Six alumni have received HAA Awards for their outstanding service to the University.
J. Jacques Carter, M.P.H. ’83, of Brookline, Massachusetts, has served as a teacher, adviser, and mentor for students at the College, Harvard Medical School, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (where he is a founding member of the leadership council and a past president of the alumni association). A former member of the boards of the HAA and Harvard Club of Boston, he also served on Harvard’s Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility.
Martin J. “Marty” Grasso Jr. ’78, of Swampscott, Massachusetts, is a former HAA president who has also chaired or helped plan his fifth to fortieth class reunions. He chaired the HAA committee charged with broadening engagement among College alumni in the twenty-fifth- to fortieth-reunion cohort, and helped reconceptualize how the HAA and alumni volunteers can better serve alumni throughout their lives.
Cecily Orenstein Morse ’62, of Brookline, was honored by Radcliffe in 1997 for distinguished alumnae and other service. The longtime president of Radcliffe’s class of 1962 was instrumental in bringing Harvard and Radcliffe classes together for joint reunions, and has fostered engagement with alumni beyond their fiftieth reunion as part of the HAA’s “maintaining connections” committee and the Crimson Society working group.
Yoshiko J. “June” Nagao ’96, of Tokyo, has helped deepen alumni connections across Harvard schools and the Asia-Pacific region through her board service with the Harvard Club of Japan, and as secretary of Harvard Alumni in IMPACT, a newer Shared Interest Group (SIG). She has also been a former director for clubs and SIGs in the Asia-Pacific region, and represented Japan on the Harvard Asian American Alumni Alliance SIG board.
Julie Gage Palmer ’84, of Chicago, a longtime alumni interviewer and volunteer for the Harvard Club of Chicago, joined its board in 2006, co-founding and now coordinating the Harvard School Liaison Program, which pairs alumni with more than 100 local schools. (She received a Miller-Hunn Award in 2014.) She now serves on the HAA committee that nominates Overseers and elected directors, and is a co-founder and former president of the Harvard Alumni for Global Women’s Empowerment (GlobalWE) SIG.
Kenneth A. Powell, M.B.A. ’74, of New York City, as president of the Harvard Business School’s alumni board, originated the HBS Global Alumni Conference in Paris. Since 1975, he has been a board member and three times president of the HBS Club of New York and a former vice president, two-time nominating-committee chair, and board member of the Harvard Club of New York City, where he led the search that installed the club’s first general manager of color. In nearly 25 years as president of the HBS African-American Alumni Association, he has endowed a professorship, provided leadership opportunities, and helped build a vibrant community.
