“Academic Accomplishment” Class Notes

William Robert Oliver II (Educ ’11 CM) earned his Doctor of Philosophy in Integrative STEM Education from Virginia Tech in May 2022. He plans to continue serving as Professor of Information Systems Technology at Blue Ridge Community College.

Jeffrey Toney (Col ’81 CM) is currently Professor Emeritus at Kean University, where he previously served as the Senior Vice President for Research as well as Provost and Chief Academic Officer. He concurrently serves as a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Toney is a Fellow and Distinguished Lecturer of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society, and has served on the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Science and Human Rights Coalition since its founding in 2009. He has also published a wide range of peer-reviewed scientific publications and holds six U.S. patents.

Katherine Read Knaus (Engr ’12, ’21 CM) began her post-doctoral research fellowship in the Cardiac Mechanics Research Group of the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California San Diego in 2021. She, her husband and their daughter are enjoying life in La Jolla, California.

Austin Randolph Palmore (Col ’15, Com ’16) graduated in May with a Juris Doctor degree from Washington and Lee University School of Law. After sitting for the July 2022 Virginia Bar Examination, he will begin a one-year clerkship for the Honorable Judges of the Henrico County Circuit Court in the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit of Virginia, followed by a two-year clerkship for the Honorable Randolph A. Beales, Judge of the Virginia Court of Appeals in Richmond.

Brian Madden (Col ’91 CM) and Colleen Madden are proud to share that their daughter Kathleen “Ann” Madden (Com ’22 CM) has graduated with distinction from the McIntire School of Commerce.

J. Hagood Tighe (Col ’87 CM), a partner at the national labor and employment law firm Fisher Phillips based in Columbia, S.C., has been sworn in as president of the South Carolina Bar. The ceremony was presided over by U.S. District Court Judge J. Michelle Childs during the bar’s annual assembly May 12.

As president, Tighe will serve South Carolina’s expansive legal and business communities by working to uphold the integrity and honor of the legal profession, advance the science of jurisprudence, promote quality legal education and services to the public, and continually improve the administration of justice throughout the Palmetto State. He will serve a one-year term.

At Fisher Phillips, Hagood is co-chair of the firm’s wage and hour practice and an active member of the firm’s class and collective action practice. In recent years, he has handled over 40 class and collective actions throughout the country, many of which involve wage and hour issues. Hagood recently led a team that won one of the nation’s largest WARN Act class actions in recent history. He also has extensive experience defending single plaintiff lawsuits alleging wrongful discharge, discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. While Hagood maintains an active litigation practice, he also focuses on providing practical and proactive advice designed to minimize the risk of litigation. He enjoys working with companies to help them avoid problems before they arise. This takes many forms including advising on handbooks, policies, employment agreements, investigations, layoffs, and terminations. 

To learn more, click here.

L. Roger Boord (Col ’88) and Fran Gaddin Boord report that their daughter, Nina Marie Virginia Boord, is a freshman at Stanford University studying engineering.

Dr. Lealani Mae “Leah” Acosta (Med ’07, Res ’11) was recently promoted to Associate Professor of Neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where she serves as the behavioral neurology fellowship director. She also was awarded the distinction of Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology for contributions to the field, including serving as an editor for the Humanities section of the journal Neurology.

John “Rut” Rutkowski III (Com ’76) states that his design and commerce years at UVA have guided him through five businesses and a long career.
 

Amy Karofsky (Grad ’92, ’97) published A Case for Necessitarianism. The book provides a case for and explanation of necessitarianism—the view that absolutely nothing about the world could have been otherwise in any way whatsoever. As the first defense of necessitarianism in over 300 years, it provides the only contemporary account and support of the necessitarian position and its merits. The arguments aim towards a more realistic and scientific explanation of the universe and everything in it and have implications for many different philosophical issues and positions. She is also the primary co-author of Philosophy Through Film, 4th edition, a text book for introductory philosophy classes that uses recent, popular movies to explore philosophical problems and issues. She is in her 24th year as a philosophy professor at Hofstra University and expects to be promoted to full professor at the end of the Spring semester.

Monica Tucker-Schwartz (Nurs ’10) earned her Doctorate of Nursing Practice in Health System Executive Leadership from the University of Pittsburgh in December 2021. Her project titled The Impact of a Professional Practice Model at a Large Academic Medical Center was presented on November 1, 2021. 

Monica lives in Boston, Massachusetts with her husband Jason Tucker-Schwartz (Engr ’08, ’10 CM) and children Isabel “Izzy” (3 1/2) and Scott Jefferson “SJ” (15 months). 

James “Jim” Kemp (Col ’58, Med ’62 CM) is retired and living in San Diego, but is active in his field as a consultant and Chief Medical Officer of a small start-up pharmaceutical company. After graduating from UVA Medical school in 1962, he completed a Pediatric internship at the University of Florida before going to Atlanta for a two-year Pediatric Residency at Emory University/Grady Memorial Hospital. He then completed two years service as a Lieutenant Commander at the U.S. Naval Hospital in San Diego. In 1965 he was accepted into the two-year Fellowship program at UC San Francisco, in Pediatric Allergy Asthma and Immunology, after which he returned to San Diego board-certified in both Pediatrics and Allergy/Immunology. He helped develop an training program at UC San Diego in Pediatric Allergy and Immunology and opened a private practice, seeing patients and doing over 400 clinical research studies with more than 200 published in peer-reviewed journals. He was President of the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology in 2000. He has been an internationally-noted speaker in his field, at numerous national and more than 35 international conferences. In his community he was active in Rotary International and was on the board of directors of the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park, California. He has two daughters and five grandchildren—the oldest just accepted to the UVA School of Law.

Dawn Bryant Crim (Col ’89 CM) earned her doctorate in educational leadership and policy analysis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in May 2021.

Khalilah L. Brown-Dean (Col ’98) was promoted to full professor in the Department of Political Science at Quinnipiac University. She was also appointed as the inaugural associate provost for faculty affairs. Brown-Dean is the author of Identity Politics in the United States and co-author of the forthcoming book, Protesting Vulnerability: Race and Pandemic Politics. She is host of the radio show and podcast, Disrupted, for Connecticut Public Radio. 

Lyndsay Anderson (Nurs ’07 CM) has been accepted into the Nursing Science and Health-Care Leadership doctorate at University of California, Davis. She plans to continue research in cancer and health disparities. She serves as part-time faculty at California State University, Sacramento, in the College of Health and Human Services. She lives in Sacramento with her husband, Steven D. Anderson (Col ’96), and two sons, Thomas and Henry. 

David S. Lessen (Col ’94 CM) has joined the University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center after being appointed medical director of Sylvester Deerfield Beach and Fort Lauderdale. He is also a voluntary assistant professor of medicine in the hematology division at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.