2021
NAA President’s Award
Presented to alumni in recognition of loyal service rendered to the Northwestern Alumni Association.
Joseph Sun ’96 MBA
Joseph Sun is president of the NU Club of Taiwan and served as the inaugural president of the Kellogg Club of Taiwan. As director of Taiwan’s Alumni Admission Council, he spearheaded recruiting efforts in Hong Kong and Taiwan that led to more interviews, admissions, and final yields of both undergraduate and Kellogg School of Management students. Sun is the founder and managing partner of Solaris Capital Advisors, a Hong Kong-based multi-family office focusing on alternative assets. Before founding Solaris, Sun managed investment portfolios for Kingdon Capital in New York and Och-Ziff Capital in Asia. He holds an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. Joseph received a Service to Northwestern award in 2020.
Service to Northwestern
Presented to alumni in recognition of leadership and service excellence rendered to the University via the Northwestern Alumni Association, an affiliated alumni group, school or unit, or other University associated program.
Roger Fong ’91 MBA
Roger Fong has served on the boards of multiple Northwestern clubs since 2005, including the NU Club of Virginia, Northwestern Club of Chicago, and Northwestern University Asian and Asian American Alumni (NU-A5). With a passion for engagement and scholarship fundraising, he organized numerous events and established annual giving for the Asian American Studies Program (AASP) Community Summer Fellowships. Roger also served on the NAA Board of Directors, conducted mock student interviews, and hosted Dinner with Twelve and New Student Receptions. As a diehard Wildcats football fan, Roger was an officer for the Northwestern Gridiron Network and chaired the Walker Open golf fundraiser. An investor and adviser to start-ups, Roger is a graduate of the Kellogg School of Management and was a co-chair for his 25th reunion.
Marc McClellan ’81
Marc McClellan is president of the NU Club of Coachella Valley and a member of the NU Libraries Board of Governors. He also served as regional director for the Northwestern Alumni Association. As president of the Northwestern University Pride Alumni Club (NUPAC), he spearheaded the creation of an endowed scholarship for undergraduates who contribute to the LGBTQ community through leadership, service, volunteering, or research. Marc is one of several proud Wildcats who work for NewsBank, an information provider that digitized The Daily Northwestern archives back to 1881. Marc began his academic career in the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. He later changed his major to radio/television/film and graduated with a BS in communication from the School of Communication.
Kenneth Edward Piner ’93 MS
Kenneth Edward Piner has been an active volunteer for the Medill Club of DC since 2008 and has served as club president for 11 years. During his tenure, he has increased alumni engagement by developing Medill alumni specific programs and joint programs with the NU Club of Washington, DC. Kenneth has also mentored dozens of students and alumni, attending most quarterly Medill Mentors events—in which a Medill alum is paired with a current student—since 2005. A storyteller and journalist, Kenneth directs video productions for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), from reality-type TV profiles to live conference broadcasts. Kenneth holds a master’s degree from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, where he focused on broadcast journalism and business reporting.
Club Leader of the Year
Presented to alumni in recognition of leadership and service excellence rendered to an affinity, international, and/or local club.
Jack Kang ’90
Northwestern University Asian and Asian American Alumni Association (NU-A5)
Jack Kang is president of the Northwestern University Asian and Asian American Alumni Association (NU-A5), which was awarded the Northwestern Alumni Association’s 2020 Club of the Year. Under Kang’s leadership, the 19-year-old organization launched virtual events within weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic’s first stay-at-home orders and leveraged the expertise of Asian American alumni to bring members meaningful, relevant perspectives on issues such as mental health, racism, and women’s empowerment. Outside of Northwestern, Kang is the global pricing team manager at Wabtec Corporation, a rail technology company, where he grows a $750+ million aftermarket industrial parts business. Previously, he worked at the General Electric Company for nearly 20 years. After graduating Northwestern with a BS in industrial engineering, Kang received an MBA from Vanderbilt University.
Clubs of the Year
Presented to alumni clubs who have had exemplary alumni impact as well as club growth and innovation. Winning clubs must have also excelled in governance, finance/scholarship, programming, membership, and communication and achieved either the Wildcat or Arch levels in the Leading Strategies Model (LSM) in fiscal year 2021 (September 1, 2020–August 31, 2021).
Northwestern University Black Alumni Association (NUBAA)
NAA Campus Partner Award
This award is given to the unit, school or program that serves as a valuable and key player in partnering with the NAA on various initiatives to cultivate alumni relationships and connections to Northwestern.
The Feinberg School of Medicine
Alumni Relations Team
The Feinberg School of Medicine Alumni Relations Team works on behalf of the Medical Alumni Association, which was founded in 1868 to bring together graduates from the medical school’s Doctor of Medicine, Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences, Graduate Medical Education, Physician Assistant, Northwestern University Prosthetics-Orthotics Center, Medical Scientist Training Program, Master of Public Health, PhD, Dental, and Nursing programs. The team strives to provide meaningful, impactful, and helpful resources and programs to Feinberg alumni and current students. In addition to working with Feinberg alumni, the team consistently partners and collaborates with the Northwestern Alumni Association to share Feinberg faculty and research with the broader Northwestern alumni community.
The NAA Campus Partner Award is presented to the entire Feinberg School of Medicine Alumni Relations team, which is led by Larry Kuhn ’02 KSM, associate dean, and Babette Henderson ’21 KSM, senior director of alumni relations.
Medical Alumni Association team members include Saniya Abdulla; Kirsten Byers ’19 KSM ’21 MS; Jillian Kurtz Brubaker ’18 MS; Vic Maurer ’11 SPS; Meghan Monaghan ’19 KSM; Shauntee Randle; and Dan Schwarzlose ’95.
NAA Staff Appreciation Award
The NAA has a team of dedicated individuals that work to ensure diverse and robust programming and engagement opportunities throughout the year and around the world on behalf of all Northwestern alumni. The NAA Staff Appreciation award is given each year to recognize one member of the professional staff who embodies that vision for an engaged global alumni community.
Jaclyn Wang
Associate Director of PhD Alumni Engagement
Jaclyn Wang has served as the NAA’s associate director of PhD alumni engagement since May 2017. In this role, she engages PhD alumni and current students of The Graduate School (TGS) via purposeful programming and engagement activities. Jaclyn seeks to deepen the affinity of this population and cultivates a pipeline of alumni to serve as volunteers, benefactors, and supporters of TGS and the University. Wang came to Northwestern from DePaul University, where she worked for the College of Computing and Digital Media as an assistant director of advising. She earned a bachelor of arts in Spanish and leadership communication and a master’s degree in postsecondary educational leadership, student affairs from San Diego State University.
Learn More About the Previous Service and Club Award Recipients
2023 recipients
2022 recipients
2020 recipients
2019 recipients
2018 recipients
2017 recipients