Alumni Awards
About the SIPA Alumni Awards
As graduates of the world’s most global public policy school, SIPA's 25,000 alumni are making an impact on communities large and small throughout the 160 countries in which they live and work. The SIPA Alumni Association honors alumni for their achievements and extraordinary contributions to improving their communities - locally, nationally, and globally - and for service to SIPA. In honoring such alumni, the SIPA Alumni Association considers many factors that are unique to a school with such a diverse and international student body, and strongly encourages SIPA alumni and supporters from across the globe to submit nominations of individuals they believe merit such recognition.
The SIPA Distinguished Alumni Award is presented annually or as otherwise determined by the Board of the SIPA Alumni Association to honor alumni who have graduated at least 10 years prior to the year in which they are nominated and have demonstrated distinguished achievement in their chosen field.
The SIPA Emerging Leader Award is presented annually or as otherwise determined by the Board of the SIPA Alumni Association to honor alumni who have graduated within the 10 years preceding the year in which they are nominated and have demonstrated distinguished achievement in their chosen field.
A new Service to SIPA Award was recently announced by the SIPA Alumni Association to recognize members of the SIPA community who have demonstrated exemplary commitment to SIPA through long-term engagement and service. The inaugural Service to SIPA Award was presented posthumously at Alumni Day 2024 to Peter Sang MPA-EPM ’10. Please read below for more information about the nominations and criteria for this award.
2024 Alumni Award Recipients
Gabriela Rocha MPA-DP ’13
Gabriela Rocha is co-founder and CEO of Laboratoria, an organization that empowers women who dream of a better future to start and grow transformative careers in technology. With operations in 11 countries, Laboratoria strives to achieve a more diverse and inclusive digital economy that can transform Latin America’s future. Before launching Laboratoria in Mexico, she worked as a public policy consultant in Mexico City and directed development projects in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and in the Peruvian Andes.
Katie Napolitano MIA ’08
Katie Napolitano has dedicated her career to improving equity and access for underrepresented populations in NYC and globally. She is the co-founder and co-Executive Director of Fair Futures, a coalition of 100+ organizations that has been cited as the largest cross-sector collaboration and most successful youth-led advocacy movement in the history of child welfare. Fair Futures secured public funding to implement and scale their model across NYC’s foster care and juvenile justice systems, making NYC the first in the nation to support young people after exiting foster care until age 26. In previous roles, including as a Program Officer at Tiger Foundation and Vice President of an international social investment company, Katie supported dozens of organizations in a funding and advisory capacity, providing strategic guidance and capital to help fuel their growth and success. Katie and her husband are adoptive/parental figures to six young adults who aged out of NYC’s foster care system, who inspired her to co-launch and coordinate the Fair Futures movement.
Nominations for 2025 Alumni Awards are now Open
Distinguished Alumni Award and Emerging Leader Award:
Deadline for nominations: September 20, 2024
Please note that: (i) self-nominations are not accepted; nor should a candidate be informed of his or her nomination, (ii) alumni who have graduated within the 10 years preceding the year in which they are nominated are eligible for the Emerging Leader Award except for graduates of SIPA’s Executive MPA program who are instead eligible for the SIPA Distinguished Alumni Award, and (iii) members of the Alumni Association Awards Committee are not eligible to receive awards while serving on the Committee.
Nomination instructions:
- When submitting the nomination form using the link below, please provide as much information as possible including your nominee's name, SIPA degree and graduation year, professional title and employer, and contact details (home and professional).
- Please also provide a brief statement of the reasons why you are nominating this SIPA graduate for the award. To the extent possible, please include the nominee’s achievements and experience in their chosen field, including leadership roles, awards, or recognition, as well as professional, civic, or community engagement. Nominations are strengthened by additional information about a nominee's engagement with and service to SIPA.
- Nominations are strengthened by letters of support from those who are familiar with the nominee’s achievements in their chosen field and/or service to SIPA. These letters can be addressed to the Alumni Recognition and Awards Committee of the SIPA Alumni Association and sent directly to SIPA’s Office of Alumni Relations at [email protected].
- All nomination forms and letters of support should be submitted by the nomination deadline of September 20, 2024.
- For any questions about the nomination process or submitting letters of support, please contact Susan Storms, Director of Alumni Relations, at (212) 854-8598 or [email protected].
Nominations for the Service to SIPA Award
Eligible recipients include alumni and other members of the community whose engagement and service have positively impacted SIPA, with consideration given to the length and depth of their commitment and its impact on the school. Professional achievements and service to organizations other than SIPA (including Columbia University at large) are not among the criteria used to select recipients of this award.
Recipients of the Service to SIPA Award may be chosen each year by the Alumni Recognition and Awards Committee of the SIPA Alumni Association from candidates nominated by alumni and other members of the SIPA community. Nominations are accepted year-round and must be received by October 1 to be considered for the following year.
Please submit letters of nomination via email to [email protected] and consider the following criteria:
- Length and breadth of the nominee’s leadership and service to SIPA and its impact on the school.
- Unique or unsung contributions made to SIPA.
Please contact members of the Alumni Recognition and Awards Committee at [email protected] if you have any questions.
Previous Alumni Award Recipients
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2023 Distinguished Alumni Award
Jingdong Hua MPA '03Jingdong Hua is a senior leader and practitioner in international development and international finance. As vice-chair of the International Sustainability Standards Board, he oversees the development and implementation of ISSB’s strategies to support and include stakeholders in emerging and developing economies as well as small and medium-sized companies. He previously served as vice president and treasurer of the World Bank, pension finance administrator of the World Bank Group, and vice president and treasurer of the International Finance Corporation. His expertise spans a broad range of international development and capital market arenas including multilateralism, international and local capital market development, financial innovation, Africa, FinTech for financial inclusion, SDG/ESG, and impact investment.
Watch Jingdong's video profile here »
Image2023 Emerging Leader Award
Radha Kulkarni MPA '17Radha Kulkarni works at the intersection of finance, strategy, and policy, having worked across multilaterals, government, and private sector. She is the investment manager and leads the Innovative Financing Pathway at United Nations Children’s Fund’s new Innovative Finance Hub that works on new mechanisms to unlock global capital in support of children across 190 countries. She was also recently appointed as one of UNICEF’s Ethics and Culture Champions. Previously, she worked with UNICEF’s Private Sector team building new-age partnerships on financing, with its Youth portfolio leveraging innovative financing for young people, and with United Nations Development Programme’s Policy Bureau on Fiscal and Development Financing helping scale the work across 40 countries.
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2022 Distinguished Alumni Award
Sumant Sinha MIA ’92Sumant Sinha is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of ReNew Power, one of India’s leading renewable energy companies. He has been at the forefront of India’s clean energy expansion and is recognized around the world as a leading entrepreneur and advocate for sustainable development and solutions to climate change.
Image2022 Emerging Leader Award
Nicole Van Der Tuin MPA ’12Nicole Van Der Tuin is the Chief Growth Officer at Accion Opportunity Fund and co-founder and former CEO of First Access. First Access was conceived while Nicole was a student at SIPA and has grown into an award-winning fintech company that enables data-driven credit across emerging markets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.