HDO Class of 2016: Student Biographies



Sarah K. Burchfield

Sarah has worked in account services for pharmaceutical advertising agencies since 2008 after she graduated from the University of Florida with a B.S. in Advertising. She started her career in New York City, moved across the country to San Francisco, and is now calling Austin, Texas home. In her free time, she enjoys being at the ocean, watching the Florida Gators, writing haikus, hiking and exploring, and spending as much time as possible with friends and family. Sarah loves travel above all and has a goal to see the entire world.


Lisa Cox

Lisa is Texas born and bred, though quite a bit of wanderlust pulses through her veins. She has been fortunate to have had experiences that afforded her the opportunity to see the world from various angles and perspectives. Lisa is a believer in life and a lover of people. These two traits drive her desire to help create positive social change.


Kathy Keevan, CPA

Kathy was born in Mobile, Alabama; her family moved to San Antonio when she was five. She received a BS in Speech Communication from The University of Texas at Austin in 1982. She moved to the Washington, DC area for several years, after which she returned to the University to earn a Master of Professional Accounting from the McCombs School of Business, in 1992. Her subsequent professional career has been at USAA, a property and casualty insurance company in San Antonio. Kathy holds a CPA license and the Chartered Property & Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) designation; in her free time she loves to travel and has taken up running.


Joshua Levine

Over the last 11 years, Joshua has overseen the development of multiple entities in a variety of fields in the Health & Wellness Industry including fitness centers, Pilates and yoga studios, a spa, a healthy grocery store, and a CrossFit gym. During that period, he has continued to work as a personal trainer for hundreds of people in a variety of modalities. Joshua has devoted his life to learning as much as possible about resistance training, sports conditioning, yoga and flexibility techniques, plyometrics, meditative options, nutrition, and cardiovascular exercise. He is an amateur mountain climber and outdoor enthusiast spending two years adventuring around the world which culminated in climbing four classic peaks, Pico de Orizaba, Mt. Rainier, Ellingwood Arete and Mt. Kilimanjaro, in the span of 12 months. He received a B.A. in Philosopjy from the University of Texas at Austin in 1995.


Molly Schriber

Molly is currently Special Projects Major and Nature Camp Director at a non-profit teaching farm outside of Houston, Texas. She has a background in environmental and outdoor education, sustainable goods marketing and sales. Prior to working at the farm, she marketed and facilitated gap year programs in Québec and sold organic mattresses in Houston. She is an 80 percenter, meaning that she is interested in perfecting a skill to 80% while seeing the remaining 20% as unnecessary. This is a concept explained by her hero, Yvon Chouinard, the Founder of Patagonia. In 2011, she graduated from Elon University with a Bachelors of Arts in Environmental Studies and International Studies.


Rosa Tran III

Rosa is a Fort Worth native and received her BBA at The University of Texas at Arlington. Her capstone in Organizational Strategy informed her various leadership positions on campus from being the Vice President of the Business Constituency Council to being the official co-hostess of the university. After graduation, Rosa joined AmeriCorps, a competitive civil society program engaging adults in intensive community service work with the goal of meeting critical needs in the community, at an educational non-profit whose mission was to help low-income students become the first in their family to graduate college. Upon completion of her AmeriCorps commitment, Rosa moved to Miami where she was inducted into Teach For America and taught 4th and 5th grade reading for three years to students who were at-risk; she was awarded Rookie Teacher of the Year. Apart from her mission of helping others cultivate their strengths and identify their areas of growth, she is an avid scuba diver and voracious traveler.


Janice V. Williams, M.Ed.

Janice earned her B.A. in History from Dartmouth College and two degrees from The University of Texas at Austin: M.Ed. in Higher Education Administration and an M.A. in Human Dimensions of Organizations. In 2004, Janice began her career in college student affairs as an entry level academic advisor and today she works as the senior program coordinator with the Student Success Initiatives Office at UT Austin. Her office was designed 5 years ago to improve the university’s four-year graduation rate which hovered over 52%. Bringing administrators, faculty, staff, students, alumni and other campus partners to the table meant the creation of new and exciting ways to utilize historical data to identify barriers to student success. These efforts have positively shifted the landscape of the university. The campus of over 50,000 students is now united in its efforts to effectively serve all of its students and one outcome is that this shift has helped the university improve its four-year graduation rate to 66%. Janice will begin her Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Leadership and Learning in Organizations program at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College in 2018. Her research will focus on the underperforming student and explore ways in which institutions of higher education can better understand and proactively serve this often missed yet significant student population.


Stacey E. Winning

Stacey relocated from New York City to Austin, Texas in 2012 to assume the role as Vice President and Head of Global Recruiting and Development for Dimensional Fund Advisors. In this position Stacey is tasked with building and leading the team responsible for attracting, hiring, and developing the talent that enables Dimensional to provide a world-class investment experience to clients and a dynamic work environment for employees. Prior to joining Dimensional, Stacey held a number of leadership roles in recruiting efforts at different top caliber Wall Street firms. Outside of work she most enjoys spending time with her husband and traveling to foreign places around the world. Stacey graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA.


Alan J. Yancelson

Alan was born in Mexico City, Mexico. He attended The McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin and he is currently a Financial Advisor at USAA. Alan enjoys playing baseball, squash, and basketball on his free time.


Amanda Zhu

Amanda is inquisitive, passionate and ambitious. She has a strong learning spirit aiming for a holistic integration of culture, mentality, and knowledge in her long-term career pursuit. Prior to joining HDO, her technical education and early-phase career experiences have been in the geosciences. She is looking forward to fundamental growth as a person and becoming a future leader through pursuing her Master’s degree. She likes to try new things. Before moving to Austin, she enjoyed the entire experience of horseback riding for more than a year. She equally enjoys the moments of social interaction and those of solitude at home or in nature.