Succeeding in the Workplace

Nick Grandchamps ’15
Foreign Service Officer at the Department of State

Nick Grandchamps is a Foreign Service Officer who recently completed a two-year assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.  A 2015 UCF alum and a Rangel Fellow, Nick received his master’s degree from American University and served as a policy advisor for a member of Congress before joining the U.S. Foreign Service.  He is currently preparing for his next assignment to Istanbul, Turkey.

Janelle Coutts ’08 ’13PhD
Senior Chemical Analyst at NASA Kennedy Space Center

Dr. Janelle Coutts graduated from UCF in 2008 with her Bachelor’s in Chemistry and in 2013 with her Ph.D. in Materials Chemistry.  She has worked at Kennedy Space Center for just over 10 years, first as a research scientist with a focus on closed-loop environment technologies, followed by a 3-year appointment as the supervisor of the Chemical Sampling & Analysis laboratory which is responsible for sampling and qualification testing of all commodities used for ground support and flight activities at KSC.  She converted to a Civil Servant with NASA last year and currently supports efforts for identification and quantification of unknown materials and contaminants from aerospace flight hardware and ground support equipment, and has a special interest in hypergolic fuel research.

Stephen Hanas ’15
Manager of Business Intelligence at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Stephen Hanas graduated from UCF in 2015 focused around Economics and Statistics with the intention of leveraging that into a career in data science. As part of the Business Intelligence Team at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the leading Educational Technology Company in the K-12 marketspace with more than 1.4 billion in market share, Stephen has in 5 years gone from an Analyst, to a Senior Analyst, to now BI Manager. He leads a team primarily focused on accelerating the digital revolution of not only HMH as a company but also our Public Education System. The impacts of COVID-19 have made this initiative more important than ever. His role includes leveraging Artificial Intelligence/Augmented Analytics and Business/Process Automations, as well as designing Analytical Dashboards to meet various data needs across the company.

Tristan Reynoso ’15
2nd year PhD Student at Louisiana State University
2019 NSF-GRFP Recipient

Tristan Reynoso graduated from the University of Central Florida in 2019 with his B.S. in Mathematics and is currently a 2nd year Mathematics PhD student at Louisiana State University. His research interests are in mathematical physics and partial differential equations, primarily those with relevance to fluid dynamics. He is a McNair Scholar Alumni and is continually devoted to increasing diversity and inclusion in K-12 and secondary education.

Panel Moderator
Diana Rodriguez ’18
College of Sciences Alumna
Psychology BS

Diana Rodriguez has been a part of the College of Science family as of 2016 and a proud UCF grad as of 2018 with her Bachelor’s in Psychology. Committed to helping the community, she has a penchant for connecting with others. Diana loves traveling and learning about other cultures which she incorporates in her cooking.