Elizabethtown College recognized alumna Agnetha “Aggie” Serrame-Bennett ’14 with the 2024 Distinguished Graduate of the Last Decade (GOLD) Award during the 2024 Homecoming and Family Weekend Celebration.
Serrame-Bennett has an awarded career in emergency management and has served in various roles in federal emergency management since 2015. She is currently a Resilience Program Manager for the American Public Power Association (APPA).
“My experience at Etown has profoundly shaped my life,” Serrame-Bennett said. “As the first in my family to earn a degree from an American college, I navigated the U.S. higher education system independently, as my parents were unfamiliar with it. Despite this, I had unwavering support from Etown’s Political Science department. The College offered me a platform to build self-confidence, explore and research topics of interest, and connect with talented and kind colleagues. Most importantly, Etown felt like a home away from home.”
The GOLD Award is presented annually by Etown’s Alumni Association to a graduate who, within 10 years of graduation, has demonstrated noteworthy and distinctive achievements, strong evidence of effective leadership, and the College’s spirit and legacy of using education as a foundation from which to serve others.
A Political Science major during her time at Etown, Serrame-Bennett went on to earn her Master of Professional Studies degree in public health preparedness from Penn State University in 2016. Serrame also earned a Master of Science in Biohazardous Threat Agents & Emerging Infectious Disease from Georgetown University in 2018, where she earned the Exceptional Master’s Student of the Year in Science Award.
While earning her second master’s degree, Serrame-Bennett worked as an Emergency Management Trainee at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). She then accepted a position as an Emergency Management Specialist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2016, where she had the chance to work on a team analyzing existing and projected emerging case management across the United States. She went on to rejoin FEMA in 2019 as a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Management Specialist.
Serrame-Bennett continued her career serving the public in 2020, working as a Contingency Operations Specialist in the Executive Office of the President of the United States. Through her role in the White House, Serrame-Bennett supported operations aimed at developing plans to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
Serrame-Bennett went on to serve as an Advisory Senior Consultant at Deloitte until transitioning to her current role at APPA in 2024. An active member of the Filipino Young Professionals of Washington, D.C. she served as president of the organization from June 2019 to May 2020.
“At Etown, I discovered my passion for public service, inspired by its commitment to Educate for Service,” Serrame-Bennett said. “This equipped me to face the world beyond Etown and engage in mission-driven work for the people I serve. I owe my success to Etown, a sentiment not many can express about their alma mater. Even a decade later, I continue to receive support from professors, mentors, and colleagues, which motivates me in all my endeavors.”
