Class Notes
Thomas Grant (Col ’92)
Thomas C. Grant (Col ’92) has been named to the 2025 edition of Best Lawyers in America in the practice area of commercial litigation. Grant is a partner at Freed Grant LLC, where he focuses his practice on complex business litigation, commercial real estate, probate, appellate, and insurance defense matters.
Erika Werner (Col ’98, Engr ’99 CM)
Dr. Erika Werner (Col ’98, Engr ’99, Res ’08 CM) was appointed president of the faculty practice at Tufts Medicine and Tufts University School of Medicine, where she is also the chair of obstetrics and gynecology and Louis E. Phaneuf Teaching and Research Professor.
Dr. Werner lives in Barrington, Rhode Island with her husband W. Frazier Bell (Educ ’98) and their two daughters.
Jessica Somers (Com ’04)
Jessica Somers (Com ’04) has joined Aledade, the nation’s largest network of independent primary care, as chief financial officer. Somers joins Aledade from Evolent, a publicly traded company that specializes in improving health outcomes. At Evolent, Somers led the development and execution of strategic growth investments, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and other strategic partnerships.
Lauren Nguyen (Com ’15 CM)
Lauren Nguyen (Com ’15 CM) has been named controller and vice president of finance at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland. Nguyen oversees the organization’s finance and accounting functions, including accounts payable, grant reporting, audit and tax filings, and financial reporting, ensuring the Aquarium’s financial excellence and integrity. She also plays a crucial role in developing the aquarium’s economic strategy and sustainability planning.
Nguyen is a licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA) with previous experience at EY (formerly Ernst & Young) and 50CAN, an education advocacy nonprofit.
Wesley Marshall (Col ’85, Law ’88 CM)
Wesley Marshall (Col ’85, Law ’88 CM) was elected to a three-year term as chair of the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission, effective July 1. Marshall was appointed to the Commission in 2012. He also served as commission chairman from 2015-2018.
Marshall serves on the executive committee of the Southern Association of Workers’ Compensation Administrators (SAWCA), the board of directors of the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions (IAIABC), and the National Association of Workers’ Compensation Judiciary (NAWCJ) and was a founding member of the Virginia Workers’ Compensation American Inn of Court. In 2015, he was inducted as a Fellow in the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers.
From 1988 to 2012, he was an attorney in private practice, primarily representing plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, employment matters, and other civil litigation.
Brendan Gillen (Com ’06 CM)
Brendan Gillen (Com ’06 CM) has published his debut novel, Static, released via Vine Leaves Press in July.
“A High Fidelity for our millennium…” — Dan LeRoy, author of Dancing to the Drum Machine: How Electronic Percussion Conquered the World and The Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique (33 1/3)
“Static is a heartfelt, moving debut about the downtown New York music scene.” — Elizabeth Gaffney, author of Metropolis and When the World was Young
“Static reverberates with the drumbeat of why we make art.” — Will Musgrove, author of Asphalt Dreaming
For Paul, stealing is easy. When he’s hungry, he strolls into a bodega and steals lunch. When rent’s due, he steals records and flips them for cash. As a lonely kid growing up in Ohio’s Rust Belt, stealing was the only way he could score the hip hop records and production equipment that fueled his musical dreams.
Now he’s in New York City fighting to keep his once-ascendant band alive and his life from falling apart. His bank account is flatlining. The love of his life has broken his heart. Bunky, his bandmate, is ditching him for Eloise, a soulful vagabond with an intoxicating voice. When financial trouble forces his parents from their lifelong home, Paul ramps up his stealing to save his family from collapse. And in a fever of creativity, he begins to steal from the voices in his life to make the music he’s sure will save his soul.
Set against the modern music industry, where a single social post can change your destiny, Static is alive to the weight of familial expectations, the pursuit of our deepest hopes and dreams, and the struggle to make meaningful connections in the anxiety of the digital age.
Originally from Charlottesville, Gillen is based in Brooklyn, New York and earned his M.F.A at City College. His fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions and appears in the Florida Review, Wigleaf, Necessary Fiction, Maudlin House, New Delta Review, Taco Bell Quarterly, and X-R-A-Y, among others. Static has earned coverage in Electric Lit, Write or Die, Full-Stop, and elsewhere. As an Emmy-winning writer/director in the film and advertising space, he has written and creative directed content for ESPN, Conde Nast, Fox Sports, US Open, Anheuser-Busch, Resy, and many other brands. You can find him online at bgillen.com and on Twitter/IG @beegillen.
Gregg Michel (Grad ’89, Grad ’99 CM)
Gregg L. Michel (Grad ’89, ’99 CM) has published Spying on Students: The FBI, Red Squads, and Student Activists in the 1960s South. Published by LSU Press, Spying on Students focuses on the law enforcement campaign against New Left and progressive student activists in the South, particularly white student activists who have often been overlooked in the scholarship of the era. Drawing on formerly secret FBI files and records of other investigative agencies, Spying on Students provides fresh insights on the destructive, broad-based, weaponized surveillance tactics deployed by state actors in their drive to suffocate dissent in the region.
“An important and timely study of the surveillance of white activists in the American South. Using a wealth of new files and sources, Michel deepens our understanding of the intertwined histories of the New Left and law enforcement in the 1960s and 70s. The result is a fascinating read as well as a cautionary tale.” – Beverly Gage, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century.
“Spying on Students draws together an impressive amount of original research to offer a perceptive and insightful picture of the ubiquity of southern law enforcement surveillance of liberal activists during the 1960s. Michel’s extremely well-written study features an especially valuable portrait of such practices in Memphis, Tennessee.” — David J. Garrow, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
“This well-crafted, engrossing account of government efforts to silence southern activists should warn us of the fragility of democracy, in history and to the present day.” – Michael Honey, author of To the Promised Land: Martin Luther King and the Fight for Economic Justice.
Jules Manger (Col ’03 CM)
Jules P. Manger (Col ’03, Res ’14 CM) has been recognized by Newsweek in the first annual ranking of America’s Best Prostate Cancer Surgeons. The list recognizes the 150 best prostate cancer surgeons in America based on outcomes data and peer review. Dr. Manger lives in Tucson, Arizona with his wife Linda (Williams) Manger (Col ’03 CM) and three sons.
Paul Hodskins (Col ’12 CM)
Paul Hodskins (Col ’12 CM) and his wife, Katie, celebrated the birth in August of their son, James Roger “J.R.” Hodskins, who joined two-year-old Addison at home in Leesburg, Virginia.
Arun Rao (Col ’98 CM)
Arun Rao (Col ’98 CM) has joined Mayer Brown as a partner in its exceptional Global Investigations & White Collar Defense practice, effective October 28. He looks forward to working with his new colleagues and guiding clients through the complexities of the global regulatory environment.
Selina Stone (Col ’17, Educ ’18 CM)
Selina Horsley (Col ’17, Educ ’18 CM) and Benjamin Stone were married April 13, 2024. Selina is the daughter of Garrett Horsley (Col’ 86 CM) and Helen Hamilton Horsley (Col ’87 CM), sister of Lily Horsley (Com ’21), granddaughter of Waller Horsley (Col ‘53, Law ’59), and niece of Stuart Horsley (Col ’82 CM). Waller Horsley served on the Board of Visitors from 1988-1992. Selina and Ben live in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She is an ESL teacher at East Lake Elementary and he works for Cigna Healthcare.
Marlene Hall (Col ’96 CM)
Marlene Hall (Col ’96 CM) was named one of the top 10 producing real estate agents for the state of Virginia for eXp Realty LLC for the month of June 2024.
Jordan Dotson (Col ’05)
Jordan Dotson (Col ’05) has published his debut novel, The Ballad of Falling Rock, a work of literary magical realism available on Sept. 24th from BHC Press:
Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect hymn. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: “Are his love songs closer to heaven than dying?” Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard it died of a broken heart.
Yet, more than anything else folks ponder in the town of Trinity, one question lingers: why did this angel-toned preacher’s son, just as his fame seemed ready to light the Appalachian nightsky forever, disappear completely?
In 1938, the decisions Saul makes will alter his family’s story for generations. He and his eerily talented descendants ignite religious fear throughout Red Pine County. They navigate chapels, decaying sanatoriums, high school hallways, and a lingering myth from their Cherokee heritage that follows them wherever they go.
In the end, however, it’s Saul’s precocious grandson, Eli, who must find answers to these heartbreaking questions, who must enter this world rich in music and voices, where people die to hear the unspoken, and salvation is only found in the not-yet sung.
Dotson was born and raised in Appalachian Virginia. After graduating from UVA, he moved to China to study classical poetry and folk music. Over fourteen years in Asia, he worked as a journalist, musician, and writing teacher, and eventually earned his MFA in Fiction from City University of Hong Kong. His lone co-written screenplay won the Jury Award in Narrative Shorts at more than thirty film festivals worldwide, and though he now teaches in Boston, Jordan still considers Southwest Virginia home.
The Ballad of Falling Rock is available wherever books are sold.
“This was the most beautiful story ever written about the saddest song ever sung. I was taken on a journey across generations where love, family and music, however complicated, overpowered all else. I am absolutely blown away…”
—@Kneecolereads
“Even in the novel’s darkest moments, Dotson’s sentences crackle on every page and are infused with a joy and love for the region and its people. This heartbreaking and tender debut is not to be missed.”
—Sybil Baker, author of Apparitions
“A fabulous, wild, and wonderfully spun tale that invites us to see ‘the world through a pool of tears,’ because everything’s ‘just a story in the end.’ A truly original debut, we look forward to much more from this powerful voice of a very talented writer.”
—Xu Xi, author of That Man In Our Lives
“Dotson’s way with words is absolutely breathtaking. I can hear the characters and feel the music. This is a must read book, without doubt.”
—Goodreads Reviewer
“This song of a novel is the perfect harmony of poetic prose and storytelling, as Saul Crabtree’s legacy unfolds across generations. With an ear for the language of Appalachia, and an eye for sensory and historical details, Dotson’s ‘Ballad’ echoes in the mind and on the heart long after the last song is sung.”
—Amy Clark Spain, author and co-editor of Talking Appalachian
Carolyn Wilkes (Col ’17 CM)
Carolyn Wilkes (Col ‘17 CM) and husband David Wilkes welcomed their first child, Henry James, on June 29, 2024, in Fairfax, Virginia.
Chanlee Luu (Engr ’17 CM)
Chanlee Luu (Engr ’17 CM) has published her debut poetry collection, The Machine Autocorrects Code to I, coming out on October 8, 2024. It won the Washington Writers’ Publishing House 2024 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize. The book launch will be held at Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C. on October 13.
Nerissa Rouzer (Col ’06 CM)
Nerissa Neal Rouzer (Col ’06 CM) and Garett Michael Rouzer (Arch ’05 CM) welcomed a daughter, Alexandra Elise, on April 10, 2024. She joins big brothers Ethan and Owen. The family lives in Charlottesville.
Julie Dauksys (Educ ’99, Educ ’10)
Julie Dauksys (Educ ’99, ’10) has retired after 33 years in public education in both Hopewell city and Hanover County, Virginia. Dauksys served as a literacy specialist and coach in grades K-8 for 27 years. In 2022 she completed her Ph.D. in curriculum, culture, and change at VCU. In retirement, Dauksys will continue as a part-time associate professor of literacy at Randolph-Macon College and serve as co-president of the Virginia Literacy Educators Association.
David Meredith (Com ’03)
David Meredith (Com ’03) has been appointed to the board of directors of Riskified, a New York Stock Exchange public company that is a leader in ecommerce fraud management and risk intelligence.
Meredith has spent three decades serving in senior executive leadership and board director roles across both multi-billion-dollar public companies and private equity backed technology-focused firms.
As CEO of Everbridge, the global leader in software to provide resilience to organizations, Meredith led a period of rapid growth which moved the company into the large-cap Russell 1000® Index and earned him the award for Top 50 “Best CEO 2020” in the largest company category by Comparably. Prior to Everbridge, Meredith held leadership positions at Rackspace, CenturyLink, VeriSign, CGI, and Capital One Financial Corporation. In his role as CEO at integration-software leader Boomi, Meredith was also named as a “Best CEO 2022” for his work related to the spin-out of Boomi from Dell to become a stand-alone global company. Most recently he served as Board Director and Committee Chair for digital transformation leader SADA (an Insight company).
Meredith serves on the advisory board of the McIntire School of Commerce, where he earned his master’s degree. He graduated with honors from James Madison University with a bachelor’s degree in in finance.
Dorothy Shea (Col ’88 CM)
Dorothy Shea (Col ’88 CM) was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the next deputy U.S. representative to the United Nations with the rank of ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary. She was pleased to have several close friends from the UVA class of 1988 in attendance at her Aug. 16 swearing-in ceremony, which U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield officiated. She took up her new duties in New York on Aug. 19.
Steve Odabashian (Col ’91)
Steve Odabashian (Col ’91) was recently honored by two Philadelphia-area publications for his work in the test prep industry. He was named “Best SAT Coach” by Philadelphia Magazine in its August 2024 “Best of Philly – 50th anniversary edition.” In addition, his test prep company Main Line Test Prep and Tutoring was named “Best College Prep Service” by Main Line Today Magazine in its July 2024 issue.
Richard Miller (Col ’75 CM)
Richard B. Miller (Col ’75, CM) retired on July 1, 2024, and is now the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Emeritus Professor at the University of Chicago. Before coming to Chicago in 2014, Miller taught and served in several administrative roles at Indiana University, starting in 1985. On May 7 he welcomed his grandson, Declan Ian Miller-Mulcahy, into the world. Miller is currently finishing a book tentatively entitled, A Simple Twist of Fate: Religion, Moral Luck, and Social Criticism. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, film scholar Barbara Klinger. He can be reached at richardbmiller824@gmail.com.
James & Julie Garner (Engr ’15, Com ’15 CM)
Jimmy Garner (Eng ’15 CM) and Julie Garner (Com ‘15) welcomed their first child, Mason James Garner, on Aug. 28, 2024. The family lives in Williamsburg, Virginia while Jimmy pursues his J.D. at William & Mary.
Luba Shur (Col ’93, Law ’96 CM)
Luba Shur (Col ’93, Law ’96 CM) has authored a new novel, RULE 23, available for preorder on Amazon and Audible. Liar’s Poker meets Legally Blonde and The Devil Wears Prada in this buzzy satire that tells the tale of one of the greatest grifts enshrined as law. There’s a striving, young associate who’s the book’s antiheroine, a ruthless senior partner eager to exploit her ambition, and a legal system that enables their diabolical schemes like tracks enable a runaway train. Kiiri Sandy—who brought to brilliant life recent hits by David Baldacci, Ruth Reichl, and Maud Ventura—shines as the narrator.
Shur received a B.A. in economics and international relations from UVA and a J.D. from its School of Law, where she served on the Law Review and earned Order of the Coif honors. She launched her career as a two-time federal judicial law clerk and built her career in private practice, at two preeminent BigLaw firms, including tenure as an associate, a counsel, and an equity partner specializing in complex litigation and other dispute resolution. Following these positions, Luba worked as a media law attorney at a government agency and currently works as a broad-based in-house general counsel. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area along with two children, one husband, and zero dogs.
Stephen Rademaker (Col ’81, Law ’84, Grad ’85 CM)
Stephen Rademaker (Col ’81, Law ’84, Grad ’85 CM) is a finalist for The American Lawyer magazine’s “Attorney of the Year” for work he did on behalf of Radio Free Europe reporter Alsu Kurmasheva to win her freedom from arbitrary detainment in Russia.
Robert Lufkin (Med ’79)
Robert Lufkin (Med ’79) has published Lies I Taught in Medical School, a New York Times bestseller based on his experience as a full professor at UCLA and USC medical schools. The book has been described as a riveting, cautionary tale of how medicine has gotten things so wrong (and continues to) in the area of metabolic health.
A free sample chapter is available at https://www.robertlufkinmd.com/lies/
June Bartley (Nurs ’49)
June P. Bartley (Nurs ’49) celebrated her 100th birthday on June 16, 2024. She started at UVA on March 11, 1946, and graduated on March 10, 1949. She met her husband, John A. Bartley, who was attending UVA in the School of Architecture, in 1947. They were married March 11, 1949, the day after her graduation.
Charles Blair (Col ’87, Law ’91 CM)
Charles (Tom) Blair (Col ’87, Law ’90 CM) is a contributing author in the volume of essays Lynching in Virginia: Racial Terror and Its Legacy. Growing up in Rockingham County, Blair, who is an attorney in private practice in Washington, D.C., developed an abiding interest in Civil War and Reconstruction-era history. Although not as associated with lynching as other southern states, Virginia has a tragically extensive history with these horrific crimes. This important volume examines the more than one hundred people who were lynched in Virginia between 1866 and 1932. Its diverse set of contributors—including scholars, journalists, activists, and students—recover this wider history of lynching in Virginia, interrogate its legacy, and spotlight contemporary efforts to commemorate the victims of racial terror across the commonwealth. Together, their essays represent a small part of the growing effort to come to terms with the role Virginia played in perpetuating America’s national shame.
Josh Pons (Col ’76)
Josh Pons (Col ’76 CM) has published his third book, Letters from Country Life: Adolphe Pons, Man o’ War, and the Founding of Maryland’s Oldest Thoroughbred Farm, a recounting of his grandfather’s role as personal secretary to New York financier August Belmont II, breeder of the greatest racehorse of the 20th-century, Man o’ War.
The narrative follows Pons’ grandfather from New York to Maryland in 1933 to establish Country Life Farm, which at nine decades old is the oldest thoroughbred farm in Maryland.
In writing the book, Pons took to heart the words of former professor John Coleman, a member of the UVA Department of English faculty from 1946 to 1981, who taught students that “unless something is written down, there is no proof that it existed.”
Pons’ book is available in bookstores, at rowmanlittlefield.com, or by contacting him at josh@countrylifefarm.com.
Amanda Smith (Col ’10)
Amanda Smith (Col ’10) has joined the health care practice of law firm K&L Gates LLP as counsel in its Washington, D.C. office. She joins the firm from 340B Health, a nonprofit organization comprising more than 1,500 hospitals and health systems participating in the federal 340B drug pricing program.
Smith has advised on regulatory, legislative, and legal matters related to the 340B program. She has worked directly with member hospitals on 340B compliance and policy issues, prepared legal analyses and advocacy documents on various 340B issues, and has played a key role in the development of state level policy and advocacy resources. Prior to her role at 340B Health, Smith served as a health care law clerk for the United States Senate Committee on Finance.
Lara Gastinger (Col ’98 CM)
Lara Gastinger (Col ’98 CM) will be featured in Charlottesville’s first Botanical Art Festival, to be held Sept. 7-12 at the Botanical Garden of the Piedmont. Gastinger will kick off the festival with “Introduction to Nature Journaling,” an introduction to a technique known as the perpetual journal. Attendees will learn strategies to observe and document the natural world around them. Gastinger will demonstrate her drawing and painting techniques and will provide opportunities for the attendees to draw along with her.
The festival will offer free art programming for all ages, botanically-themed workshops, and collaborations with regional artists and organizations, culminating in a ticketed botanical art show supporting local artists and the garden. It is the first of its kind for the region and is intended to bring the garden to the attention of many Virginians.
Dr. Luis G. Pedraja (Grad ’94)
Luis G. Pedraja (Grad ’94) has been appointed as a delegate to the New England Board of Higher Education by Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey. The appointment highlights Pedraja’s leadership in higher education and his dedication to expanding educational opportunities in Central Massachusetts.
Pedraja has served as president of Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, Massachusetts for seven years and has more than 30 years of experience in higher education. During his tenure, QCC has increased enrollment, launched student success initiatives, developed a strategic plan, expanded community partnerships, enhanced workforce development programs, and achieved reaccreditation from the New England Commission of Higher Education.
https://theworcesterguardian.org/f/qccs-president-named-to-ne-board-of-higher-ed-by-gov-healey
Jonathan McCullers (Col ’89 CM)
Dr. Jon McCullers (Col ’89 CM) has been named dean of the College of Medicine and vice president of health affairs at the University of Houston in Houston, Texas. He previously served 13 years as chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.
Brian Cafferty (Grad ’90)
Brian G. Cafferty (Grad ’90) has joined the boutique law firm GoldMark Partners LLP as a partner. Cafferty brings an extensive background in real estate, corporate governance, and finance to the firm, which is located in Needham, Massachusetts and is focused on commercial real estate and corporate law. His expertise spans corporate creation, governance, acquisitions, zoning, commercial leasing, and environmental compliance. He has successfully represented clients in various courts and provided strategic counsel on operational and compliance matters. He has handled the development, financing, and leasing of industrial, suburban office, retail, and multi-family projects, including brownfield sites. Cafferty is also experienced with Chapter 91 filled tidelands and Chapter 21E hazardous waste sites.
Before joining GoldMark, Cafferty served as vice president of legal affairs at Combined Properties, a full-service real estate investment and development firm, specializing in the development and acquisition of high-quality office, residential, industrial, and retail properties in the Boston area. Cafferty received his J.D. from Boston College School of Law.
Jason Nadolinski (SCPS ’22 CM)
Jason S. Nadolinski (SCPS ’22 CM) has been selected to serve as the director of the student affairs division of the Military and Veterans Student Success Center at Florida Atlantic University.
In this role, he will lead a professional staff dedicated to serving and supporting over 1,700 military and veteran students, their dependents, and the U.S. Army ROTC battalion at six campus locations across south Florida. He will create and sustain meaningful education pathways and a sense of special membership for the entire service member community across FAU, which has earned the Military Friendly School designation for twelve straight years and the Military Spouse Friendly School recognition for 2022-2023.
Nadolinski accepted this position upon retirement as a senior special agent/ team leader with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where he served from 2001-2023. He also retired from the U.S. Navy as a master chief petty officer after combined active duty and reserve component service of over 26-years. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy and the Naval War College – Senior Enlisted Academy.
He was a member of the second group of public safety leaders to earn the UVA Master of Public Safety degree and credential in 2022.
Kim Bridges (Col ’87 CM)
Kim Bridges (Col ’87 CM) has been promoted to associate professor in the School of Education at Virginia Commonwealth University. She joined the Department of Educational Leadership in 2018 after earning a doctorate in education leadership (Ed.L.D) from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She directs the Ed.D. capstone experience, a year-long collaboration with graduate student teams and partner organizations. Her scholarship and facilitation work focus on local governance and state policy for sustainable K-12 improvement.
Mark Bateman (Col ’79, Engr ’86 CM)
Mark Bateman (Col ’79, Engr ’86 CM) has retired after 45 years with Lockheed Martin’s undersea systems facility in Manassas, Virginia. He worked off-site at the Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Connecticut, since the start of the Virginia-class submarine program in 1996. Bateman was a principal hardware systems engineer and served as the engineering liaison to the shipyard. He supported development and testing of the sonar, combat and imaging systems for the Virginia class and the new Columbia-class programs. He received a letter of appreciation from the Navy’s Program Executive Office, Attack Submarines, citing his “systems engineering competence, technical expertise, and exemplary work ethic has set the standard of excellence for future generations.” Bateman lives in Ledyard, Connecticut, with his wife, Paula. They have two children, Chelsea Lauren Bateman (Nurs ’13 CM) and Callie Anne Bateman (Nurs ’16 CM).
William Matthew Ruberry (Col ’76)
William Matthew Ruberry (Col ’76) has published Harmony in Black and White, released in October by Doggy Dog World Publishing. Ruberry was a reporter for the Greenville (S.C.) News, then an award-winning reporter and editor for the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch. This is his first novel.
The book is set in Richmond and Charlottesville. Here is the description:
Jack Sullivan is a rookie reporter at the Messenger newspaper in Richmond, Virginia. When he’s assigned to the local police beat, he never expects to uncover a network of crime amid the systemic racism enshrined in the city’s Confederate history.
As the young journalist pulls at the threads of a story that spans from a record high in city homicides to interstate arms running, he is forced to confront the prejudices that color his young life and career.
Inspired by the author’s own reporting in the wake of the march by white supremacists in Charlottesville and the murder of George Floyd, Harmony in Black and White is an unflinching newsroom drama and an examination of the impact of race and implicit biases on our media, law enforcement, and the systems that govern them.
Emily Schmidt (Educ ’20 CM)
Emily Schmidt (Educ ’20 CM) and Bryce (Land) Schmidt (Com ’20) were married in Plymouth, Massachusetts on July 26th, 2024, with many ’Hoos in attendance. Sarah Snow (Educ ’20 CM), Emily’s first year hallmate in Watson-Webb, was the maid of honor. Emily and Bryce met second year when Emily lived two floors above Bryce in Lambeth Field Apartments. Bryce proposed to Emily on the Lawn last year.
Katie Appel (Col ’07)
Katie Appel (Col ’07 CM) and Francisco Gavaldá were married May 11, 2024 in Antigua, Guatemala, with 13 UVA alumni on hand to celebrate. Appel has lived in Guatemala since 2016, managing U.S. government-funded projects on topics related to anti-corruption, education, and violence prevention. Like UVA’s Academical Village, Antigua is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and served as the capital of Guatemala for nearly 300 years. The wedding took place in San Jose el Viejo, church ruins dating back to the 18th century, under the shadow of three volcanoes. Wahoos in attendance included (from left to right): Emily Archambeault-Wahlberg (Col ’07 CM), Amanda Huffman Doyle (Col ’06), Chelsey Jones (Col ’07 CM), Payal Maheshwari (Com ’06, Darden ’12), Remy Kauffmann (Col ’08), Colleen Sweeney (Col ’07 CM), Brian Gavron (Com ’08, Darden ’13 CM), Bowman Dickson (Col ’09 CM), Serena Bolliger (Col ’07), Katie Cristol (Col ’07 CM), Steve Giballa (Col ’06), Allison Murphy (Col ’07, Grad ’08), Appel, and Daniel Cullop (Col ’07 CM).
Patrick Melmer (Col ’12, Med ’17 CM)
Monica N. Melmer, MD, MS (Col ’11, Med ’17 CM) and Patrick D. Melmer, MD (Col ’12, Med ’17 CM) welcomed their third child, Harrison James, on July 1, 2024. He is adored by his sisters, Kennedy Caroline (4) and Madison Grace (2). His favorite lullaby is the Good Old Song. Now that they are outnumbered, the Drs. Melmer have switched from traditional man-to-man coverage to the Pack Line Defense. The family lives in Richmond where Monica and Patrick are assistant professors in the Division of Addiction Medicine and Department of Surgery, respectively, at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Karl Frisch (SCPS ’23 CM)
Karl Frisch (SCPS ’23 CM) was re-elected as chair of the Fairfax County (VA) School Board on July 11, 2024. With a $3.5 billion budget, 200 schools, 183,000 students, and 27,000 employees, Fairfax County Public Schools is Virginia’s largest and America’s ninth-largest public school system.
Frisch was elected in 2019 to represent Providence District on the school board, garnering more votes than any candidate for that office in the district’s history. In 2023, he was re-elected by a wider margin. He is the first openly LGBTQ+ person elected to local office in Virginia’s largest county.
Before joining the school board, Frisch was a nonprofit executive and public policy specialist. In addition to his work on the board, he serves on the board of directors for the University of Virginia Queer Alumni Network (QVA).
Valerie Thornton (Col ’87)
Valerie Johnson Thornton (Col ’87 CM) graduated with a doctorate in education from Regent University on May 3, 2024. Thornton is as a second-grade teacher at Norfolk Academy in Norfolk, Virginia.
Richard Neal Willetts (Educ ’06)
Neal Willetts (Educ ’06) married Elijah Akers in a late afternoon ceremony at Ford’s Colony Country Club in Williamsburg, Virginia on June 26th, 2024. Katie Morgans (Col ’07) did one of the readings, and numerous UVA friends attended. Surrounded by over 100 family, friends, and co-workers the couple celebrated in true ’Hoo style and kept the party going until late in the evening at a local bar after the reception. Akers is a veteran of the U.S. Navy, and the couple will move to Columbus, Ohio where he works in the IT industry and Willets works as a project manager for a small software company.
Patricia Leonard (Col ’88 CM)
Patricia A. Steenberg Leonard (Col ’88 CM) has been named one of the Top 50 woman lawyers in the State of Florida by Florida Super Lawyers. Leonard is a business trial attorney at Shutts & Bowen LLP in West Palm Beach, Florida, where she practices commercial litigation, labor and employment litigation, and intellectual property litigation.
Jay Jerome (Grad ’81 CM)
Jay Jerome, Ph.D. (Grad ’81 CM) has received the 2024 Distinguished Scientist— Biological Sciences Award from the Microscopy Society of America. This award is the highest award given by the society and recognizes preeminent senior scientists who have a long-standing record of achievement during their career in the field of microscopy or microanalysis.
Arthur Kahn (Col ’69 CM)
Arthur Kahn (Col ’69 CM) is in his third season screening arthouse and repertory films at Thetford (VT) Academy’s Martha Jane Rich Theater. Thetford Arthouse Cinema hosts residents and visitors in the Vermont/New Hampshire Upper Valley twice weekly for twelve weeks of free films, refreshments and discussion, with support from The Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation and Vermont Humanities.
Myron Santos (Col ’01 CM)
Myron Santos (Col ’01 CM) has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy for his work on The Amazing Race in the category of Outstanding Picture Editing for a Structured Reality or Competition Program. It is his second nomination; his first came for RuPaul’s Drag Race: All-Stars in 2019. Santos and his wife and their 9-year-old daughter live in Los Angeles. He is a member of the Motion Picture Editors Guild (IATSE Local 700) and The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and is on the board of the U.Va Entertainment Club of Los Angeles.
James Wilson (Grad ’06, Grad ’11)
James Wilson (Grad ’06, ’11) has published America’s Cold Warrior: Paul Nitze and National Security from Roosevelt to Reagan. Wilson could not have written the book without the “amazing” experience of completing a Ph.D. in American History at UVA from 2005 until 2011 with Melvyn P. Leffler, Edward Stettinius Professor of History, Emeritus.
Andrew Lee (Col ’85, Med ’89 CM)
Andrew G. Lee, M.D. (Col 85, Med 89 CM) published the second edition of his textbook, Emergencies in Neuro-ophthalmology. Dr. Lee served this year (2023-2024) as president of the Houston Ophthalmological Society and president of the Houston Neurological Society.
John Allis (Col ’75)
John Allis (Col ’75) and Cathy Allis (Educ ’77) have received organic certification for Kennebec Oat Farm. The farm is located in eastern coastal Maine and grows milky oats, wild raspberry leaf and lady’s mantle leaf. John continues as a licensed engineer in Maine, Colorado and Virginia, although most of his time is spent on the oat farm.
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