“Publication” Class Notes

Lucie André (Col ’89 CM) published her debut novel, Never Ready, which tells the story of protagonist Henri Drake’s experiences with love and loss in the New York City dance scene in the 1990s, which is likened to “working at a circus during a plague.” Described as “mythic and modern,” it has been featured in readings at the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina, the Paul Taylor Dance Company in New York and Spalding Nix Fine Art gallery in Atlanta. The novel was inspired by André’s time working at a leading modern dance company in NYC when it lost two of its nine men to AIDS.

Jane Everson (Educ ’80, ’83 CM) has retired from a long career in academia. In retirement, she has been elected to a position on her local school board and has published a non-fiction book exploring the lives of women who have influenced her life, titled Everyday Women, Extraordinary Wisdom.

Greg Coxson (Col ’80) has published his first book, Optimal-Peak-Sidelobe Polyphase Codes, co-authored with long-time collaborator Jon Russo, and published by ArTech House. Coxson is a research engineer at the United States Naval Academy (USNA), where he teaches electrical engineering courses. Prior to working at USNA, he worked as a radar systems engineer at Hughes Radar, Lockheed Martin and the Naval Research Laboratories in Washington, D.C.

David Powers (Law ’82) published his memoir, Power Lines: My American Story, recounting his youth in Washington, D.C. and his career which took him around the globe. The memoir started as a collection of light-hearted anecdotes shared with friends and evolved into an exploration of inherited personality traits based on over 200 years of family history, observations on America’s shifting political and social values, and a healthy dose of humor. Power Lines was edited by Dallas editor Nina Flournoy and published by NFES Publishing in Dallas.

Ted Weihe (Arch ’79) published his book, What Is Lost with the Demise of USAID: Personal Reflections. The book discusses what is lost with the demise of USAID, reflecting on its impact on American leadership, poor and rural communities and humanitarian relief efforts. It includes chapters covering the voter registration campaign in Chile that defeated Pinochet and the successful formation of cooperatives in Poland, Albania, Barbados, South Sudan and Uganda. Weihe has written 12 self-published books which cover ancestry, sailing, chocolate and cooperative development, among other topics.

Lewis “Sandy” Rock (Col ’66, Med ’70, Res ’72 CM) published a memoir, The ADHD MD — A 70’s Memoir. Written over a period of thirty or forty years, the book begins with the author’s honorable discharge from the Medical Corps of the U.S. Navy as a conscientious objector before covering his decade as a physician in a U.S. Navy hospital, a rural Virginia pediatric mobile clinic, the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, and ultimately the Appalachian portion of Southwest Virginia. Along the way, he built a house, raised two sons and twenty-two Great Danes, made house calls on horseback, got divorced, got married, got divorced again, and picked and grinned on guitar and banjo with a group of locals and “local outsiders.” Central to the book is the author’s experience with ADHD, as he gradually realizes how the disorder both benefitted and challenged him throughout his journey.

Charlene Wang (Law ’15) will publish her debut novel, I’ll Follow You, in October through Mindy’s Book Studio, actress Mindy Kaling’s book and development imprint with Amazon Publishing. Wang’s psychological thriller explores the complex and dangerous friendship of two young women looking to escape their dead-end town.

Stephen C. Mercado (Col ’84 CM) recently published his second book, Japanese Spy Gear and Special Weapons: How Noborito’s Scientists and Technicians Served in the Second World War and the Cold War (Pen & Sword Military, 2025). He is also the author of The Shadow Warriors of Nakano: A History of the Imperial Japanese Army’s Elite Intelligence School (Brassey’s, 2002), a dozen articles and several dozen book reviews on intelligence and other subjects.

Andrew Lee (Col ’85, Med ’89 CM) recently published his 14th textbook, Ophthalmology of Sports. Additionally, Lee’s daughter, Virginia Lee (Col ’26), an Echols Scholar, will be graduating next year.

Michael J. Hightower (Grad ’07) has written two biographies since 2021, both released to critical acclaim by the University of Oklahoma Press. At War with Corruption chronicles the career of former U.S. Attorney Bill Price, who spearheaded prosecutions of Oklahoma county commissioners in what became the most extensive case of public corruption in FBI history. Hightower’s subsequent book, Justice for All, tells the story of Dick T. Morgan, a frontier lawyer in Oklahoma Territory, six-term congressman (1909-20) and father of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), who was ahead of his time in promoting fairness for all Americans. Hightower lives with his wife, Judy, in Charlottesville and Oklahoma City.

George M. Dougherty (Engr ’91, ’93 CM) wrote Beast in the Machine: How Robotics and AI Will Transform Warfare and the Future of Human Conflict, to be released by BenBella Books and distributed by Simon & Schuster in August. Booklist states that “Beast in the Machine is an incredible resource for raising public awareness and education around this revolution in warfare.” Dougherty is a senior military leader in U.S. Air Force science and technology and a consultant to companies facing disruptive change in their industries.

Justin Black (Col ’11), Will Gemma (Col ’11 CM) and Dietrich Teschner co-directed two documentary films about the James River in Virginia, Headwaters Down Part 1 and Part 2, which were recently picked up by Virginia Public Media and nationally by PBS. The two-part series follows their five-person crew as they paddle the entire 350 miles of the James River, from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay. The films highlight environmental disasters, lesser-taught history, camaraderie and misadventures along the way. Headwaters Down Part 1 screened during the Virginia Film Festival in 2023 to over 500 people in the Culbreth Theatre on Grounds. The series is now available to stream online via the PBS app and on the Headwaters Down website.

Sarah Rovang (Arch ’10 CM) wrote her book, Through the Long Desert: Georgia O’Keeffe and Frank Lloyd Wright, to be released by Rizzoli Electa in September. Though the two heroes of 20th-century art and architecture never collaborated, they maintained a friendship and mutual admiration, exchanging roughly two dozen letters during their lifetimes. This unique meditation on American artistic expression explores the nature of intellectual kinship, as well as home, place and material. Rovang includes a look at O’Keeffe’s time at UVA in the early 1910s, exploring the resonance of her campus watercolors with Wright’s renderings of the same period.

John M. Bowers (Grad ’73, ’78 CM) published his second novel, Legion of the Daggerstone, which follows a 21st-century analogue of J. R. R. Tolkien. His protagonist, an Iraq War combat veteran and UVA English professor, publishes a bestselling trilogy of fantasy novels, only in Charlottesville instead of Oxford. Bowers also published his most recent scholarly book, Tolkien on Chaucer, 1913-1959, with Oxford University Press.

Latorial Faison (Col ’95 CM) will publish her poetry collection, Nursery Rhymes in Black, on July 15. Faison was awarded the 2023 Permafrost Poetry Book Prize, judged by renowned poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil, for the manuscript. Blending tradition, memory and resistance, Nursery Rhymes in Black reimagines familiar childhood rhymes through the lens of Black history and lived experience. The volume has received acclaim from some of the most esteemed voices in literature, including Joanne Gabbin, Judy Juanita, Glenis Redmond, Trudier Harris and Cedric Tillman, who praise Faison’s ability to transform the rhythmic echoes of youth into a resonant and necessary cultural reckoning.