Bal initially majored in biology at Fordham, but he switched to computer science in his junior year. Working closely with Damian Lyons, Ph.D., director of the University’s Robotics and Computer Vision Lab, he used technology originally associated with gaming to help herpetologists at the zoo track and study the movements of Kihansi spray toads. The toads had been classified as extinct in the wild in 2009, but in the past decade, scientists at the Bronx Zoo, headquarters of the Wildlife Conservation Society, have been breeding the toads on site and helping to reintroduce them to their native habitat in Tanzania.

According to Lyons, Bal expanded the code to effectively track the toads solely using depth imagery. He also added a color-tracking feature so that made it possible to zero in on the toads when they moved, such as jumping onto a leaf. Bal also created new software to generate behavior analytics.

As an undergrad, Bal also was a volunteer EMT with Fordham University EMS, and he worked as a software engineer intern at Amazon, an experience he said he helped him not only get job offers but also learn “how to work professionally, scalably, and consistently in the real world.”

Today, he’s a software engineer at SpaceX, working on ground network software systems for Starlink, the aerospace manufacturer’s satellite internet service. But one day down the line, Bal said he hopes to launch his own company.

What Fordham course has had the greatest influence on you and your career path so far? How and why was it so influential?
Professor Damian Lyons’ Brains and Behaviors in Beasts and Bots. It was basically a class where we looked at different animal behaviors and then emulated them with robotics (e.g., a bug might walk around until it hits a wall, then it’ll turn and keep moving until it hits a wall, rotate, and so on. At one point we made a robot that did the same). It was a lot of fun, but I would say research outside of class was way more impactful. Classes are good for developing baseline skills, but the best way to solidify your knowledge, grow it, and put it to work is to utilize the resources available to students on campus outside of required coursework, like labs and research opportunities.

Who is the Fordham professor or person you admire the most, and why?
Definitely Lyons. Without the opportunities and encouragement he provided, I’m certain I wouldn’t have made professional progress at the same rate that I have. He introduced me to complex, real-world problems and helped me understand how to break them down into manageable chunks to create something useful. That overall thought process and all of the small nuances I learned along the way have been invaluable in my professional career.

What are you optimistic about?
I’m optimistic about our future. I think that the next few generations will have an extremely large impact on humanity’s trajectory due to their intersection with powerful and exciting technologies that they’ve grown up with, as opposed to previous generations that still remember what it was like to not have smartphones or the entire internet at their fingertips.

What are some of the reasons why you decided to attend Fordham?
I decided to seriously consider Fordham as an option when I knew that I wanted to go to business school. As a native New Yorker, I knew how many internship and work experiences it would open for me. I found it hard to wrap my head around moving away from one of the world’s most prominent centers of business when I knew I wanted to do a business degree. The contacts I made initially at Fordham, as well as the Gabelli program, instantly impressed me when I visited and helped me decide to commit to Fordham for my undergraduate studies.

What do you think you got at Fordham that you couldn’t have gotten elsewhere?
The global opportunities and experiences that Fordham provided were absolutely incredible. I cannot speak highly enough of the Fordham London program in particular, which did a wonderful job of immersing us in the culture and providing us with a holistic experience of living and working in England. Although Fordham also has an extensive list of partner programs at other schools, such as the one I did at University College Dublin, having a sister campus abroad made [doing] my coursework stress-free. I would recommend it to anyone studying at Fordham, and in particular, I’d recommend taking a theatre class in London.

What Fordham course has had the greatest influence on you and your career path so far? How and why was it so influential?
I took several marketing classes with Timothy Malefyt, which heavily influenced me to go into marketing and the agency world in particular. His perspective on branding was a joy to learn about, and his experiences in the agency field were very helpful for setting expectations of what a career would look like after college.

Who is the Fordham professor or person you admire the most, and why?
Father Vincent DeCola, assistant dean for the B.S. in global business. He truly works so hard to ensure that each and every one of his students is on the right path and employs incredible attention to detail when getting to know his students. His dedication to the student body at Gabelli, and at Fordham as a whole, is so inspiring and had a huge impact on my time there. I owe him so much for making my experience at Fordham highly tailored and very special.

Did you have any internships helped put you on your current path? What were they, and how did they prepare you for what you’re doing now?
Most influential for me was my time at Fwd, which introduced me to how marketing and branding strategists actually work. As an intern at fwd., I did a host of things, including research, conducting interviews, trend monitoring, and more. That internship really helped me learn how to talk to people through the lens of work, which became particularly important when I onboarded to my current company, Ruder Finn, remotely.

What are you optimistic about?
Despite the challenges of the past couple of years due to the pandemic, I’m very optimistic about the future of our world and the future of work. I would attribute this to a massive increase in empathy across the board. In New York City in particular, I’ve seen how much people are taking care of each other and their communities. I’m optimistic about how this shift in mindset will manifest in our personal lives and in the work-life balance that we accept as a societal norm. I think people are more inclined to really care about how they impact and can support their communities and their friends—it’s encouraging to see this shift in mindset.

Is there anything else we should know about you, your plans, or your Fordham connection?
I would like to acknowledge the amazing Global Business Honors Program, as well as Dean Brian Dunn and Jennifer O’Neil, who made my time at Fordham so special. The honors program granted me some incredible opportunities, such as traveling on business trips to London, Beijing, and Santiago. I am forever thankful for the many ways that Fordham expanded my world and the incredible opportunities to hear speakers from top businesses [and have] cultural experiences.

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

“Professor Jeannine Hill Fletcher taught me that there are so many more dimensions to religion and theology than I originally thought, and that there is space for women in theology—an important message as a woman in theology myself,” she said.

She’s taken that lesson to heart: Ruiz, currently a student at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), hopes to one day work at a nongovernmental organization, or in government, focusing specifically on creating policies that improve the lives of women.

What do you think you got at Fordham that you couldn’t have gotten elsewhere?
Here’s a story that I like to tell: I arrived at Fordham a characteristically nervous freshman, daunted by a new city and the prospect of making social connections. On my way to audition for a club, I realized that I had no idea how to print the script I needed for my audition. Frantically, I approached an upperclassman to ask for help. Not only did he sit with me to figure out how to set up my printing account, he used his own credit to help me print my script. This unprecedented gesture exemplified the kindness and care that defines the Fordham community.

Academically, Fordham teaches its students to be deeply informed and concerned about injustices in the world, but also deeply moved to do something about them. Across disciplines, Fordham professors teach students not only about important issues in our communities but inspire their students to make a difference.

What Fordham course has had the greatest influence on you and your career path so far? How and why was it so influential?
Major Developments in American Culture, taught by Professor Diane Detournay. From academic discourse to everyday news, we often throw around terms like “systemic inequality,” “injustice,” and “oppression,” but we don’t spend enough time unpacking why these things happen or how they came to be in the first place.

Professor Detournay’s class allowed us to home in on the history of our country’s unfair systems and the ways in which they are perpetuated or upheld. Some topics we focused on were immigration, the prison-industrial complex, and the colonial history of Hawaii. I came away from her class with the confidence to articulate the history and mechanism of unjust systems, which was fundamental to my decision to study social policy for my master’s degree. I figured that the best way to combat systemic injustice is to change the systems that cause them in the first place.

Who is the Fordham professor or person you admire the most, and why?
This is a tough question because there are so many professors and people at Fordham I admire. If I had to choose, I admire Professor Jeannine Hill Fletcher. Among my non-religious peers, I’ve noticed that there is a general perception that religious people lack an awareness of societal discrimination. While it’s not her stated mission, I think Professor Hill Fletcher—who is Catholic—turns all of those stereotypes on their head. Not only is she a feminist theologian by training: she is very involved with advocacy work, as she is an prominent voice for faculty rights, and she is a dedicated ally to students of color and LGBTQ students. As someone who came to Fordham grappling with religion and trying to understand it better, it was really influential to meet Professor Hill Fletcher and see the kind of work she does.

Did you have any internships or any other experiences, such as clubs, that helped put you on your current path? What were they, and how did they prepare you for what you’re doing now?
I served on United Student Government (USG) for three years, culminating with a successful campaign for president. While USG is not an exact simulation of how state governments work, I felt that through my role, I was able to understand what it means to be a leader and how to deal with difficult issues because I entered my term right as COVID-19 hit and in the wake of the George Floyd protests. With the challenge of a pandemic and amid conversations about racial justice and everyday life, I found myself in a multitude of conversations about how to give students the best, safest, and most just experience possible. 

During these conversations, I learned to play to the strengths of different personalities and work styles as I led the Senate and executive board, and I learned how to negotiate with high-level University administrators. I feel that the communication and leadership skills I gained through my role as president will be crucial to my future career in policy work, either as a government policy adviser or at an NGO.

Finally, as president, I accomplished several landmark projects that were the first of their kind at Fordham. They included Fordham’s first anti-discrimination policy for student organizations, Fordham’s first ceremony of recognition for first-generation students, and statements of support for Black, Burmese, and Asian American communities. While they were not policies in a public or social policy sense, these long-term projects trained me to see large plans come to fruition and to uplift a diversity of voices in respectful ways.

What are you doing now? Can you paint us a picture of your current responsibilities? What do you hope to accomplish, personally or professionally?
I am currently at the London School of Economics, pursuing my MSc in international social and public policy. I am continuing my passion for leadership by serving as a Student Academic Representative for my programme at LSE. After graduation, I plan to either pursue a Ph.D. or begin my career in public policy.

What are you optimistic about?
While I miss Fordham dearly, knowing that it is inspiring generation after generation of changemakers makes me optimistic.

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

He majored in marketing and, as a senior, put his skills to work in his hometown of the Bronx as a founding member of the student-run Fordham Business Development Collaboratory. The group, launched in June 2020 and now comprising more than 70 members, assists local businesses in the areas of finance, compliance, technology, and marketing. Santiago said he used that undergraduate experience to help land a job in the associate program at Ogilvy, a New York City-based advertising and marketing agency, where he’s been working since September 2021, soon after he graduated from Fordham.

Was there a Fordham course that really had a big influence on you and where you are today?
There’s a few courses I’d say that really shaped my time at Fordham. My freshman year I took Composition II, and just being in a course where all I did was write—and [the professor]gave us topics that were fairly open ended, so I was able to really put my own thoughts into the writing—cemented to me, “Hey, writing and talking, this is what I want for a living.”

A few marketing courses that I took were really valuable to me. I think one that really stuck out to me was my Global Marketing Sustainability course. When it comes to sustainability, not just talking about environmental sustainability, but sustainability in the way of “How does this affect the supply chain?” it really makes you consider whatever business decisions you’re making: How do they actually affect the world, not just the bottom line in profits?

Were you involved with any other academic programs at Gabelli?
The Gabelli School’s Consulting Cup is a very valuable experience for any student who studies business at Fordham. It gives you the simulation of working with a real corporate team, and I can say that the amount of emailing and creating deliverables and research that we had to do for the Consulting Cup—I’m not going to say it’s completely like working right now, but it’s similar. Having to email upper-level people [at the companies we were studying], cross-communicating within your own team, and finding solutions—it’s such a valuable experience for anyone who wants to go into any sort of business.

What activities were you involved with outside of the classroom?
I was a part of [ASILI], the Black Student Alliance—I was the president my senior year. I did a lot of stuff with the CCEL, the Center for Community Engaged Learning, including but not limited to GO! projects [to South Africa]. And then I was involved in History Makers my sophomore year going into my junior year, which was a program where you mentor and teach kids about social justice things and give them the context of the history in the Bronx.

You worked with the Fordham Business Development Collaboratory. Could you tell me about that experience?
The Fordham Business Development Collaboratory was amazing—shout out to my friend Rich [Shrestha, a senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill and economics major] for that one because that was a great idea he came up with, and it actually really translates to the job that I do now.

Being someone from the Bronx, that was really valuable because I was able to work with people who are from where I’m from, and I understand what the needs are for a lot of people. We were able to use Fordham resources, and not necessarily money resources, but intellectual resources—we have a plethora of students who are more than capable of being able to help people. It’s actually funny because it comes a little bit full circle: I’m in a rotation of programs at my job, and my first assignment is in the consulting group because they had seen my resume, and were like, “Hey, you do the Fordham Business Development Collaboratory. We think this would be a great match for you to continue to develop those skills.” So that was a really nice thing, that I was able to leverage the experience that I had and also that that experience benefitted others.

Can you tell me a bit more about the work you’re doing now?
I’m working for Ogilvy. It’s a subsidiary of a bigger advertising conglomerate called WPP, which is based out in London. I’m working in what’s called the associates program at Ogilvy—it’s a rotation program, where every six months for 18 months they’ll be placing me in different departments to work and give me exposure to different opportunities such as in account management, production, user experience, data and analytics. Ogilvy works with a lot of big clients—one of their biggest clients right now is IBM; they’ve had a long-term relationship for decades. It’s a pretty prestigious company when it comes to the advertising space, and I’m grateful to be there.

Interview conducted, edited, and condensed by Kelly Prinz, FCRH ’15.