Trey Curtis-Brown

GPSA President, 2026-2027

Trey Curtis-Brown serves as president of the Graduate & Professional Student Association (GPSA) at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, representing more than 6,000 graduate and professional students. A concurrent doctoral and master's student, he is pursuing a doctor of public policy (DPP) and an MBA at UNLV, with research focused on how graduate education can better prepare students for today's workforce.

As GPSA President, Curtis-Brown leads the executive board and chairs the GPSA Council, serving as the primary advocate and spokesperson for graduate and professional students. He works alongside university leadership, faculty, staff, and student organizations to strengthen graduate student representation, expand professional development opportunities, and improve the overall graduate student experience. Before being elected president, Curtis-Brown represented the MBA/EMBA program on the GPSA Council, served on the Ways & Means Committee, and continues to represent graduate students on the Student Tuition & Fees Committee and the Ombuds Office Committee.

Prior to graduate school, he served four terms as a UNLV CSUN senator, authoring more than 30 pieces of legislation, helping oversee a $2 million student government budget, and chairing the university's Parking Advisory Committee. Outside of student government, Curtis-Brown serves as the administrative program coordinator for Applied Health Sciences at UNLV, where he supports academic operations and student success initiatives. Working on both the administrative and student leadership sides of the university gives him a unique perspective on building partnerships and turning student ideas into meaningful action.

As president, Curtis-Brown is focused on expanding professional development opportunities, strengthening graduate student representation in university decision-making, increasing support for graduate assistants, improving resources for student families and housing, and creating partnerships that leave a lasting impact for future graduate students.

When he's not in meetings or planning campus initiatives, you'll likely find Curtis-Brown exploring new cities, hiking Nevada trails, discovering local coffee shops, or planning the next community event. He believes student government should be accessible, collaborative, and focused on delivering measurable results—not just holding meetings. Graduate students are always welcome to attend GPSA Council meetings, stop by the GPSA Graduate Commons in Lied Library (LLB 2141), visit the GPSA Office in CHB-C111, or reach out anytime at gpsapresident@unlv.edu.

Nehemiah Afam Chukwuere

GPSA Vice President, 2026-2027

GPSA Vice President Nehemiah Afam Chukwuere is a dual MBA-MIS student and graduate assistant in the Graduate College's RPC unit, where he already spends his days deep in the systems and processes that shape the graduate student experience.

As vice president, Chukwuere works alongside the president on GPSA's strategic priorities, steps in when the president is unavailable, and often takes point on representation and funding initiatives - think of him as the connective tissue between GPSA's vision and its execution.

Chukwuere earned his MS in Construction and Infrastructure Management from UNLV in fall 2025 and brings an engineering mindset to student advocacy: analytical, systems-oriented, and allergic to inefficiency. He serves as an ex-officio member of the UNLV Graduate Program Committee as GPSA's representative, sits on the African Student Alliance's Constitution Committee, and is communication liaison for the International Student Organization. He's also a Grad Rebel Ambassador, a B.R.I.D.G.E. Program presenter, and the recipient of the GPSA Sponsorship Research Award (2026), the Patricia Sastaunik Scholarship (2025), and a Rebel Grad Slam 3MT Audience Award. Beyond UNLV, he's president of Leadspire Institute, running leadership development programs for hundreds of emerging leaders in the U.S. and Nigeria, and he recently wrapped an internship at Steel Solutions in Las Vegas, where he built automated estimating systems for structural steel projects, proof that his knack for turning messy processes into efficient ones extends well past the classroom.

As an international graduate student himself, Chukwuere is especially attuned to the needs of UNLV's international and first-generation graduate population, and his platform focuses on stronger feedback channels between GPSA and the student body, wider access to research and emergency funding, and building genuine community across programs.

Kalyani Ganapathireddy

GPSA Treasurer, 2026-2027

Kalyani Ganapathireddy is a master's student in quantitative finance at UNLV, carrying a 4.0 GPA and having already completed her master's in accounting, with seven years of professional finance experience already under her belt. As treasurer, she's the steward of GPSA's budget, responsible for tracking funds, processing reimbursements, and making sure GPSA's financial operations stay accurate, transparent, and compliant with university policy. Essentially, she's the reason the numbers behind sponsorships and funding requests add up.

Before UNLV, Ganapathireddy spent years managing financial records, building budgets, and analyzing data in industry roles that demanded precision and accountability. She led statutory and internal audits for companies exceeding $500 million in net worth while supervising junior auditors at RGN Price & Co., resolved $3 million in reconciliation breaks and migrated financial data into SAP at Genpact, and led risk and financial analytics for a ten subsidiary enterprise at MassMutual, where the monitoring system.

She's a chartered accountant and a CFA Level I candidate, credentials that back up the experience. On campus, she manages $4.8 million in project budgets as a graduate administrative assistant, where she creates purchase requisitions, expense reports, and work orders, handles supplier registration, and consolidates monthly financial reporting. It's the same work a treasurer does, at university scale, so she already knows how funds move through UNLV's systems and what it takes to get a reimbursement processed correctly. She's also spending this summer as a real estate acquisitions analyst intern with Signature Real Estate Group.

Outside of finance, she volunteers with the Indian Student Association (Maitri-UNLV), where she's the one doing mehendi at cultural events, a passion of hers and a small way of showing up for the community she now serves in student government. And in case you need proof she can lead under pressure, she previously captained a kabaddi team, which is its own kind of finance analogy: fast decisions, high stakes, no room for hesitation.

Ganapathireddy's priorities as treasurer are financial transparency and accessibility. She wants GPSA's financial reports and funding decisions to be easy for any student to understand, not just the ones fluent in spreadsheets. Working in Excel, Power BI, and Python, she's planning to streamline reimbursement processes, build clearer financial reporting, and sharpen how GPSA allocates resources toward the programs that matter most to graduate students.

Fun fact: Ganapathireddy is happiest making things by hand. She cooks constantly (always a new dish and always enough to feed the whole family), designs and stitches dresses for her nieces, and does mehendi at campus cultural events.

Rachel DeWald

GPSA Secretary, 2026-2027

GPSA Secretary Rachel DeWald is a fourth-year doctoral student in psychological and brain sciences, where her research centers on autistic emotions and communication, grounded in the belief that autistic communication is a distinct style, not a deviation to be corrected.

As secretary, DeWald is the keeper of GPSA's institutional memory: minutes, records, and documentation that let the president and vice president walk into any meeting knowing the paper trail is handled and follow-through is being tracked. DeWald's path to the role runs through the psychological and brain sciences student council, where she served as vice president before becoming president, and through her graduate assistantship as lab manager of the Baby and Child Rebel Lab, where she coordinated more than 10 undergraduate research assistants across multiple projects at once.

She currently coordinates two department programs, the Outreach Undergraduate Mentorship Program and IDEAS, the department's DEI committee, work that has sharpened her instinct for keeping large groups informed and moving in the same direction. She's also a founding member of the Society for Research in Child Development's disability caucus and a founding board member of Radiant Springs Arts and Science Innovation School here in Las Vegas. DeWald is especially focused on making GPSA's work visible: turning what happens in meetings into information the broader graduate student body can actually find and use, with particular attention to graduate assistant workload and mental health support.

Outside of GPSA, she hikes with her kids and her two dogs, Drake and Leo, weather permitting. DeWald is a doctoral student in psychological and brain sciences, working in UNLV's music lab with Erin Hannon. Her research there focuses on misophonia and how it develops over time, and her own line of work examines autistic emotion and communication through a neurodiversity framework, grounded in the belief that autistic communication is a distinct style rather than a deviation to be corrected.

DeWald is a non-traditional student and hopes to be a voice for others taking a less linear path through graduate school.