Four Graduating Students Honored with Dean’s Mission & Impact Award

Four members of the graduating Class of 2023 have received the Dean’s Mission & Impact Award, Dean Kerwin K. Charles announced in an email to the community on May 15. Since 2021, the annual award has recognized  “select members of the graduating class whose efforts on behalf of the SOM community, New Haven, or society as a whole, extraordinarily exemplify the mission and associated values that are the defining feature of our school.”

Charles wrote, “The Yale School of Management, since its founding, has been committed to and inspired by the belief that in their leadership roles, SOM graduates think not only about their organizations’ bottom lines but also about the impact of their decisions on the broader society. This award honors graduating students whose activities while pursuing their degrees have been similarly exemplary and above and beyond the standard operations of business here at the school.”

The newest recipients of the award are:

• Mea-Lynn-Wong ’23, a graduate of the full-time MBA program who served in student government as the community and inclusion chair and on the Council for Anti-Racism and Equity. This spring, she helped create the Yale Black Venture Summit, which brought together Black entrepreneurs at Evans Hall. “Through her work,” Charles wrote, “Mea-Lynn has forged critical connections to the local entrepreneur ecosystem and elevated the voices of underrepresented professionals of color at SOM and in New Haven.”
• Nicky Ou ’23, a graduate of the Master of Advanced Management program. Ou served as an admissions ambassador and as MAM class representative in student government, a role in which “she has gone above and beyond to ensure the incorporation into the full life and breadth of the school of all the different degree programs, nationalities, and backgrounds,” Charles wrote.
• Caitlin Piccirillo-Stosser ’23 and Erica DeMond ’23, both graduates of the full-time MBA program, co-leaders of the Education Club. During their tenure, Charles noted, the club collaborated with The Broad Center at Yale SOM on an internship program connecting students with public school systems and helped create a partnership with Junior Achievement, “which, for the first time, brought more than 40 students to New Haven’s Roberto Clemente Leadership Academy in March for a day of financial literacy and fun.”

The winners, Charles added, “exemplify a spirit noticeable throughout the student body—they combine sober-minded analysis and full-hearted enthusiasm while aggressively seeking to improve the communities they touch.” They will receive the opportunity to select a local nonprofit organization to receive a contribution of $1,500.

Read about the 2021 and 2022 winners of the Dean’s Mission & Impact Award.