Distinguished Alumni Awards Honor Three ENG Grads
By Liz Sheeley
The College of Engineering honored three alumni for their career achievements and for the support they have given their alma mater and community during BU Alumni Weekend ceremony in September.
After a welcoming address from Dean Kenneth R. Lutchen, two current students introduced the three 2018 honorees – Larry Leszczynski (BME ’85, ’87), Anne Hines (BME ’85) and Tonie Leatherberry (ME ’85).
The first student, Ashray Mohan (BME ’19), who participates in Engineers Without Borders, spoke about Leszczynski and Hines. The second student, Remi Shittu (BME ’19), who is the president of the BU chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NBSE), introduced Leatherberry.
Anne Hines
Hines is a data analyst for a cardiovascular research group at the Department of Veterans Affairs. After completing MS and PhD degrees in biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University, she was an American Association for the Advancement of Science Diplomacy Fellow at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
She and her husband, Leszczynski, are the co-founders of the Colorado Nepal Alliance, a non-profit based in Denver, Colorado, focused on enhancing the lives of those living in rural Nepal. It started with the mission to provide lightly used footwear to Nepali porters and villagers. As the organization’s relationships with the people of rural Nepal have deepened over time and repeated visits, so has their understanding of the villagers’ particular needs. As a result, 2014 saw a major expansion of the organization’s efforts, including a community health survey, school construction, school uniforms, and much more. Their current work includes teacher training at the schools they rebuilt after an earthquake, and preparation for a medical camp in fall 2019. Her husband accepted the award on her behalf, as Hines was in Nepal working for the alliance.
Larry Leszczynski
Leszczynski is an e-Payment Technology Architect at Grant Street Group. He has software development expertise in high-performance web sites, electronic payment processing, performance tuning, data visualization, and medical data acquisition and signal processing. He was senior developer for a research lab in the newborn intensive care unit in Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, has owned and operated his own web hosting and software delivery companies, and has provided independent consulting expertise to clients such as Ford Motor Company, Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Cray Research, and the United States Council for Automotive Research.
With his wife, Hines, Leszczynski co-founded the non-profit Colorado Nepal Alliance. The organization focuses on connecting communities in Colorado and Nepal.
Antoinette Leatherberry
Antoinette Leatherberry is a principal at Deloitte & Touche, LLP. She serves Fortune 500 manufacturing, retail and consumer business clients. She is responsible for supporting her clients across strategy, tax, enterprise risk, human capital, and technology services. Leatherberry serves on several advisory boards, including the Executive Leadership Council, the League of Black Women, and Widener University Board of Trustees. Leatherberry has recently been appointed the president of the Deloitte Foundation.
Leatherberry has received several accolades, including being named one of the top 25 consultants in the world by Consulting Magazine. Most recently, she has been recognized by The Network Journal in their annual list of 25 influential black women in business in 2016. Leatherberry has been recognized as a top 100 under 50 leader by Diversity MBA Magazine, one of Pennsylvania’s top 50 women in business, one of the top 100 most influential blacks in corporate America by Savoy Magazine, and was the recipient of the League of Black Women’s Black Rose Award.
Leatherberry has served on the ENG Dean’s Leadership Advisory Board since 2017 and recently joined the BU Board of Overseers.