth to be an online apparel company for street and lounge wear, with a lot of colorful designs and bright, vibrant ideas. All of them were hand-drawn original designs and I was the designer.

The launch: For eight or 10 months, it was all planning. We got all the domains, Twitter, and Instagram very early on before we had anything produced. That made all the difference when we finally did start to get traction. Then it was a lot of workshopping and pushing it out to our friends and family to see what the response was.

The hurdles: The true hurdles were things that are intangibles. It wasn’t “where do we find this factory” or “how do we do this.” Those things were small hurdles, but we were so driven that there was nothing like that that would stop us. It was more about the mental hurdles: having patience and confidence and being sure of ourselves. Especially early on when things were slow, and we weren’t making any sales, and we weren’t making any profit.

The win: We recently sold the business to a medium-sized retail group called Lilac Blond. We were very happy to do it because selling was a goal of ours and we knew these people—and we were sure that they wanted the best for the brand.

A Long Island native, Weinstock transferred to Fordham as a junior and quickly set out to make the most of her time at the University. She worked at WFUV, Fordham’s public media station, and interned at the national TV show Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee. After graduating in 1995, she built a career in marketing and publicity at major film studios, including Paramount. She took a hiatus to raise her three sons—now 9, 12, and 13 years old—and a schnoodle named Charlie. But that “break” is over now, thanks to what the Los Angeles resident calls “the Lego incident.”

Fordham Magazine caught up with Weinstock to find out how she went from being a media exec to an entrepreneur pitching her invention on national TV.

How did your Fordham education help prepare you for entrepreneurship?
I wasn’t exactly on an entrepreneurial path from the start, but Fordham gave me a solid foundation on which I built a successful first career—and the overwhelming desire to be a lifelong learner who leans into curiosity and loves the challenge of figuring things out is persistent. Ideas are easy; I’m probably not the first person to think of something like this, but the difference is having the will and courage to jump in and figure out how to execute it.

How did you get the idea for Pick-Up Bricks?
I have three active boys with tons of Lego bricks, which is a family favorite, but it was also everywhere, all the time, and seemingly always underfoot. Any parent can tell you the pain is real! I’m not just talking about the pain of stepping on Lego bricks or other little toys, but the pain of trying to get kids to pick up their stuff. That’s why we made Pick-Up Bricks a toy. We wanted to empower kids to want to do it themselves by making cleanup fun.

Walk me through the creation process.
I had had enough and ended up vacuuming [my kids’ Lego] pieces up with my Dyson—maybe not my best parenting moment, but it was oddly satisfying and kind of fun to suck them up. The incident sent me and my brother-in-law Steve, who has entrepreneurial experience and an advanced business degree, on a four-year quest to save feet everywhere. We started sketching on a scrap piece of paper, and that was the launching pad. Fast forward, we launched domestically in late 2022 and had a successful year last year, which we capped off with the Shark Tank appearance.

How did you end up on Shark Tank?
One of the show’s casting team came across Pick-Up Bricks on social media. On one hand, we were just blown away to have drawn Shark Tank’s attention. At the same time, we were very apprehensive about doing the show and putting ourselves out there. But I’m always encouraging my children to do hard things and to stretch themselves by going outside their comfort zones—this was my opportunity to walk the walk.

You ended up accepting a joint offer from Lori Greiner and Mark Cuban. Tell me more about your experience on the show.
I am so grateful for the opportunity! We had two excellent producers who were our biggest cheerleaders and skillfully guided us through the monthslong process.

The best part for me was the Sharks’ reactions. They totally got it—and they loved it! It was a lot of fun to see them sucking up the Lego bricks, racing to finish first. Even the notoriously spicy personalities responded so positively to us and our invention—it was truly gratifying.

What’s next?
We are in talks to go beyond the direct-to-consumer space into national chain retail placement. Looking forward, we are focused on getting Pick-Up Bricks out to more of the world and capitalizing off that swell [in attention from appearing on Shark Tank].

Interview conducted, edited, and condensed by Sierra McCleary-Harris.

Okafor discussed this at the 2023 Forever Learning event, At the Intersection of Human and Tech, where several other Fordham alumni also talked about their experiences in fields from journalism to fashion. During her panel, “Open AI and Cybersecurity,” Okafor recalled a lesson from a job she held prior to founding RevolutionCyber. She and her team studied the systemic failures that had made a large cruise ship company vulnerable to cyberattacks. When they spent time on one of the company’s ships, she said, it became clear that the people working there were key to identifying—and preventing—similar attacks in the future.

“The people who gave us the best information were the ones we spent the most time with, whose stories we listened to, who told us when the systems went down, how it made them feel,” Okafor said. The experience made her realize that “we have to start to think more about people and culture and behavior. Everyone was talking about security awareness. I thought, ‘We need to address security culture.’”

Okafor, who served on the GSAS Dean’s Advisory Board, credits her Fordham graduate degree in communications with helping her focus on the intersection between technology, business, and workplace culture.

“The future of cyber security is quintessentially human,” she wrote in a LinkedIn post. “As such, I truly believe cybersecurity requires a lifestyle change that we will all come to embrace as a regular part of life.”

Helping companies and people make that change is her aim with RevolutionCyber, which offers personalized employee training sessions, end-to-end assistance with cybersecurity program design and execution, and ongoing assessment options. During her presentation, she explained that AI technology can help in the quest to identify safe versus malicious behaviors by cross-comparing environments, allowing organizations to build a deeper knowledge base, enact a faster incident response, and develop better secure software.

But, she said, human concerns must always take precedence when using AI—or any technology—an approach at the heart of many of the cybersecurity programs at Fordham.

“We have to think about the humanity that is impacted by the deploying of technology. We can’t stop the AI from coming. We just have to be ready, and we need to always consider how it impacts our lives and the people around us.”

The 2024 Forever Learning event, Curating Curiosity, will take place on March 9, and you can register now.

You don’t need to dive headfirst into computer science and programming to succeed in those spaces, he told students in the Gabelli School of Business during a talk at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus in November.

Zangari retired in early 2023 from his role as global head of research and product development at MSCI after more than 25 years in the finance industry. His retirement was a short one, though: Last month, he was named a partner and head of the Americas at MDOTM, a company that specializes in “AI-driven investment solutions.”

What AI Can—and Can’t—Do

During the student enrichment event, Zangari reflected on his professional experiences and shared insights on data analytics to help students better prepare themselves for careers in the industry. He said technology skills aren’t as critical to long-term success in finance as understanding how to apply technical tools like artificial intelligence.

“In this space, students should do their best to understand how people make investment decisions, and then learn about artificial intelligence—learn about what it can do, and what it is capable of doing—and then apply that to how investors make investment decisions,” he said.

He encouraged students to see AI as a partner, not a substitute for effective portfolio managers, and he said problems may arise when people “think [AI] can solve certain problems, like predicting the future, which I think is really a far-fetched idea.”

A Living Resource

The students in attendance said they were grateful for the opportunity to hear from an industry professional firsthand, peppering him with questions about trends, investment strategy, and his experiences with different employers.

“I’m really interested in finance and tech, and looking to go into that after I finish my master’s,” said Ruth Kissel, who is studying business analytics. “So I wanted to listen to a really experienced professional speak about those same topics.”

The M.S. in business analytics (MSBA) and M.S. in information technology (MSIT) programs are offered by the Gabelli School’s Information, Technology, and Operations area.

In the MSBA program, students learn to integrate analytics techniques, data management, information technology, modeling, and statistical analysis to become more effective analysts and informed users of business data. The MSIT program focuses on systems development, training students to gain the technical skills they need to excel in IT management positions. Grads of the two programs have gone on to work at companies including Amazon, American Express, Deloitte, JPMorgan Chase, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Zangari, who studied economics at Fordham, said he knows how vital it is for students to have access to alumni and industry professionals, so he spends “as much time as possible being available to students.” He’s an adjunct professor at Drew University in New Jersey, and at Fordham, he’s a member of the President’s Council, a group of successful professionals and philanthropists who are committed to mentoring Fordham’s future leaders, funding key initiatives, and raising the University’s profile.

“I see how the students kind of lean in,” he said. “When you tell a story about your career, you tell a story about your life because, in a nutshell, one’s career is a reflection of life.”

Zangari said that at Fordham, he had an opportunity to learn and work with “people from all different walks of life,” and it was invaluable.

It’s not all about the hard skills, he said. Everyone will have those, but “what makes an employee very attractive is someone who has super-interest in what they’re doing. They’re self-motivated. They’re resourceful.”