Ken Pontarelli ’92 credits the University for changing his life, opening up opportunities to pursue his passions and achieve professional success that allows him to focus on the public good. In return, he and his wife, Tracey, are paying it forward by supporting Syracuse students pursuing meaningful careers in the vital field of sustainability. Their recent gift endows the Pontarelli Professorship in the . It builds on their years of support that have helped position the University as a thought leader in sustainability. As part of the Forever Orange Faculty Excellence Program, the University has committed additional funds to support teaching and research activities in environmental sustainability, finance and public policy.

“Our goal is to build a sustainability program that ties together distinctive strengths from across the University, allowing business, policy and environmental science to work together to solve problems and tackle global challenges,” says Pontarelli. They are well on their way, thanks to previous support from the Pontarellis that a five-year funded professorship in 2019 and a scholarship fund in the , and helped create a unique master of science joint degree from the Maxwell and Whitman schools in sustainable organizations and policy, and the .

“When I (in 2022), Syracuse University was ranked No. 11 nationally for environmental policy and management by U.S. News & World Report,” says Jay Golden, Pontarelli Professor of Environmental Sustainability and Finance. “Each year our rankings have increased, and the most recent 2024 rankings have us tied with Harvard for No. 6. Certainly, our goal is to continue to rise in the rankings through the recognition of our peers of all the great programs we have going on at Maxwell and the other colleges at Syracuse.”

Growing Interest in Sustainability

Pontarelli graduated from the University with a bachelor of science in finance from the Whitman School and in economics from the Maxwell School. He immediately began what became a long career at Goldman Sachs, initially focusing on energy markets. “We made one of the first large-scale investments into renewable power back when few such investments were being made,” says Pontarelli. “As I gained more understanding of the field, I realized how critical private capital is, together with government policy, in addressing environmental issues. The business case for investing in sustainability is incredibly strong.”

In an interview with Private Equity International (November 2023), Pontarelli pointed out that sustainability was just a niche market with $20 billion of assets under management just 10 years ago and ballooned over the decade to more than $270 billion of assets under management.

At Goldman Sachs, where Pontarelli is partner and managing director, he leads the firm’s private equity impact investing efforts within the Asset Management Division. He was appointed to the University’s Board of Trustees in 2021, serves on the Whitman Advisory Council and, last year, was awarded the for Sustainability by Maxwell. His investments in academic and experiential programs are designed to ensure that environmental policy research is well-grounded in an understanding of markets and financial mechanisms.

“This is a pivotal time,” says Pontarelli. “There are so many things that could be done if we don’t get caught up in political issues. Everyone would agree that these are common sense business things to do.” He cites the example of one recent investment in a company that provides control panels to big data centers to manage power generation usage. The product can reduce usage by 10% for the average data center. “I’m focused on pragmatic solutions.”

That’s why Pontarelli is so impressed with the work being done by students in the which, according to Golden, is “a nonpartisan think tank and research lab focused on examining sustainability imperatives at the nexus of industry and government.” The lab launched in 2021 with just six students.

“From that early start we have maintained every semester 40 to 50 paid undergraduate and graduate sustainability research fellows spanning almost every college across the University,” Golden says. “In fact, we have more students interested than we can currently financially support or mentor with our current staffing levels. Not a week goes by that I don’t receive numerous emails from students interested in joining the lab.”

Inspiring More Philanthropic Support

It’s easy to see why students are so interested. They are doing what Pontarelli calls “eye-popping work” in partnership with industry or government, and he hopes to inspire more philanthropic support so that more students can participate. Golden cites a few examples:

• Students from the Maxwell School, Whitman School and are doing research in energy systems, biotechnologies and carbon capture technologies for various industrial sectors. This includes providing technical, finance and policy insights to develop recommendations for government agencies, policymakers and business leaders that would benefit the U.S. economy and the environment.
• Students are working with Thomson Reuters as well as the global footwear and apparel industries researching innovative best management practices and policies that can eliminate the utilization of forced labor in the global supply chain.
• A team led by Golden and School of Architecture Assistant Professor Nina Wilson is working with architects, engineers, design/build firms, insurance, government and finance on developing innovative strategies, policies and professional practices for resiliency in the built environment.��They are holding workshops throughout New York state.
• Students have developed an energy dashboard to quantify and visualize energy consumption on campus, by buildings and by energy source, that is continuously updated while also modeling economic impacts and opportunities for the University to manage energy consumption and other environmental impacts. This also involves working with Campus Dining to quantify food wastes across the campus and modeling the economic and greenhouse gas opportunities by implementing new strategies.

Preparing Future Leaders for the Public Good

The new joint master’s degree from Maxwell and Whitman, supported by the Pontarellis and directed by Golden, offers an intensive professional sustainability consulting course each spring through the lab, in which students work in project teams to provide high-level research and consulting to public and private organizations, including Fortune 500 global companies and smaller start-ups domestically and globally.

“I am grateful to Ken and Tracey for continuing to promote the values of high-quality teaching, experiential learning, evidence-based research, engaged citizenship and public service impact, which we hold dear at the Maxwell School,” says Dean David M. Van Slyke. “This professorship, endowed in their name, will make certain their commitment to climate, energy and environmental sustainability and working across levels of government and sectors of the economy continues to be a hallmark of the instruction and scholarship the Maxwell School pursues in preparing future leaders that seek to promote the public good.”

Golden says that “we have an incredible job placement rate for students even before they graduate” with organizations as diverse as Morgan Stanley, KPMG, the State of New York and the Department of Defense. “They stand out in the job market because they have learned to take theory from the classroom and apply it in the real world, with plenty of opportunities to do the work thanks to Ken and Tracey Pontarelli,” Golden says.

“We want students to get excited about careers in the sustainability field,” Pontarelli says. “It’s purposeful, meaningful work as they become problem-solvers who can change the world.”

When Phyllis E. Greenberger ’64 walked the campus of Syracuse University as a student, she could never have imagined that nearly three decades later, she would be in the Oval Office, advocating for women’s health with United States President Bill Clinton. After graduating from SU, her career led her from social work to federal lobbyist. Greenberger eventually became a leading voice for women’s health while serving as President and CEO of the����(���±��).

Greenberger credits her time on the SU Hill for her success on Capitol Hill. Armed with her liberal arts education, which honed her critical thinking, adaptability and cultural awareness, she developed a “never take no for an answer” attitude that would ultimately transform the landscape of women’s health research.

During her time leading SWHR, Greenberger continually fought for equal attention to women in healthcare. This was necessary because, before SWHR was founded in 1990, medical research predominantly focused on men, resulting in significant gaps in understanding how illnesses manifest in women as compared to men. Thanks to her passionate and steadfast advocacy, Greenberger and others with SWHR helped pass legislation that advanced patient-specific treatment with an emphasis on addressing sex differences, ensuring that both men and women benefit equally from scientific advancements.

Shining the light on women’s health is a fight that Greenberger helped to start, but a fight she says is far from over. According to a recent report from the��, the cancer incidence rate for women younger than 50 has increased from 51% higher than men in 2002 to 82% higher in 2021. Additionally, heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and autoimmune disorders including lupus, celiac disease, thyroid disease, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and multiple sclerosis continue to occur more commonly in women than in men, as reported by��. Greenberger stresses the need for researchers and advocates to persist in integrating sex differences into medical and pharmaceutical studies, as this will lead to better health outcomes for all.

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Phyllis Greenberger Career Snapshot:

• 1943-1960: Grew up in Brooklyn, NY
• 1964: Graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in liberal arts
• 1975: Received a master’s degree in social work from The Catholic University of America
• Mid-1970s: Interned with the American Psychiatric Association (APA), where her interest in women’s health advocacy was ignited
• 1980-1993: Worked at the APA as an Assistant Director of Government Relations and was Director of the Political Action Committee
• 1990: Served on the board for the Society for Women’s Health Research
• 1992: Leading voice for women’s health during Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign
• 1993: President Clinton addresses women’s health in his acceptance speech, for which Hillary Clinton acknowledges Phyllis Greenberger’s contributions
• 1993-2016: Served as President and CEO of the Society for Women’s Health Research
• 2016-present: Served as Senior Vice President of Science and Health Policy for HealthyWomen and is currently a consultant

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We recently sat down with Greenberger to learn more about her Syracuse experience, her role as a champion of women’s health and her views on the current state of women’s health.

Take us back to your time at Syracuse. Why did you choose SU and what do you remember most fondly from your time as a student?

Being a native of Brooklyn, I fell in love with the Central New York region while taking summer courses at Cornell University as a high school student. Those experiences motivated me to apply to Syracuse University.

I really enjoyed my time at Syracuse. I was in a sorority, Sigma Delta Tau, and I still have many friends that I keep in touch with. One of my most memorable experiences, though, was my time abroad in Florence. Having the opportunity to study abroad was very unusual at that time, and it was very transformative.

What did you enjoy about studying abroad?

Living with two separate Italian families was an incredibly enlightening experience and allowed me to become fluent in Italian. Immersing yourself in a new culture broadens your perspective and I highly recommend that students study abroad if they have the opportunity.

How would you describe the significance of a liberal arts education, study abroad programs and experiential learning opportunities?

Having an academically and experientially diverse education is critically important. It’s unfortunate that many universities are focusing too much on technology, with students attending college solely to secure a specific job upon graduation.

While employment is essential, we should also understand history, read literature and develop strong writing skills. With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), the world is changing rapidly. Students need to explore various classes and experiences to discover what truly interests and excites them.

Shifting to your career as a women’s health advocate, what inspired you to become involved in that field?

While interning with the American Psychiatric Association, I met several female psychiatrists who were concerned that women weren’t included in clinical trials, even though women suffered more from depression and anxiety than men.

That internship led to your job with the APA, where you served as��Assistant Director of Government Relations��and Director of the Political Action Committee. After that role, how did you transition to the Society for Women’s Health Research?

While with the APA, I met an OBGYN by the name of Florence Haseltine, who was founding the society. I suggested that in addition to having researchers and scientists on the board, the society also needed someone that knows Washington. With the APA I ran their Political Action Committee, so I knew many women members in Congress and my husband was in the media, so I knew the journalists, so they asked me to be on the volunteer board.

Can you explain your role in advancing women’s health advocacy at the presidential level?

In the early 1990s, while I was with the APA, I began working with the staff of (former second lady) Tipper Gore, who was interested in mental health issues. Later, a friend asked me to organize a group of women for an event during President Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, where Hillary Clinton was speaking. After the event, I suggested to Hillary, ‘If you’re going to be speaking to women across the country, you might want to talk about women’s health.’

When I arrived at my office the following day, Hillary had left a message asking me to join their campaign as an advocate for women’s health. During Bill’s acceptance speech the following January, he made a reference to women’s health. After the speech, Hillary came over to me and said, ‘that was because of you,’ so that was really nice. That was sort of where it all started.

How did your experience as a lobbyist with the Clinton campaign lead to your leadership role with the Society for Women’s Health Research?

After Bill Clinton talked about women’s health in his inauguration speech, I went back to the board of the society the next meeting, and I said, ‘Now that the President is talking about women’s health, I think we have to become a real organization, not just volunteer.’ They spent six months looking for a CEO. During that time, I thought I might want to work for the Clintons in the White House, but then I decided it would be more fun and interesting to help start an organization. I put my resume in, and I ended up being selected to head the society.

Can you talk about some of the issues women faced from a healthcare standpoint when you started with the Society for Women’s Health Research?

In the early 1990s, medical devices such as pacemakers, joint replacements and stents were designed based on male anatomy, ignoring the differences between men’s and women’s bodies. Now we know medications and devices work differently for each gender. However, issues like undiagnosed cardiovascular conditions persist because some physicians lack familiarity with the different symptoms, so the fight for women’s health rights isn’t over yet.

How have you seen the scope of women’s health organizations change during your career?

When I started with the society, we were the only organization dedicated to women’s health. Now, there are several. I also played a role in convincing the American Heart Association to recognize that women have heart attacks, which they hadn’t considered before due to the lack of women in clinical trials. Similarly, the National Osteoporosis Foundation was initially focused on men. Thankfully, a lot has changed for the better.

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Greenberger’s book,��, chronicles the fight to overcome bias and discrimination in women’s healthcare. It emphasizes the ways in which biological sex significantly impacts both health and the quality of healthcare received. Although conditions like heart and autoimmune diseases, migraines and others manifest differently in individuals with XX chromosomes, Greenberger argues that many patients do not receive the appropriate attention or care due to sex bias present in clinics, laboratories and clinical studies.

 

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Your acclaimed book,��Sex Cells,��outlines the historical context of women’s health. What was the motivation to write it and bring this story to the public?

I think it’s important for people to understand the history of women’s health, not only because of the progress, but also because of the fact that we’re not there yet. The beginning of the book focuses on the history and the end is patient stories and quotes from researchers. The quotes from the researchers make it obvious that there’s still a lot of ignorance, a lot of denial and a lot of research that is not being taken into consideration. The patient stories bring attention to women who have been turned away because their symptoms are different, or they’re not taken seriously.

Can you provide an example?

Doctors often dismiss women’s complaints about pain. There are numerous stories of women experiencing indigestion, stomach pains, or chest pains, only to be ignored in hospitals and then later on discover that they were having a heart attack. The last part of the book is really a statement about how much ignorance and denial still exists.

How do you hope your book informs future healthcare professionals?

I hope medical students will read the book, especially those at universities where sex differences aren’t part of the curriculum. By doing so, they can advocate for their medical schools to include this important topic. The goal is to educate future doctors about sex differences and the various ways men and women differ. This knowledge will improve patient care, enhance treatment effectiveness and ensure that medical research is comprehensive and inclusive.

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For her contributions to the field of women’s health, Greenberger has been honored with numerous awards and recognitions:

• Medical Herald’s 20 Most Influential Women in Medicine Today
• Perennial Hero Award from the Alliance for Aging Research
• Women in Government Relations Lifetime Achievement Award
• Washingtonian Magazine’s 100 Most Powerful Women
• Woman’s Day magazine “Red Dress Award”
• Woman’s Day magazine’s 50 Women Who Are Changing the World
• Trailblazer Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

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Throughout your career, you consistently challenged the status quo to advocate for others. What’s your secret to achieving success in this endeavor?

I’ve been asked so many times how I managed to do what I did. It really had to do with me having, as they say in Yiddish, “chutzpah.” I just never took no for an answer. When heads of major health organizations ignored what we were trying to do for women’s health advocacy, I just kept on going. Don’t take no for an answer. If you really feel strongly about something, then you need to really push it.

My advice to students: Hopefully you can find something that’s not just a job, but a vocation. Something that you really care about and that you can really pursue. If it’s something that you can do that is going to help individuals or help your community, that’s what’s important.

After serving nearly five decades, legendary Central New York high school football coach announced his retirement at the end of 2024. But despite hanging up his whistle, he remains true to his calling: to support his students.

Sanfilippo announced his retirement in December, vacating the touchline as head coach of Baldwinsville Bees football after 40 years—before that post, he coached for eight years at Syracuse’s Christian Brothers Academy—to provide the district with plenty of time to find a replacement. To date, that roster includes at least three of his former students.

“You always want what’s best for the kids,” he says. “The biggest thing in life is your long-lasting relationships, and believe it or not, some of my best friends played for me.”

The 1975 Syracuse University Football Letterwinner also has remained close to his former Orange teammates, maintaining a regular text thread with 12 of them: “Once you play there, you bleed Orange. You’re always a part of the SU family.”

Journey to Syracuse

Sanfilippo says he’s been on the field since the age of five. By high school, he was playing as a Salamanca Warrior under his father, the late Joe Sanfilippo, himself a 40-year career head coach, serving 17 of those years with the Warriors, a development team from Cattaraugus County in Western New York.

Sanfilippo attended Syracuse on a full scholarship, learning of the honor when then Head Coach Ben Schwartzwalder announced the news in person. “I came home and Schwartzwalder was sleeping in my dad’s chair,” Sanfilippo recalls. “He was a tremendous person. , like my father, which resonated with my parents.”

He played two years under Schwartzwalder, said to be the most successful football coach in the University’s history. With Schwartzwalder at the helm, Syracuse produced 22 straight years of non-losing football. He led the SU team to an impressive record of 153 wins, 91 losses and three ties, including seven bowl games, and the only National Championship in the University’s history, won by the undefeated 1959 team.

Sanfilippo’s final two years were under Coach Frank Maloney. He says his time at Syracuse centered around football, with winters and summers spent on off-season and pre-season workouts: “We stayed in the field house, what used to be the wrestling building. There were beds in there so we could stay all summer.”

Now 70, Sanfilippo remembers Manley Field House with dirt floors. It was said that a cloud of dirt would rise up in the Orange student section—affectionately known as the Manley Zoo—when fans stomped on the bleachers during games.

He remembers, too, grabbing trays from the dining hall with a group of his teammates to use as sleds, and stopping by Wimpy’s Wagon late at night. Wimpy’s was a food truck that would park at the base of DellPlain Hall. It faithfully arrived each evening from roughly 9 p.m. until late. Its most popular item, Sanfilippo recalls, was the “Cheese Jaw,” two burgers served side-by-side on a long, greasy Italian roll, covered in tons of cheese and onions.

Regulars, including Sanfilippo, were often college students on a night out because Wimpy’s was the only late-night option on campus, with nothing else open for blocks.

Learn Every Day

His coaching style, Sanfilippo says, was molded off the best qualities of all his former coaches. “Schwartzwalder kept it old school,” he says, adding Maloney’s style was similar, and, it has been said, his father had a no-nonsense approach.

Sanfilippo, too, has been described as an old-school coach—one who values integrity. He had one rule for his athletes: “Do the right thing.” If one of his players got in trouble, he’d ask, “Did you do the right thing?” If the answer was no, a consequence would be given. This rule, he says, is derived from how he was raised.

While he mainly agrees with the “old school” characterization, Sanfilippo believes as a coach he’s been very adept to changing times. “You must be adaptive,” he says. “I always work with a couple of young coaches. If you think you know it all, you’re dead in the water. You have to learn every day.”

His advice for teachers is the same that he gave the coaches he’s worked with: learn to delegate and learn from your mistakes. “My number one advice: Don’t do it all yourself,” Sanfilippo says. “And there’s nothing wrong with making a mistake. What’s wrong is if you don’t learn from the mistakes.”

Story by Ashley Kang ’04, G’11

The development of a new pathway program for community college students interested in engineering recently got a boost from a $100,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) planning grant.

The pathway program, “Roadmap Into Syracuse Engineering Undergraduate Programs and the Profession” (“RISEUP²”), aims to attract academically talented, low-income students from Central New York who historically have been excluded from those types of careers, including adult learners, first-generation students, traditionally under-represented minorities, veterans and students with high levels of financial need.

The grant also allows a multi-school project team to plan for and prepare to submit a later for NSF funding that would provide student scholarships for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) studies.

That step recognizes the need to educate, grow and retain a diverse and highly skilled STEM workforce in the Central New York region, a realization catalyzed by of plans to build a $100 billion megafab semiconductor manufacturing facility in the region and New York State’s subsequent in community and workforce development, says , Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence and chair of biomedical and chemical engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS), who is the project’s principal investigator.

“This is a really exciting opportunity for ECS to envision different ways to bring students into our undergraduate program. With the growing regional and national need for engineers, we want to attract students who don’t just come to us straight out of high school. This planning grant gives us the opportunity to dig deeply into assuring that we would give those students the best opportunity to s쳮d if they come here,” Hasenwinkel says.

The NSF award funds information-gathering, program research and partnership-building efforts that the multi-school, multi-organizational project team is undertaking through spring 2025, when the Track 3 S-STEM NSF grant proposal will likely be submitted, Hasenwinkel says. That type of grant would directly fund scholarships for engineering students and underwrite the support services to help assure the academic, social and career success of RISEUP² program participants, Hasenwinkel says.

Goals for the planning phase include:

• Strengthening current connections between the University and Onondaga and Mohawk Valley Community Colleges and expanding partnerships with additional regional community colleges (potentially Jefferson, Cayuga, Tompkins Cortland and Broome Community Colleges)
• Formalizing transfer agreements with the regional community colleges to provide direct admission to Syracuse University ECS programs
• Conducting a comprehensive needs assessment across all partner institutions to determine what kinds of programming best support low-income engineering students at their two-year college, during their transition to a four-year university and throughout their time at Syracuse
• Developing formal partnerships with Micron and other area STEM employers and strengthening alliances with the Manufacturers Association of Central New York and the Technology Alliance of Central New York to solidify internship and employment opportunities
• Conducting research to better understand how a scholarship-based cohort model focused on workforce development can improve outcomes for low-income community college engineering transfer students

Project team members envision a program that offers a clear pathway to a bachelor’s degree within a “360-degree” system of student support. Beginning in the earliest years of college, it would offer ongoing guidance in financial aid, academic counseling, student success and educational and social programming at both the community college and University campuses. It would also offer living-learning residency opportunities, summer internships, professional development training and ultimately, job placement assistance.

Working with Hasenwinkel are co-principal investigators ,��professor of mathematics at ; , associate professor of higher education in the ; , dean of the School of STEM Transfer and associate professor at ; and , dean of the at Syracuse. Other ECS faculty and staff in admissions, recruitment and enrollment, student success and inclusive excellence are also part of the process, as are their counterparts at the community colleges.

Though the team fully plans to proceed with a Track 3 S-STEM proposal, this year’s planning activity and research will be useful in and of itself, creating knowledge and new information regarding the group of students the proposal aims to help, Hasenwinkel says.

“We’ll also be learning as we go, and we’ll be able to contribute to the educational literature on the most effective practices for supporting this population of students.”

Natalie Koch, professor of geography and the environment in the , recently gave an address for the State of Arizona Research Library’s 2024 Arizona Author Series on connections between desert agriculture in the Southwest United States and Saudi Arabia.

The explored the exchange of colonial technologies in agriculture between the deserts of Arizona and the Arabian Peninsula over the last two centuries, which was the subject of her book, “.” Through the camel corps of the 1850s to agricultural missions in the 1940s, U.S. planners sought to promote the Arizona desert as an agricultural utopia, a laboratory for modernized techniques that were exchanged with Saudi Arabia, she explained.

This history is relevant today, Koch says, since a Saudi dairy company’s farming in Arizona continues to sustain their dairy industry. She recently published an on the controversial issue in the Arizona Capitol Times. She says this can be viewed as part of a longer history of settler extractivism, international circuits of commercial agriculture and the displacement of Indigenous knowledge and science.

The author series is supported by the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records. Koch’s address received recognition from the Arizona Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes, who said, “This month’s Arizona Author Series presentation reminds us that the Arizona Desert is interconnected with the world. Whether you’ve already visited Hi-Jolly’s tomb or are new to the desert, ‘Arid Empire’ has something to teach all of us about our state’s growth.”

Koch also authored “The Geopolitics of Spectacle: Space, Synecdoche, and the New Capitals of Asia,” and numerous articles on the geographies of authoritarianism, nationalism, and the state, as well as the energy transition and the geopolitics of sports in the Arabian Peninsula.

Koch is the undergraduate director for the Geography and the Environment Department, director of the Central Asia and the Caucasus Initiative and a senior research associate in the Middle Eastern Studies Program.

This story was written by Michael Kelly