We are one of just 30 design factories in the world working to find what’s needed for the workforce of tomorrow.

For Seidenberg professor Andreea Cotoranu, Pace feels like home (for her even more than for most). “I have a long history here. I started as an undergrad, earned my degree in information systems, got a position with the University, went on to get my master’s, and have moved between different roles in the Seidenberg School of CSIS. Now, I work in the same department that I graduated from.”

Cotoranu came to Pace from Romania as an international student and volleyball player. At the time, her priority was making sure she could go to a college where she could study as well as continue to play as an athlete. Once she arrived at Pace, she started to focus on her academic and career interests—and a love of IT and cybersecurity took hold. “My interest in cybersecurity started in grad school. I had great professors and hands-on lab work. It was exciting. I’ve always been interested in science and technology, and I saw opportunities to develop the programs here. I’ve used my own experience to build out programs for other students.”

“We use design thinking, systems thinking, and futures thinking. They are designing solutions for 2030.”

Since those days, Cotoranu has had a big presence in Seidenberg. She’s served as assistant dean for academic innovation, is the principal investigator on an NSA-funded grant aiming to expand cybersecurity education at the high school level, and she’s the director of the New York City Design Factory at Pace—an innovation hub for students, faculty, international collaborators, and industry partners, one that designs solutions to modern challenges and promotes innovative teaching and learning. “In the Design Factory, we bring the process and the context for learning to the forefront. It’s interdisciplinary and involves undergrads, grads, and international students. We are one of just 30 design factories in the world working to find what’s needed for the workforce of tomorrow.”

Pace’s NYC Design Factory is part of the Design Factory Global Network, a consortium of innovation hubs at universities around the world. Through this network, student teams work together on global issues. “Our staple programs are the field studies with international collaborators. We travel to their institutions, and they come to us. Right now, our host is CERN in Switzerland, and our focus is on health.”

Students participating in the field study conducted research on health and healthcare in New York and in the US, and then went to CERN to trade information with the CERN students who were studying health and healthcare in Switzerland. “Connecting with other teams is an important part of the process—we call it a two-week intensive. And it is really intense: 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. every day, including Saturdays. Pace students pitch ideas to the CERN students, get feedback, go back and refine—and vice versa.”

Students are also pushed to think beyond the current moment and design for problems of the future. “We use design thinking, systems thinking, and futures thinking. They are designing solutions for 2030.” Pace students have developed, pitched, and prototyped ideas like noise-pollution-absorbing drones and cooling systems that can preserve fresh food supplies at a massive scale. “Forcing students to think about what’s needed in the future creates a safe space for them to experiment, to explore, and to let their imaginations go wild.” And for Cotoranu, that’s the best part—seeing her students learn and grow. “It’s the typical educator answer, but having the opportunity to have an impact on a student’s life, to help them grow, and to build them up, it is genuinely the most fulfilling.”

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Umair Saleem is a practicing advocate of High Courts in Pakistan. He handles advisory and transactional work, arbitrations, and litigation pertaining to diverse areas of laws for commercial clients and government sector entities. After receiving degrees from prestigious universities in Pakistan and then Belgium, Umair decided to pursue a second LLM at Haub Law and follow his growing passion for environmental law. Despite completing his LLM during the COVID-19 pandemic, Umair left Pace having fulfilled his goal to acquire the tools and vision to actively work towards establishing a strong foundation of environmental law within Pakistan.

What was your path to law school?

I have always been a keen learner and an astute observer of the systemic injustices prevalent in the society I grew up within and that has fostered my desire to pursue many educational pathways. I always envisioned a future where human rights were not violated, and society offered its best to all individuals equally. Once I had avowed to set on this journey towards bringing a change in the oppressive structures of the society, law arrived as an easy conclusion. I completed my college education at Government College Lahore and had a stellar academic record, which eventually led me to receive a scholarship at one of the most prestigious universities in Pakistan—Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). After graduating with a degree in law, I was fortunate to find the right opportunities to work in corporate law firms and with prominent legal minds in Pakistan for five years. This helped me discover my passion for different fields of law. At this point, I decided to undertake an LLM from KU Leuven in Belgium in International and European Public Law. After that, I began my second LLM program in Energy and Climate Change Law from Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law because of my true passion for environmental justice. My time at Haub Law radically shaped my career pursuits and my vision for the future.

What inspired you to choose Pace to pursue an LLM?

After graduating from LUMS, I worked with two prominent environmentalists in Pakistan, Justice Jawad Hassan and Dr. Parvez Hassan, who fueled my passion for environmental law. Justice Jawad Hassan is also an alumnus of Pace and played a significant role in my decision to choose Pace for furthering my vision and goals. Pace is also the top environmental law institute in the United States. For all of these reasons and more, I enthusiastically decided to attend Pace to complete my LLM, which became a formative step in my vision to actively work towards establishing a strong foundation of environmental law within Pakistan.

What experiences stick with you from your time at Pace?

When I joined Pace, the COVID-19 pandemic was on the rise so there was no on-campus interaction at the time. However, the positive school ethos of the institute became evident to me in the way my distant learning experience was mediated and encouraged through facilitated interaction and understanding among not just peers but also professors. It proved equally fortifying to my growth not just as an academic but also as an individual and lawyer in Pakistan. The professors at Pace were always eager to help me work towards my goals and this became one of the most exciting parts of my journey and still proves invaluable to my growth in the field. In particular, Professors Nicholas Robinson and Katrina Kuh had the most defining impact on my growth and shaping my direction and passion for environmental laws.

How did your experience at Pace influence your outlook on environmental law?

Pace had a life changing impact on me—before completing my LLM, I only possessed a fleeting understanding of the environment, but it shaped my in-depth understanding of environmental and legal issues embedded within our everyday lives and practices. Furthermore, my understanding was further enriched when I engaged with legal aspects and approaches globally through my interaction with a diverse group of people from all over the world. My time at Pace instilled even more passion and optimism within me. Upon my return, I approached it with newfound vigour and environmental law took a precedence over other facets of my practice. I continue to draw and utilize insights from my experience at Pace during professionally challenging situations even today.

Can you speak a bit about your current career?

I am a practicing advocate of High Courts in Pakistan and handling advisory and transactional work, arbitrations, and litigation pertaining to diverse areas of laws for commercial clients and government sector entities. A typical day in my life starts early morning with court hearings, drafting for matters I am working upon, meetings with current and prospective clients and managing my associates.

What benefit does an LLM degree hold in today’s world?

The growing impetus of change demands that you broaden your horizons and are open to learning from people belonging to various social strata and cultural backgrounds as it would enhance your understanding of legal issues in the future. It also enhances your understanding as you get a comparative outlook of different legal systems and their handling of various issues.

What are some of your future goals?

I am thrilled to share that I aspire towards contributing to policymaking and eventually enforcement through judicial work and to become one of the future green judges in Pakistan. I want to give a multiplying effect to the environmental training that I have received at Pace by leading environmental litigation, teaching, writing books and articles and pave way for a greener future within Pakistan.

What are some of your passions aside from the law?

Since my initial motivation of studying the law was also to change the existing imbalances within society, I always strive towards changing that through other arenas of my life. I engage in volunteer and community work to try to give back to society largely and specifically my local community where people lack an awareness of career prospects to be able to change their futures. It gives me true joy to be able to make a difference within my community. When I am not working or researching, I also enjoy hiking, traveling and exploring new sites and places. I enjoy interacting with people from diverse cultures and communities and learning from their unique experiences.

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Jessica Bacher, Executive Director of the Land Use Law Center at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, was one of 28 members named to the Stakeholder Advisory Committee for New York State’s Master Plan for Aging. Governor Kathy Hochul announced the stakeholder committee in December, which will be tasked with advising the Master Plan for Aging Council – the group responsible for developing the state's first-ever Master Plan for Aging, a guiding document to help ensure older New Yorkers can live healthy, fulfilling lives while aging with dignity and independence.

The Stakeholder Advisory Committee will provide expertise on age-friendly policies, supports and health services to guide the Master Plan for Aging Council as it develops a comprehensive roadmap for meeting the socioeconomic needs of all generations of New Yorkers as they age. Ms. Bacher will provide a valuable role sharing her perspective in land use and local government to support a more holistic Master Plan that takes into consideration topics like Smart Growth, affordable housing, open space and transportation.

Read the Governor’s Release

Casting director and alumna Amy Hutchings’s degree in anthropology has informed her long-spanning career and belief in unity.

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You have had a very successful career spanning more than 50 years, from production management to, more recently, casting for feature films such as The Dead Don’t Die (2019), The Secret Diary of an Exchange Student (2021), and The Hating Game (2021).

How did you get started in your career? What has your journey to the present been like?

After college, I was planning to work as an elementary school teacher, but there was a freeze on city jobs. A brand new TV show was looking for a script typist with a college degree, and I was hired. That show was Sesame Street, and I was privileged to grow with it during its first ten years in production and work with the likes of Jim Henson and the Muppets.

When my husband's photography business was expanding, I left the show and began producing photography shoots, and, together, we published over 100,000 photos, and wrote and photographed over 20 nonfiction books for young children, primarily for educational publishers. The images we created represented a full “Rainbow Connection” of humanity, including those differently abled. I then briefly returned to TV as associate director on Nickelodeon’s Eureeka's Castle, a Muppet-inspired show for preschoolers focused on character development.

About ten years ago, I began casting talent for feature films. I’ve worked on upwards of 60 films during this time, and, at age 75, have no intention of slowing down. Now, the favorite aspect of my work is mentoring young actors and aspiring film crew members. Otherwise, what is a lifetime of experience worth?

You received a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Pace University. What attracted you to pursue this course of study?

When I was at Pace, there was a special program called the John Walsh Seminar, aka Project X. It was a remarkable intellectual exploration in everything from ancient civilizations and Russian literature to Chinese history (with a true sinologist) and physics (with a scientist involved in bouncing the first laser beam off the moon). From this extensive pool of topics, anthropology and the evolution of the human being just completely engaged me, and that engagement has never left.

Why did you choose to enroll at Pace University? Were there certain faculty who were instrumental in your personal and/or professional journey?

I enrolled at Pace as a transfer student from SUNY Cortland and it turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. I had been on a two-year hiatus, living and working in Manhattan, and the New York City campus was convenient. Also, my brother’s friend, David Beisel, was an inspiring history teacher at Pace and encouraged me to apply. Once there, I caught a French literature ‘fever,’ spread by a remarkable professor. After a semester or two, she told me about the John Walsh Seminar. I interviewed with the director, Joe Agnelli, and so began the most intense, intellectually stimulating, and expansive aspect of my education that has never waned.

“The films I choose to work on are all uplifting, illuminating stories that illustrate the arc of the hero's journey and humanity’s ability to continue to grow and change.”

One of your earliest projects as a casting director was for the comedy-drama Liberal Arts (2012), which begs the question: how has your time as a Dyson student influenced the person you are today, and what are your thoughts on a liberal arts education?

My years at Pace provided the broad perspective that has allowed me to become a cultural creative. I am an optimist who believes in the essential goodness of people, and the common thread of my life's work has been an outlook of unity among all of humankind. My degree in anthropology, work on Sesame Street, casting thousands of multi-ethnic and differently abled models for educational publishers, and writing and photographing nonfiction books, were all done with the full spectrum of humanity in mind. Also, the films I choose to work on are all uplifting, illuminating stories that illustrate the arc of the hero's journey and humanity’s ability to continue to grow and change.

Indeed, I am a true believer in a liberal arts education. More than ever, we need to examine our history and learn from the great thinkers, artists, and scientists. Thank you, Pace, for introducing me to them.

What challenges, if any, have you faced in life and how did you overcome them?

All of my careers have been “invented.” They have kept me in a state of constant learning and change, which, for me, is essential. Life is challenging and I was beyond fortunate to meet my husband at Pace. We’ve been together for 55 years and having a teammate who always has your back is a true gift. We always worked and raised our three sons together and he was always a full partner through “sickness and health.” Having a partner you trust when you are vulnerable is a precious commodity.

What is next for you?

I recently finished casting for a film with Uma Thurman and Samuel L. Jackson and another with Josh Radnor. These are in addition to my son Peter’s features, Which Brings Me to You and The Hating Game, both starring Lucy Hale. Watching The Hating Game provides me great satisfaction, having collaborated with a cast and crew decades younger than me. I’m currently working on a film recounting the events at Kent State, when four students were killed by National Guardsmen during an anti-war rally. This happened soon after I graduated from Pace and it's an important story to retell.

I’m also studying to become a wellbeing coach through the Anthropedia Foundation, which works with many different elements of society to reach their needs. The courses I’ve taken are so similar to the those I took at Pace, and have helped me to understand how the mind, body, and spirit are interconnected. My favorite quote is "I have chosen to be happy because it is good for my health" by Voltaire.

What advice would you give to our students, as they navigate their college life?

My only advice is to be open to life’s possibilities. It is important to have the courage to explore the paths not taken— remarkable surprises just might await you. I encourage the young people in my life to travel and see how others live. Maintain an outlook of unity with mankind and lead with kindness. We’re all in this together.