“Award/Recognition” Class Notes

Valerie B. “Val” Ackerman (Col ’81 L/M) has been presented with the Billie Jean King Contribution Award by the Women’s Sports Foundation at its annual awards gala in New York City. This annual award is earned by the demonstration of a lasting commitment and dedication to the growth of sports, fitness and physical activity for women and girls. Ms. Ackerman, the first president of the WNBA and current commissioner of the Big East Conference, previously was president of USA Basketball and U.S. representative to the International Basketball Federation. At the University, she was one of the school’s first women to receive an athletic scholarship, and was a starter for the Cavaliers’ basketball team for four years, captain for three, and was twice named Academic All-American. She was also the school’s first female basketball player to score 1,000 points.

J. Bryan Lyles (Col ’72) has been recognized as a Fellow of two professional societies: the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Robert A. Buerlein (Com ’68 L/M) has been elected president of the U.S. Marine Raider Foundation, which keeps alive the history of the U.S.’s first elite-force unit, formed in 1942 along the lines of the British Commandos. Swift, hard-hitting surprise raids were their forte, and the 1943 movie, Gung Ho!, told part of their colorful story. In 2014, the Marine Corps revived this unit name and mission objective for their new, Marine Raider Regiment, which is part of the U.S. Special Operations Command; the Raiders are to the Marine Corps what the S.E.A.L.’s are to the Navy. Very little is ever known by the public of their successes, which include sensitive reconnaissance and direct-action missions against high-value targets, far within enemy-controlled territory. Bob and Judy live in Richmond; their youngest son is an MD at the University of Virginia Hospital.

Robert R. Rudd III (Col ’03) was named a “Young Gun” in 2016 by Mortgage Professional America for his efforts to revitalize the mortgage industry. Rob and his wife, Taylor, reside in Leesburg, Virginia with their two daughters, Penelope and Augusta.

Hillary McClintic (Col ’12 CM) has been inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. This award is based on academic merit, leadership activity, research achievements, community service, inter-professionalism, humanism and clinical performance. She is one of six students from the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine’s class of 2017 to be selected for this honor.

Jonathan Moorman (Grad ’04, Med ’91, Res ’94 CM) received the 2016 Distinguished Faculty Award for Research, one of the top three honors given to faculty each year at East Tennessee State University. Winners were nominated by their peers, and each received a medallion, a plaque and a cash prize. Dr. Moorman, who joined the Quillen College of Medicine in 2001, is a professor and vice chair for research and scholarship as well as chief of infectious diseases in the department of internal medicine. His research has focused on mechanisms of immune evasion by chronic viral infection, and he has published more than 60 articles in prestigious medical journals. Dr. Moorman earned both his medical degree and his doctorate from the UVA School of Medicine.

Jason Silverman (Col ’74 CM) has been awarded the Immigrants’ Civil War Award by Long Island Wins, a nonprofit communications organization that focuses on immigration issues on Long Island and beyond. The award, given annually to an academic, author, public historian, scholar or artist who has contributed to the understanding of immigrants during the Civil War era, was awarded for Mr. Silverman’s scholarly work on Lincoln and the Immigrant and for the creation of the new Americans by Belief exhibit at President Lincoln’s Cottage in Washington, among other accomplishments. Mr. Silverman will be retiring next fall after teaching for almost 34 years as a chaired professor of history at Winthrop University in South Carolina and for four years at Yale University.

Mike Lynn (Col ’72 CM) of Texas litigation firm Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst was named to “Best Lawyers in America” in 2016. Previously, Mr. Lynn was recognized as a “litigation star” and one of the top 100 trial lawyers for 2015 in the country by Benchmark Litigation.

Joseph Ball (Grad ’70, Grad ’73 CM) has been conferred the title of professor emeritus by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors. A member of the university community since 1973, Mr. Ball made significant contributions to the development of a control theory known as robust control, which allows engineers to design for and ensure acceptable performance in the face of interference in sensor signals. His work in operator and systems theories was important to electrical engineering, and he has published more than 240 papers and presented in 26 countries on five continents. In 1997, he was also honored with the Virginia Tech Alumni Award for Research Excellence.

Ronald Hofer (Grad ’73) has been named NJC Distinguished Professor by the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada. He is the first distinguished professor in the college’s 53-year history. Mr. Hofer has taught at NJC since 1994.

Sean Wells (Arch ’95 CM) won first place in a competition of the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries, which represents 52 independent lottery organizations. Her Day of the Dead-themed artwork was released on New Mexico Lottery scratchers. A fifth-generation traditional Spanish Colonial artisan, Ms. Wells exhibits at the prestigious Traditional Spanish Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her artwork has appeared on internationally distributed beer labels (Cerveza de los Muertos), national wine labels (La Catrina Vino), and the scratchers. It also has contributed to the branding and logos of many local nonprofits, such as the Day of the Tread Albuquerque bike race, which unveils a new piece by Ms. Wells each year.

Selected to Best Lawyers in America 2017 for Personal Injury Litigation-Defense and Medical Malpractice Law-Defendants.

Benjamin Chew (Law ’88), a litigation partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips in Washington, D.C., was inducted as a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers in September 2016.