Christine Wais Appointed Assistant Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations


February 4, 2020

Portrait of Christine Wais

Christine Wais assumed the Assistant Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations role on January 13, 2020.

Christine Wais has joined the George Washington University Law School as the Assistant Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations.

Ms. Wais comes to GW Law from the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst, where she served as the Assistant Dean of Alumni Engagement and Development for the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences. She has a strong background in major and principal giving, pipeline development, annual giving, and donor stewardship in higher education. Ms. Wais has also held positions at Cornell University and Goldman Sachs.

During her time at UMass Amherst, she increased new commitments, giving from individuals, and unrestricted dean's funding. She improved the donor experience by fixing accounting issues and developing donor-centered protocols, while also reorganizing and better utilizing the Dean’s Advisory Board as a philanthropic volunteer engine. She and her team helped bring UMassGives, an annual fundraising event, from approximately 350,000 to 2.2 million in two years, with half of the university total coming from the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences' donors.

"Christine is a highly accomplished, results-oriented development officer with vast experience in higher education," Interim Dean Christopher A. Bracey said. "We are very fortunate to have her join the GW Law community."

Ms. Wais spent nearly 10 years at Cornell University focused on major giving roles with increasing leadership responsibility over time. She started as Program Officer at Cornell Law School and ended her tenure as Associate Director of Development in the Cornell Industrial and Labor Relations School, an applied social sciences school focused on international employment and labor policy. Prior to that, she worked as a Recruiting Analyst for Goldman Sachs in New York City.

Ms. Wais looks forward to meeting the GW Law community at one of the more than 50 alumni and development events planned around the country this year.