Each year, the College of Arts and Sciences honors alumni who have made exceptional contributions to their fields and to the lives of others. A ceremony for the 2015 winners will be held during Homecoming Weekend, October 8-11, 2015. This year’s winners of the Distinguished Service Alumnae award are Political Science alumnae Tracy Epp and Elizabeth Hill.

Tracy Epp (CWR ’97) is the chief academic officer at Achievement First, a network of charter schools that serves Brooklyn, New York; Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford, Connecticut; and Providence, Rhode Island. She manages assessment, school leader and teacher development and the network-wide alignment of curriculum to ensure that all students can meet ambitious goals.

Epp began her career as a 1997 Teach For America corps member in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. There, she later became a leader in establishing and expanding a local charter school network, the IDEA Public Schools. Before she became involved with IDEA, Epp served as a program director and member of the national program team at Teach For America.

A double major in political science and history at Case Western Reserve, Epp has since earned an MEd in educational leadership at the University of Texas–Pan American and an EdD in educational leadership at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a fellow in the Pahara/Aspen Institute’s Entrepreneurial Leaders for Public Education Fellowship Program.

Elizabeth Hill (CWR ’97, GRS ’97) is a superior court judge in San Mateo, California, where she hears criminal cases and sits as supervising judge in the South San Francisco branch courthouse. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science at Case Western Reserve and a JD from Stanford Law School.

Hill served as a deputy district attorney in San Mateo County from 2000 to 2010, holding specialty assignments in environmental protection, mental health cases and domestic violence prosecution. From 2010 to 2014, she served as a court commissioner, first in San Mateo County and then in Santa Clara County.

Hill was a member of the board of directors of Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse from 2005 to 2010. She mentors local high school students and volunteers as a mock trial judge. A member of the visiting committee for the College of Arts and Sciences, she created the Wellman Hill Political Science Internship Program in 2007. The program awards grants to political science majors pursuing unpaid summer internships in public service.

The complete article and list of winners can be found on the Spring/Summer 2015 issue of the Art/Sci Magazine.