Each spring, the College of Arts and Sciences’ Alumni Awards ceremony recognizes a distinguished few of our more than 220,000 living alumni whose accomplishments are tangible evidence of the enduring value of an Arts and Sciences education. Their contributions and achievements in their chosen fields, communities, country and university are creating a lasting impact locally and globally. 

The ceremony features the following honors:

• The Emerging Leader Award, which recognizes alumni who have demonstrated distinctive and outstanding achievement in their profession and through civic involvement.
• The Distinguished Achievement Award, which recognizes the outstanding career achievements and contributions of our alumni in fields that encompass disciplines across the arts and sciences.
• The Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes exemplary service to the College of Arts and Sciences, its faculty, students and programs.

This year, the April 4 ceremony will celebrate four individuals for their extraordinary successes and service. With backgrounds and careers spanning cybersecurity to pediatric mental health, and corporate board service and consulting, to law and public service, this year’s group of honorees not only exemplifies the extraordinary pathways provided by an Arts and Sciences education, but also what it means to be a lifelong Buckeye. 

Emerging Leader Award

This award recognizes alumni who have demonstrated distinctive and outstanding achievement in their profession and through civic involvement.

Galia Nurko

BA, history, 2012

Galia Nurko is passionate about the interdisciplinary intersections that shape society, with a particular interest in how technology and its diffusion is impacting economic, social and political dynamics around the world. Her career reflects that passion. 

At present, Nurko serves as the director of strategy and development for the Global Cyber Alliance (GCA), where she oversees the organizations’ future growth strategy, which includes business development and partnership. In this role, she supports the development of the organization’s long-term strategy, writing of grants and implementation of projects, including Common Good Cyber. The goal of Common Good Cyber is to fundamentally change how cybersecurity is addressed, moving society from a “law-of-the-strongest” approach to a collective approach that reduces cybersecurity risk for everyone. 

Nurko’s experience at GCA builds on her success at DAI Global LLC’s Center for Digital Acceleration (CDA). CDA’s mission is to support international development donors to sustainably integrate digital solutions, as appropriate, into their programming. When Nurko joined the team, the portfolio exclusively focused on the net-positives of digital adoption, which she saw as a shortcoming. Over the span of 18 months, she proactively built the company’s digital risk portfolio by conducting extensive technical research on critical infrastructure cybersecurity and establishing strategic partnerships around the world, ultimately securing USAID’s first and second major cybersecurity contracts and co-authoring USAID’s Cybersecurity Primer. 

Given that at the time the conversation about digital risk mitigation was quite nascent within the international development community, Nurko recognized that stakeholder mobilization was also needed. To facilitate this, she launched two communities. The first focused on discussing how cybersecurity and other digital risks are affecting DAI’s programming, and the second focused on bringing together experts, implementing partners, private sector, USAID and other donors, and civil society to discuss what steps the international development community could take to effectively embed cybersecurity across all development programming. Change is slow, but she is proud to say the latter community is still informally active. 

In addition to this work, Nurko also designed and applied a research methodology to gather and analyze qualitative data on the interplay of digital access and perceptions of trust and privacy amongst urban youth in Ghana and India. The research findings, expanded upon in a published research paper, illuminated that perceptions of offline risk inform online behavior and are not uniform around the world. 

Prior to DAI, Nurko obtained an MS in foreign service at Georgetown University where she focused on the impact of emerging technologies in developing economies, ranging from issues of digital financial inclusion to the gig economy. Simultaneous to her studies, she worked as a Graduate Policy Fellow with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, where she researched and authored a report on the speed, mobile friendliness, accessibility and security of federal government websites. In addition, Nurko conducted research at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), where she contributed to a variety of projects, including developing proposals for the use of emerging technologies, like blockchain, to improve the delivery of social services. 

Preceding this, Nurko served as director of media relations for the Embassy of Israel to the United States. In this role, she liaised with the communications offices of all three branches of U.S. government and managed all media requests for the ambassador and visiting Israeli dignitaries, including the prime minister and president. 

Nurko is a mother of two and now lives in Ohio. She is a 2024-2025 Richard W. Pogue Fellow for the Cleveland Council of World Affairs and has served on the Joseph and Florence Mandel Jewish Day School Board of Directors for four years. Nurko holds an MS from Georgetown and a BA in history from Ohio State. She speaks English, Spanish and Hebrew. 

Dr. Ariana Hoet

BS, psychology, 2011

Ariana Hoet, PhD, executive clinical director of Kids Mental Health Foundation, is the driving force behind the organization’s mission of providing educational resources that make sure mental health is a vital part of every child’s upbringing.

Dr. Hoet believes all children and families should have a fair opportunity to be as healthy as possible. That enthusiasm extends into her desire for making sure that people of all backgrounds are accepted and celebrated — a passion born from her own experience as an immigrant to the U.S. from Venezuela.

Her work in this arena led her to being recognized as a Distinguished Hispanic Ohioan by the Ohio Commission on Hispanic/Latino Affairs for her work within the Spanish-speaking community. She also received the American Psychological Association Early Career Award for Outstanding Contributions to Benefit Children, Youth, and Families and the William Oxley Thomson Alumni Award by the Ohio State Alumni Association. Hoet was also recognized as a Columbus Business First 40 Under 40. 

Hoet works in pediatric primary care where she serves primarily immigrant children. She is also a clinical assistant professor of pediatrics in the Department of Pediatric Psychology and Neuropsychology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Ohio State, with a role in training the next generation of behavioral health professionals who will tackle the emerging mental health crisis in children.

Hoet has become a go-to national expert for outlets including USA Today, CNN, Good Morning America and Newsweek because she is a vital public voice for youth mental health, and because she has made an impact on countless young lives in her clinical practice.

The work of The Kids Mental Health Foundation and Hoet helped draw U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy to Nationwide Children’s in October 2022 to discuss the country’s growing pediatric mental health crisis. The following year, Hoet and The Kids Mental Health Foundation led a roundtable discussion at the White House focused on mental health in the entertainment industry. 

Hoet is the proud mom of two toddlers and enjoys traveling, dancing and Ohio State football. She is also involved in Latino community events, both personally and professionally. Hoet is the co-founder and vice president of Parenting Culture, a national non-profit for culturally responsive and inclusive parenting resources.

She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Ohio State and a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. She completed her residency at The University of Colorado School of Medicine and a post-doctoral fellowship at Akron Children’s Hospital.

Distinguished Achievement Award

This award recognizes the outstanding career achievements and contributions of our alumni in fields that encompass disciplines across the arts and sciences.

Donna M. Alvarado 

BA, Spanish, 1969; MA, Spanish, 1970

Donna Alvarado is the founder and president of Aguila International, a business-consulting firm. Alvarado's executive background includes key leadership and governance positions in government, business and non-profit sectors. She is an experienced corporate director elected to boards of publicly traded companies in the manufacturing, banking, transportation and services industries. She has served as chair of national and statewide public policy commissions on education and workforce development, as well as numerous non-profit boards.

Alvarado currently serves on the boards of directors of CSX Corporation and Park National Bank. She is also a trustee of the Lindorf Family Foundation. She is past chairwoman of the Ohio Board of Regents, the Ohio Governor’s Workforce Policy Board, the Columbus Council on World Affairs, the Ohio Association of Community Colleges, Central Ohio Technical College Board of Trustees, and commissioner of the Ohio Commission on Hispanic/Latino Affairs.

Previously, Alvarado served as president and CEO of Quest International, a global educational publishing company in the elementary and secondary education markets. Early in her career, following executive and legislative staff appointments at the U.S. Department of Defense and in the U.S. Congress, Alvarado was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as CEO of the federal agency ACTION (Corporation for National and Community Service).

Alvarado received both her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Spanish from Ohio State.

Distinguished Service Award 

This award recognizes exemplary service to the College of Arts and Sciences, its faculty, students and programs.

Paul E. Perry

BA, political science, 1973

Paul Perry grew up in Somerset, Ohio, after which he received his BA in political science in 1973 and his JD in 1976 from Ohio State. His undergraduate studies focused on Latin American studies and American and comparative politics. Among his most influential faculty members was Herb Asher.

After graduating from law school, Perry practiced law for 39 years in Ohio, Tennessee and Michigan, ultimately retiring from the Detroit-based firm Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone. His professional career focused primarily on real estate, creditor’s rights and bankruptcy.

During his professional career, Perry was active in the Ohio State Bar Association, as well as local bar associations in Columbus, Cincinnati and Memphis. He also served on the boards of various charities including Variety — the Children’s Charity (both in Memphis and Detroit), the Jazz Arts Group in Columbus, the World Affairs Council in Cincinnati and Planned Parenthood in Butler County, Ohio.

In 2012, Perry joined the board of MMORE (Multiple Myeloma Opportunities for Research and Education), a Columbus-based charity dedicated to raising research funds and awareness for multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer. Dr. Don Benson at the James Cancer Hospital and his research team were the main recipients of the hundreds of thousands of dollars raised by MMORE. Perry and his wife, Marnette, have continued to support Benson’s research efforts ever since.

While in Columbus in 2001, Paul reconnected with Ohio State’s Department of Political Science, where he was heavily influenced by then-chair Professor Paul Beck. Several years later, he helped establish the Ohio State Political Science Alumni Advisory Board, where he has served as chair since its inception. In support of the department, Perry and his wife fund the Perry Lecture Series, a series hosted by the department which features prominent speakers in various areas related to political science. 

In addition to the lecture series, the Perrys have funded needs-based graduate research programs for political science students and other political science-related advancement.

Paul and Marnette are also members of Ohio State’s President’s Club and The Ohio State University Alumni Association.

After his retirement from the practice of law in 2015, the Perrys moved to Naples, Fla. Shortly after moving to Naples, Paul joined the Aqualane Shores Association, his local community association, serving three years as president. He was elected to the Naples City Council in 2020, where he served a four-year term, retiring in April 2024.

Paul and Marnette have a second home in the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, N.Y., where Paul served as president of the Chautauqua Property Owners Association.

After retiring from the Naples City Council, he assumed the role of Board Chair of the Naples Art Institute, an art museum and art education center in downtown Naples. He was also recently appointed to serve on the City of Naples Commission on Ethics and Governmental Integrity.

Paul and Marnette are active members of the Trinity-by-the-Bay Episcopal Church in Naples.