M Squared Strategies extends a warm welcome to Danielle O’Bannon.  A Texas native, Danielle attended The Hockaday School of Dallas before traveling north to Hanover, New Hampshire to attend Dartmouth College. At Dartmouth, she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in history and a minor in education policy. She also founded Dartmouth’s first financial literacy community service organization, which offered personal finance seminars to low-income residents of New Hampshire’s Upper Valley. Following graduation, Danielle returned to Dallas to join the Litigation Consulting Support Team at Bickel & Brewer, LLC, where she developed a keen eye for detail and an aptitude for organization.

Danielle has always had a passion for public service and is extremely excited to be in Washington D.C. She looks forward to being a part of a dynamic team committed to effectively supporting government clients. In her free time, Danielle enjoys running, trying new restaurants, and spending time with friends.

Shanthi Philips started on Thursday and will be joining Marcy and Nic supporting the ISG ORMS effort with the Forest Service at the USDA, completing a trifecta of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers supporting a client who happens to be a RPCV.  Shanthi grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and attended college at the University of Richmond. She graduated with a BA in mathematics and economics, and started working at Mercer as an actuarial analyst.  Over the next four years, her actuarial consulting career moved her from Richmond to Chicago, and from Mercer to Hewitt.  She enjoyed working with large data sets to calculate her clients’ pension risk, and meeting with them to plan for their employees’ future.  She also passed five actuarial exams to attain her Associate of the Society of Actuaries.  In 2009, Shanthi decided that she wanted to look for something more fulfilling in her work, and joined the Peace Corps.  For two years, she lived and worked in Lesotho, a small country landlocked by South Africa that has the 3rd highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the world.  Shanthi taught mathematics to high school students and worked to mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS in the country through education and empowerment. Shanthi just returned from her Peace Corps service at the end of 2011 and moved to Washington DC last month. In her spare time, she enjoys running and exploring the city.  Welcome Shanthi!

Marcy Shrader-Lauinger grew up in Montana and caught the travel bug early on in life. She started as an exchange student in New Zealand during high school and has now lived in over five countries and on both coasts of the United States. She attended Colby College in Maine, graduating in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Studies and Development. While in university, Marcy dedicated time to international public health research in Ecuador and political development studies in Kampala, Uganda. She recently returned from serving three years in the Peace Corps, where she worked in Paraguay and Colombia on beekeeping, agriculture, education and economic development programs. In the Peace Corps, she was responsible for small economic development activities from planning and material creation to facilitation and program evaluation. Marcy is excited to join the M Squared Strategies team and hopes to contribute to more effective and responsible government policy. Marcy will be joining Nic and Brenda Maynor over at Brenda’s new home at ISG working on the ORMS support project within the Forest Service at the USDA. In her spare time, Marcy is trying to catch up on the technology and culture of the past three years in addition to running and practicing Bikram Yoga.

Born and raised in Wayne, New Jersey, Anthony Pandolfo now calls the District of Columbia home.  Over the last seven and half years, Anthony has been an undergraduate student, a graduate student, and a staff member at The George Washington University.  After earning a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science in May 2008, Anthony took a job in the Office of International Programs.  Initially acting as Executive Assistant to the Associate Provost for International Programs, he was promoted to International Operations Coordinator.  He coordinated a variety of initiatives related to GW’s international academic agreements, international travel policy, and international operations network.  Simultaneously, he enrolled in the Trachtenberg School and earned a Master of Public Policy with a concentration in budget and public finance in May 2011.  With his experience in bringing parties together to find common ground and build sustainable processes that satisfy policy compliance challenges in higher education administration, Anthony is a welcome addition to the M Squared Strategies team.  In his free time, he enjoys running and biking, exploring new venues in the area, and traveling.

Jenny Weng‘s first experience with M Squared Strategies was in 2009 as an Applied Management Professional working at the Department of Energy.  Since then, Jenny has earned a Master’s degree in International Management from the University of California, San Diego and has worked as a consultant for a management consulting firm serving Fortune 500 clients.  This summer, she returned to M Squared Strategies to serve as an AMPP Team Lead at the Department of Veterans Affairs and will now be supporting Whitney Starring in Marketing and Strategic Communications Service Line as well as providing M Squared with a proven talent for various opportunities on our horizon.  During her free time, Jenny is actively searching for authentic Taiwanese food so she does not need to ask her parents for multiple care packages every month.

A warm M Squared welcome to our newest hire Selena Hunn! Selena is a native Californian; however, she spent most of her upbringing in Silver Spring, Maryland. She recently graduated from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law with a Juris Doctor Degree in May, 2011.  While in law school, Selena was a visiting student at American University Washington College of Law, and gained experience as a judicial intern for the Honorable Darryl Derbigny in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court and the Honorable June Berry Darensburg in 24th Judicial District Court in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana.  She also brings a considerable amount of research and writing experience to M Squared after serving as a health policy intern with the National Coalition on Health Care, and a research assistant with the National African American Drug Policy Coalition.  In her last year of law school Selena was selected to serve as a student practitioner in Loyola’s Mediation Law Clinic where she successfully settled an array of civil and domestic disputes.  During her tenure as a student practitioner, Selena represented Loyola Law as a competitor in the American Bar Association’s Representation in Mediation Competition.  Selena is a proud alumna of the University of Maryland, College Park where she studied English and Philosophy.  Selena is the newest addition to the FSL team and we are excited to welcome her to M Squared Strategies.