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Young Alumni Achievement

The CALS Alumni Association's Young Alumni Achievement Award recognizes an outstanding alumnus/alumnae of the College who has recognized success in their professional field and/or demonstrated leadership abilities in the College of Agriculture of Life Sciences and/or Cornell University. Young alumnus is defined as a person under the age of forty years-old prior to January 1 in the year of the award.

 

Click here for this year's Young Alumni Achievement Award winner. Past winners are listed below.

2025 Recipient

Kristin Alongi MS '10

Kristin Alongi is the vice president of business transformation at Rich Products Corporation, a frozen food manufacturer, in Buffalo, NY. She is responsible for overseeing Rich’s Transformation Office and shaping transformational strategy and governance to deliver new levels of performance related to growth, productivity and capabilities. 

Prior to this role, Kristin was the vice president of executive team governance and strategic planning, where she was responsible for fostering the development and heightened performance of Rich’s executive leadership team, leading strategic initiatives and overseeing the enterprise strategic planning process. Other past experiences include overseeing Rich’s new product development and innovation portfolio management, go-to-market process strategy and four years as an R&D product developer for Rich’s innovation and bakery teams.

She was the valedictorian of Hamilton College, with a BA in chemistry, and holds both an MS in food science from Cornell University and an MBA from SUNY Oswego. Past research expertise includes juice processing and computational chemistry.

Kristin sits on two Cornell University Advisory Councils: College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Food Science. Previous leadership includes serving on the Cornell University AgriTech Advisory Council, Massachusetts’s Avenue Project Board of Directors and the Western New York Institute for Food Technologists Board.

 

Prior Recipients

Prior Young Alumni Achievement Award Recipients
LastFirstClass YearYear Won
AlongiKristin20102025
DunnShane20072024
NadolnyKate20062024
HakimLily20072023
Vollmar BreezyDanielle20062023
GoldmanGretchen20062022
EarleCorey Ryan20072021
FlowermanMichelle2008, MBA '092020
SilbertRyan20022020
ConnellNathan20012019
SchwartzDaniel20012018
Pimm WegmeyerHarriet19992017
ShapiroRisa1999, PhD '052016
CaneDaniel19982015
SinghSavneet20052015
AlvesJim20012014
DanielsJonathan19992013
WolfeJoshua19992012
SorkinAndrew Ross19992011
BelskyScott20022010
LickerJonathan1998, PhD '992009
PorterDale1995, PhD '012008
SnowKatherine19912008
Knudsen IIIEjnar19912007
Colon-MallahElia1988, DVM '922006
WhitingGordon19872005
MukherjeeMishtu19902004
GriffenLaurie19862003
GriffenSteven19872003
TatumMark19912003
NitzbergBarbara19852002
BrownKelly19882001
HuyghueMichael19842001
RudgersNathan19822000
ClarkJohn19801998
BittnerJames19801997
BakerRobin19851996
FessendenDaniel19871995
NolanMichael19771994
LaBeauTimothy19771993
ZimmermanPaul19781992
MeredithDenise19731991
BaileyCharles19841990
BuckhoutCarol19791989
DeckerDaniel1974, MS '76, PhD '861988