Class Notes
Steven Platt (Col ’69)
Steven I. Platt (Col ’69 CM) has published his memoir, Lessons Lived and Learned: My Life On and Off the Bench. A retired senior judge and renowned legal luminary who has been an integral part of the Maryland justice system, Platt shares insights into the inner workings of the justice system as well as highlights of a career so intricately woven within the fabric of history that he’s been dubbed “The Forrest Gump of politics.” He provides both a riveting analysis of the strengths and failings of our justice system and humorous sidebars recounting his life both in and outside the courtroom. Focusing on issues such as judicial decision-making, legal ethics, and the role of judges in our society, Platt offers a comprehensive and cogent examination of the legal system and its impact on individuals and society. Interspersed with this serious review are important and entertaining depictions of his interactions with some of the most influential news makers of our day. Lessons Lived and Learned: My Life On and Off the Bench is now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble online. Visit both to find this and other books in Judge Platt’s Pursuit of Justice series.
Daisy Rojas (Col ’09, Educ ’15)
Daisy Stevens Rojas (Col ’09, Educ ’15) recently accepted a role at Charlottesville-based, Platt Financial, as a financial services professional. She works collaboratively with individual and corporate clients to create financial strategies bridging generational, cultural and professional challenges. Rojas also develops the branding and marketing strategies of the firm’s related content, research and initiatives. Before moving into this role, Rojas was vice president at a multi-state contracting firm managing contracts in locations such as the Homestead and Greenbrier resorts and other private communities in Central Virginia, West Virginia and the Washington, D.C. and Maryland areas. Before that, Rojas worked in philanthropic pursuits garnering more than $20 million in support for the University of Virginia, education initiatives and various community service organizations. She also served as president of the Albemarle County Rotary Club during the 2022-2023 fiscal year and has over 20 years of financial services experience. She holds a Certified Fund Raising Executive designation and has acquired industry registrations with Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the State of Virginia with Annuity, Life & Health Insurance, SIE, Series 6, 63 and 65 exams. https://www.plattfinancial.com/
Casey Chalk (Col ’07, Educ ’07)
Casey Chalk (Col ’07, Educ ’07) published his second book, The Obscurity of Scripture: Disputing Sola Scriptura and the Protestant Notion of Biblical Perspicuity (Emmaus Road Publishing). The Obscurity of Scripture is the first book-length summation and critique of the Protestant doctrine of perspicuity, analyzing its historical, theological, and philosophical dimensions. Chalk, a former Presbyterian seminary student, provocatively argues that perspicuity, rather than sola fide or sola scriptura, is the most foundational of Protestant doctrines. Best-selling author and biblical scholar Scott W. Hahn, who wrote the foreword for the book, declared that it is “sure to be considered a masterpiece.” Chalk serves as an editor or regular contributor for many publications, including The New Oxford Review, The Federalist, Crisis Magazine, The American Conservative, and The Spectator.
Sabrina Mendez (Col ’09 CM)
Sabrina K. Mendez (Col ’09 CM) and her husband welcomed twin daughters, Riley and Skyler, on May 19, 2023. Mendez serves as a district administrator for Orange County (Fla.) Public Schools overseeing kindergarten through 12th grade Multi-Tiered System of Supports and Interventions.
Andrew Lee (Med ’89 CM)
Andrew G. Lee, MD (Col ’85, Med ’89) was named as one of the top 30 ophthalmologists in the United States by Newsweek’s America’s Best Eye Doctors for 2023. America’s Best Eye Doctors 2023 – Ophthalmologists (newsweek.com)
William Walker (Col ’66 CM)
William Walker (Col ’66 CM) published his second book, The Last Lap (Octane Press). The volume tells the story of Pete Kreis, whose fast life in racing and his mysterious death at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway have inspired many tales over the years. Walker spent 50 years tracking down witnesses, finding newspaper clippings, and visiting sites where Kreis raced on the Indy Car circuit and in Formula One at Monza, Italy. Walker lives in Staunton, Virginia.
Lloyd Stamy (Col ’73 CM)
Lloyd F. Stamy. Jr. (Col ’73 CM) has published his newest book, Perfect Strangers (Bad Bear Down), the third volume in The Hap Franklin Series. Ripped from current headlines, this timely and gripping thriller is a serious and riveting story, but also told with an abundance of playful humor. Underpinning the primary storyline of bringing down the Russian president is Franklin’s emotional struggle with his faith for guidance and forgiveness in order to get life right while there is still time. Early readers have found it “engaging, captivating, suspenseful, and provocative.” To learn more about the entire three-book series, follow the below link to his author page:
www.amazon.com/author/lloyd.stamy
Devon Knudsen (Col ’05)
Devon Knudsen (Col ’05) is concluding a two-year secretariat position coordinating the U.S. government’s atrocity prevention efforts. She also led the multilateral atrocity prevention efforts of a group started by Samantha Power, who she first heard speak at UVA. Knudsen is grateful to have been entrusted with this responsibility and for the widespread support she received in this role.
Susanne Croasdaile (Educ ’05)
Susanne Croasdaile (Educ ’05) has published her first book, Building Executive Function and Motivation in the Middle Grades: A Universal Design for Learning Approach. Using real-life examples, Croasdaile shows educators how to integrate Universal Design for Learning to transform the learning experience for their students. She provides a roadmap for anyone who seeks practical, research-based strategies to help their students survive and thrive to become expert learners in the middle grades. In an easy-to-follow, 8-step process, Croasdaile offers numerous strategies that will enhance instruction and support student social and emotional competency. By highlighting practices related to students’ executive function and sustained effort, this book is a useful addition to the toolkit of every classroom teacher, coach, and administrator.
Rodney Hobbs (Com ’94 CM)
On June 6, 2023, Rodney Hobbs (Com ’94) appeared on “The Price Is Right” and won the Showcase, for the 2nd time! His first appearance and win occurred in May 2012. His latest prizes included a refrigerator, and trips to Bali & New Orleans, which he will be taking later this year with his wife, Freda Johnson Hobbs (Col ’94 CM).
Patricia Leonard (Col ’88 CM)
Patricia A. Steenberg Leonard (Col ’88 CM) co-authored an article entitled “Use of the Constructive Knowledge Standard When Evaluating Evident Partiality Challenges to Arbitration Awards in Florida,” in the July/August 2023 edition of The Florida Bar Journal.
Daniel Sunshine (Col ’14, Grad ’18, Grad ’22 CM)
Daniel Sunshine (Col ’14, Grad ’18, ’22 CM) wed Kajsa Eskilsson on June 3, 2023 in a beautiful ceremony at Early Mountain Vineyards. The couple met in Charlottesville in 2018, while Kajsa was studying abroad at UVA through her law program in Sweden, and Daniel was earning his doctorate in history. The wedding was officiated by the groom’s brother, Ben Sunshine (Col ’11), and was attended by many ’Hoos from the class of 2014!
Afi Wiggins (Educ ’14)
Afi Y. Wiggins (Educ ’14) was appointed June 1 as interim managing director of the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin. As the Dana Center interim managing director, Wiggins oversees the Center’s work, ensuring that its vision and mission continue to be at the heart of all it does. She establishes long-term strategic goals and prioritizes partnership development. Wiggins supervises and supports directors who lead teams enacting the portfolio of projects and activities supported by the Center. Read her blog for more information: A Letter from Afi Y. Wiggins, Ph.D., Interim Managing Director
Katie McCarthy (Col ’09 CM)
Katie McCarthy (Col ’09, Arch ’18 CM) married Alex Stefanic in St. Lucia on May 27, 2023. The couple lives in Richmond, Virginia. ’Hoos in attendance included Megan (Van Syckle) Winter (Com ’09 CM), Chris Winter (Col ’07 CM), Katie (Gruber) Sheldon (Col ’08 CM), Virginia McCormack (Com ’08 CM), David Schultz (Engr ’11 CM), and Marshall Agee (Engr ’11 CM).
Michael Genovese (Col ’98 CM)
Michael Genovese (Col ’98 CM) was married October 9, 2022, to Jennifer Ann. Sons Alexander and Ryan served as best men. Genovese completed his doctorate at St. John’s University in New York in 2020, and is the principal at Norwood Avenue Elementary School in Northport, New York.
Willie Lin (Col ’08)
Willie Lin (Col ’08) will publish her debut poetry collection, Conversation Among Stones, with BOA Editions in November 2023. A meditation on memory and identity that lives among and vexes personal, familial, and social histories, the collection questions what can remain and what must be pared away in our search for truth. Lin’s chapbook Instructions for Folding, published with Northwestern University Press, was winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize.
Cady Sinks (Col ’04 CM)
Cady Sinks (Col ’04 CM) has become an equity partner at Ames & Gough, a leading insurance broker and risk management consultant. She serves as a risk advisor and insurance broker to architects and engineers across the country. She works at the firm’s headquarters in McLean, Virginia. Sinks and her husband live in Alexandria, Virginia with their two boys and one very mischievous puppy.
Tara Osborn (Grad ’84 CM)
Col. (Ret.) Tara A. Osborn (Grad ’84 CM) has been appointed to serve an eight-year term on the Military Justice Review Panel, a blue-ribbon commission chartered by Congress to conduct independent periodic reviews and assessments of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the military justice system. Osborn is a former chief trial judge of the U.S. Army and a current faculty member of the National Judicial College.
Robert Graboyes (Col ’76 CM)
Robert Graboyes (Col ’76 CM) has published “Shockley versus Shockley: Don’t Cut the Tail off the Rattlesnake,” an analysis of physicist-turned-eugenicist William Shockley’s controversial appearance at UVA in 1975; and “Do Not Go Gentle: J. Sargeant Reynolds Against the Dying of the Light,” a remembrance of an historic 1971 anti-segregation speech by Virginia’s then-dying lieutenant governor. Graboyes, who writes on economics, science, and culture at Bastiat’s Window, was recently named senior research affiliate at the Knee Center for the Study of Occupational Regulation at West Virginia University.
Ilana Berry (Law ’03)
Ilana Berry (Law ’03) published her debut spy novel, The Peacock and the Sparrow (Simon & Schuster), in May 2023. Her pen name is I.S. Berry. After spying for the CIA for six years, including one year in wartime Baghdad, Berry decided she preferred writing about espionage to doing it. The Peacock and the Sparrow is about an American spy caught in the crosswinds of the Arab Spring who becomes involved in murder, consuming love, and an unpredictable revolution. Joseph Kanon, bestselling author of The Berlin Exchange, calls it “remarkable” and Joseph Weisberg, creator of the TV series The Americans, calls it “the most realistic espionage story I’ve read.”
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