INI Welcome Tartans on the Rise and Alumni Leadership Council for Carnival Weekend
For more than 100 years, Carnival has been — and continues to be — one the most anticipated weekends of the year for Carnegie Mellon students and alumni, with Tartans around the world coming together to celebrate this CMU tradition.
This year, the INI had great reason to celebrate as two INI alumni were selected as 2023 Tartans on the Rise: Rohyt Belani ’02 (MS12) and Hooman Radfar ’04 (MS14). Tartans on the Rise celebrates recent alumni who are making an impact in their organizations and in their communities, across the nation and around the world through leadership, innovation and career achievements.
The INI also welcomed back to campus members of the Alumni Leadership Council (ALC) for their annual meeting. The ALC was formed in 2009 as a group of valued advisors and passionate advocates seeking to engage and strengthen the INI alumni network and help the INI achieve its strategic goals. With more than 2,200 alumni around the world, the ALC helps foster communication and engagement among alumni, and between alumni and students.
“Many members of the ALC had not been back to campus in years – some hadn’t been back since the INI moved into our own building from Hamburg Hall in 2002,” said Dr. Dena Haritos Tsamitis, director of the INI and Barbara Lazarus Professor of Information Networking. “It was exciting to be able to walk our INI alumni around campus on a beautiful, bright sunny day which really put a spotlight on the immense growth that is occurring across the university. You could see the pride for our university community grow in each of them.”
During the ALC’s visit, Haritos Tsamitis shared a sneak preview of INI's 2028 Strategic Plan, and they were able to participate in the “Moving Forward in Engineering” update from College of Engineering’s Dean William Sanders.
Alumni also took some time to visit the Carnival booths and the CMU bookstore, while also stopping to say "hi" to the Scotty Sculpture, sculpted by College of Fine Arts alumnus Ray Kaskey, in its new forever home in Merson Courtyard.
A few ALC members also joined Haritos Tsamitis for an intimate discussion focused on harnessing critical self-reflection as a tool for personal and professional success and self-understanding. Hosted by WINI, students were able to hear directly from INI alumni about how they adjust their approach to challenge narratives in the workplace that don’t work for their identity and how they break down barriers to achieve their goals.