Class Notes
Kristin Mehigan (Com ’90)
Kristin Kisska Mehigan (Com ’90 CM) published her debut novel, The Hint of Light, under her pen name Kristin Kisska. The book follows a grieving mother who, after learning that her late son may have fathered a child, desperately searches for the granddaughter she never knew existed. The novel is in the UVA Authors Collection in the Rotunda Dome Room.
Mehigan, who lives in Richmond with her family, including her daughter Elyse Mehigan (Col ’23 CM), has also published mystery and suspense short stories under her pen name.
Shannon Pierce (Col ’98, Law ’01 CM)
Shannon Pierce (Col ’98, Law ’01 CM) has been appointed as vice president of strategy and chief administrative officer at Virginia Natural Gas.
Pierce served as vice president, growth, and chief external affairs officer at SouthStar Energy Services, a subsidiary of VNG’s parent, Southern Company Gas. A native of Surry, Virginia, she began her career as a lawyer for McGuireWoods LLP in Richmond, Virginia.
Steven Nesbit (Engr ’80 CM)
Steve Nesbit (Engr ’80, ’82 CM) was one of six American Nuclear Society members elevated to the rank of Fellow in September 2023. The ANS past president (2021–2022) and founder of LMNT Consulting LLC was recognized for being a prominent and effective leader and spokesperson for the beneficial use of nuclear technology. The society highlighted Nesbit’s work to dispose of surplus weapons plutonium by converting it to mixed oxide fuel and using it in commercial nuclear reactors.
Elizabeth Meyer (Arch ’78 CM)
Beth Meyer (Arch ’78, ’82 CM), the Merrill D. Peterson Professor of Landscape Architecture in the UVA School of Architecture, was appointed the inaugural faculty director of the UVA Morven Sustainability Lab in November 2022. She received the Thomas Jefferson Award, the University’s highest faculty scholar honor in June 2023.
Kathleen Murphy (Col ’01 CM)
Kathleen Murphy (Col ’01 CM), professor of history at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, published Captivity’s Collections: Science, Natural History, and the British Transatlantic Slave Trade with UNC Press in October 2023. The book explores the entangled histories of the slave trade and science in the eighteenth century. It reveals how naturalists exploited the routes of the British slave trade to obtain thousands of natural historical specimens, including some that survive in modern scientific collections.
Craig Pratsch (Engr ’06 CM)
Craig Pratsch (Engr ’06 CM) has published his first novel, The Treatment, a vision of a not-so-different world where criminals are sentenced to years of state-mandated medication instead of brick-and-mortar jails. The Treatment touches on current and past political issues through the lens of science fiction. Craig currently lives in San Diego, California.
Joshua Leo (Col ’02)
Joshua Ryan Leo (Col ’02) has been named program director for the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and VA Boston Healthcare Fellowship in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, uniting two teaching hospitals of Harvard Medical School. In this role, Dr. Leo is mentoring the next generation of psychiatrists, strengthening connections between major healthcare institutions, and advancing a holistic approach to care for a wide range of patients.
BIDMC & VA Boston Healthcare Consultation-Liaison (C-L) Psychiatry Fellowship
Lindsey Jensen (Col ’13)
Lindsey Jensen (Col ’13) and Bryan Dale (Eng ’14 CM) got married north of Charlottesville at Moss Vineyards on Sept. 16, 2023. Lindsey and Bryan met on The Lawn one fall sunny day at UVA as fourth years. They survived years of long distance before settling down together in Kansas City, Missouri with their golden retriever, Charlie. They had a great time celebrating their love at the place where their story began. Wahoowa!
Kevin LaPorta (Engr ’09)
Kevin LaPorta (Engr ’09) and Jennifer Murphy LaPorta (Col ’10 CM) welcomed a son, Garrett Jack, on September 23, 2023. He joins big sister Lillian (age 7) and big brother Dylan (age 3).
Heather Wishart-Smith (Engr ’96, Engr ’98)
Heather Wishart-Smith (Engr ’96, ’98) was elected to the board of directors of Orion Energy Systems, which provides energy efficiency and clean tech solutions, including LED lighting and electric vehicle charging. Wishart-Smith is also on the board of Group PMX, a private program and construction management company, and facilitates partnering sessions for large construction projects with GCC, LLC. Wishart-Smith was elected to the National Academy of Construction in 2022, and earned her National Academy of Corporate Directors Directorship Certification this year. She is a Fellow of the Society of American Military Engineers, for which she served as national President in 2020, and a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers. She lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband Keller Smith and children Glory, Nick, and Alexandra.
Chloe Downs (Col ’17 CM)
Chloe Downs (Col ’17 CM) married Jonathan Colen (Engr ’18 CM) on September 16, 2023, in the garden of Pavilion I at UVA. In attendance were a number of alumni, including in the wedding parties Tyler Curran (Col ’19, Educ ’20), Katherine McCool (Engr ’19 CM), Andrew Coffee (Engr ’18 CM), Brittany Huffman (Col ’18 CM), Anna LeValley (Col ’17 CM), Ritika Bhat (Col ’17 CM), Erika Rashka (Engr ’18), and Caelan Ryberg (Engr ’18). Chloe and Jon are living in Hampton, Virginia, where Chloe works at NASA Langley and Jon is about to begin working as a research professor at Old Dominion University.
Scott LeTourneau (Darden ’06)
Scott LeTourneau (Darden ’06) has been named executive vice president and chief financial officer of Cox Automotive, the world’s largest automotive services and technology provider.
LeTourneau has been with Cox since 2012 in various corporate development roles, most recently serving as senior vice president of corporate development for parent company Cox Enterprises. He will have responsibility for all finance functions and the company’s financial solutions business, NextGear Capital.
Capt. James Talbot Jr. (Col ’53 CM)
James R. Talbot Jr., Capt. USN (Ret) (Col ’53 CM) privately published the Talbot family history, covering the period from Jared Talbot, who landed in Taunton, Massachusetts, in about 1660 to C. Scott Talbot (Eng ’81, Law ’87) and Zachary B. Talbot (Col ’16 CM).
Maggie Marano (Col ’01 CM)
Maggie Marano (Col ’01 CM) has published her first children’s book, Santa’s Surfside Christmas: The Replacement Reindeer Interviews.
The book follows Santa, Mrs. Claus and the elves as a post-Christmas vacation turns into an unexpected Covid-19 lockdown stay. Santa is only allowed to fly out with special permission for one night, Christmas Eve but the reindeer aren’t cleared to travel. Santa, Mrs. Claus and the elves decide to hold replacement reindeer interviews but will any of the applicants be able to pull the sleigh? Will there be a Christmas this year?
You can find Santa’s Surfside Christmas: The Replacement Reindeer Interviews on Amazon and at barnesandnoble.com.
Porter Echols (Col ’85)
P. Burks Echols III (Col ’85 CM) and Ann Carter “Boo” Refo Echols (Col ’86 CM) celebrated the graduation of their daughter M. Carter Echols (Com ’22 CM) from the McIntire School of Commerce in May 2022 and look forward to celebrating the graduation of their daughter Sarah B. Echols (Col ’24) from the College of Arts and Sciences in May 2024. The family – including June W. Echols (Educ ’73 CM) and Porter “Pete” B. Echols, Jr. (Col ’55, Med ‘58 CM) – gathered for a photo with their collection of UVA diplomas in July of 2022. Sarah held the Medical School diploma that was earned by her great grandfather, Porter B. Echols, Sr (Med 1925) as a marker until she earns her diploma in May 2024.
Robert Kantner (Col ’77)
Robert W Kantner (Col ’77) has retired from private practice law in Dallas, Texas. After graduating from the University with a B.A. in Government and Foreign Affairs with Honors, Kantner attended and graduated from Harvard Law School. He then moved to Dallas where he worked as a trial lawyer specializing in commercial and intellectual property cases and tried 36 cases to a verdict as first chair. Kantner was a partner in the BakerBotts, DLA Piper and Jones Day law. He now enjoys spending time with his three grandchildren and writing family histories for them.
Anne Marie Seibel (Col ’94)
Anne Marie Seibel (Col ’94 CM) is serving as chair of the American Bar Association’s Litigation Section for the 2023-24 bar year. She and her husband, Steven Rowe (Col ’94 CM), chief scientific officer of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, live in Birmingham, Alabama.
Sarah Gabriel (Col ’12)
Sarah Gabriel (Col ’12 CM) married Christopher Alimenti Sept. 9, in Richmond, Virginia. The couple met while Sarah was a server at Boylan Heights in 2011 and Christopher was visiting Charlottesville. He left his phone number on a piece of paper for Sarah and she kept the note all those years. She found it again while she was going through old college mementos in 2020, and decided to text him out of the blue.
The couple lives in Richmond but loves to visit Boylan Heights as the official place where they first met.
Christina Polenta (Com ’09 CM)
Christina Polenta (Com ’09 CM) and Eric Magenheimer (Com ’09 CM) welcomed their second child, Luke Thomas Magenheimer, in June 2023. The family lives in Oakton, Virginia.
Nayna Agrawal (Col ’98)
Nayna Agrawal (Col ’98) has had plays staged this year at the Signature Theatre in Washington, D.C., the Great Plains Theater Conference in Omaha, Nebraska and the Studio Tenn Theatre Company in Nashville, Tennessee . She also received Kuma Kahua Theatre’s annual playwright award. The Theatre is based in Hawaii and, in addition to a monetary award, offers the winning playwright the opportunity to have their work staged.
Patricia Sasser (Col ’99 CM)
Patricia (Anyaso) Sasser (Col ’99 CM) was selected to be a Fulbright Specialist for a tenure of three years (2023-2026) by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and World Learning. During her tenure, she is eligible to be matched with approved two-to six-week projects designed by host institutions in over 150 countries globally promoting international exchange and understanding.
Andrew Lee (Med ’89 CM)
Dr. Andrew G. Lee (Col ’85, Med ’89 CM) was recently awarded the 2023 Secretariat Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology. The annual award from the AAO recognizes special contributions to the Academy and to the field of Ophthalmology as determined by the AAO Senior secretaries. Dr. Lee has previously received the honor award, the senior honor award, and the life achievement award from the AAO.
Natasha Saje (Col ’76)
Natasha Saje (Col ’76) has published her fourth book of poems, The Future Will Call You Something Else (Tupelo, 2023). She has also published a postmodern poetry handbook, Windows and Doors: A Poet Reads Literary Theory (Michigan, 2014) and a memoir, Terroir: Love, Out of Place (Trinity UP, 2020). She teaches in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing Program and lives in Washington, DC.
Julia Tazelaar (Col ’16 CM)
Julia Tazelaar (Col ’16 CM) and her husband Joe Wells welcomed their first son, Winton “Win” Mac Tazelaar-Wells on July 28, 2023. He is the first grandson of Eric Tazelaar (Arch ’82 CM). Julia is a teacher at the Dwight-Englewood School and Joe is a Manager of Data Analytics for Robert Wood Johnson Hospital. The family lives in Teaneck, New Jersey.
Morgan Flowers (Col ’19)
Morgan Flowers (Col ’19 CM) has been recognized with a 2023 CoVaBIZ Next Gen Award. The awards recognize successful young professionals making a difference in their industries in Coastal Virginia.
Flowers is development associate for The Lawson Companies, a vertically-integrated real estate firm based in Norfolk, Virginia specializing in the development, construction, and management of multifamily housing communities in Virginia.
Flowers is primarily accountable for third-party due diligence, architectural and civil design management, green building program implementation, permitting, and owner’s representative during construction.
William Sexauer (Com ’19)
Will Sexauer (Com ’19 CM) has been recognized with a 2023 CoVaBIZ Next Gen Award. The awards recognize successful young professionals making a difference in their industries in Coastal Virginia.
Sexauer is acquisitions manager for The Lawson Companies, a vertically-integrated real estate firm based in Norfolk, Virginia specializing in the development, construction, and management of multifamily housing communities in Virginia.
He is accountable for sourcing Lawson’s new development projects, evaluating financial feasibility, conceptual project design, the entitlement process, broker and seller relationships, and contract management.
ALAN KORMAN (Arch ’77)
Alan Korman (Arch ’77) retired in March after a 43-year career in the casino gaming industry in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Korman began his career as a multi-game dealer and gaming supervisor during the industry’s infancy in Atlantic City . Over the next 30-plus years he worked as a casino marketing executive for Resorts, Sands, and Trump Marina before finishing his career as senior executive director of player development for the Golden Nugget.
Korman has been married for 39 years and has three adult children.
James Guy (Col ’87)
James Patrick Guy II (Col ’87, Law ’90 CM) has been chosen president-elect of the southern chapter of the Energy Bar Association for the 2023-24 bar year and will serve as its president in 2024-25. He previously served as southern chapter president in 2010-11 and was the 128th president of the Virginia Bar Association in 2016.
Guy is general counsel to Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative and its affiliates, EMPOWER Broadband Inc. and EMPOWER Telecom Inc. He also was appointed to the Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board by Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2022 and serves as Board Chairman.
The Energy Bar Association (EBA) is an international, non-profit association of attorneys, energy professionals, and students active in all areas of energy law. EBA has seven regional chapters across the U.S. and one in Canada. The Southern Chapter comprises the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Paulette Morant (Col ’74 CM)
Paulette Jones Morant (Col ’74 CM) was featured as artist of the month in July 2023 at The Nelson Gallery in Lexington Virginia. Her exhibit From Where I Stand, a compilation of seascapes, public structures, florals and collections, was Paulette’s first solo photography exhibition. The opening reception was highlighted by the attendance of family, friends and a number of UVA alumni of various decades.
Judith Baroody (Grad ’85 CM)
Judith Baroody (Grad ’85 CM) published her third work of fiction, Return of the Silent Sovereign, a sci-fi fantasy mix of Star Trek and Wonder Woman with a twist of Romeo and Juliet. Baroody retired from the foreign service at the rank of minister-counselor and continues to work part-time for the Department of State.
John Ragosta (Col ’08 CM)
John Ragosta (Law ’84, Grad ’08) has published his fourth book, For the People, For the Country: Patrick Henry’s Final Political Battle (UVA Press). In 1799, at the behest of President George Washington, Patrick Henry came out of retirement to thwart Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and the radical states’ rights agenda of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. Washington and Henry believed that their opponents were putting party over country and threatening the still fragile union. Rebuking Jefferson and Madison, Henry insisted that in a democracy change must occur “in a constitutional way” or monarchy threatened.
For the People, For the Country tells the remarkable story of how the most eloquent public speaker of the American Revolutionary era and the leading antifederalist during debates over ratification of the Constitution reemerged from retirement to defend the Constitution that he had opposed, but that had been adopted by his co-citizens. Much more than a fire-breathing demagogue, the Patrick Henry we encounter here comes to life as a principled leader of the young nation who believed above all in working with a government elected by the people, advocating for political change in “a constitutional way”—at the ballot box.
Caroline Rayner (Col ’13)
Caroline Rayner (Col ’13) published her first book, The Moan Wilds, in May 2023. Published by Shabby Doll House, The Moan Wilds consists of one long poem, and Caroline describes what it’s about like this: “Lighting fireworks in the yard during a party, then escaping into the house to cut your hair in the bathtub, or down the road to where everyone promised you could perfectly see the moon. Sharing a bottle of wine while riding through the Blue Ridge Mountains in the back of a station wagon with no air conditioning and nothing but weather and sports on the radio. Writing each other’s names on the windows with melting lipstick. Putting glitter on your eyes. Crossing your legs over her legs to make a move on a giant rock in the river. Getting blood on your dress. Sweating in pink sheets until noon with someone you got to sing ‘Someday I Will Treat You Good’ then ‘Trains Across the Sea’ then ‘Farewell Transmission’ with at karaoke. Yelling on the phone from the porch about a psychedelic kind of light coming in like water but also like velvet through the magnolia that everyone needs to see to believe and we can make a whole goddamn night out of it if someone goes to get more wine.”
Selah Saterstrom says, “THE MOAN WILDS is a queer feast…Caroline Rayner can write lines that stop your heart, or rather, relocate it.” Dara Barrois/Dixon says, “Here we have a book of the excruciating intoxication of passionate, ardent, not altogether unrequited love…Rayner’s not holding anything back and the music of her words and the beauty of her soul makes it all bearable.” Ocean Vuong says, “Steeped in the hybrid and maximalist tradition of C.D. Wright, Bernadette Mayer, and Alice Notley, The Moan Wilds nevertheless forges a path so inimitable it becomes the very thumbprint of its author, which to me is the crowning achievement of any book worth its salt. Here Rayner has produced an indelible and unforgettable voice, full of heart, intelligence, hunger and a wildness that shakes us into new, hallucinatory order.”
Excerpts from The Moan Wilds can be found online in Annulet, Black Warrior Review, b l u s h, KEITH LLC, and Peach Mag. An interview with Caroline about THE MOAN WILDS can be found in The Millions.
Jeannine Johnson Maia (Col ’86)
Jeannine Johnson Maia (Col ’86) published The Filigree Master’s Apprentice, her second historical novel about Portugal. It’s the story of a young man who, in 1877, escapes the harsh Douro Valley vineyards for a new — and precarious — life in the big city. (https://mybook.to/FiligreeMaster)
It was published earlier this year by Portuguese publisher Marcador under the title O Rapaz do Douro.
Rossio Square N.° 59, which takes place in Lisbon during WWII, is her first novel.
Lucas Hobbs (Law ’98 CM)
Lucas Hobbs (Law ’98 CM) was elected as secretary of the Association of District Court Judges of Virginia at the Association’s annual meeting in August. He serves as a General District Court Judge in the 28th Judicial District.
Shira Lurie (Col ’19)
Shira Lurie (Grad ’19) will publish her first book, The American Liberty Pole: Popular Politics and the Struggle for Democracy in the Early Republic, with UVA Press in October. Lurie is an assistant professor of history at Saint Mary’s University.
Stephen Rider (Com ’80)
Stephen Rider (Com ’80 CM) has been recognized in the 2024 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® and Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America. Rider works for McGlinchey Stafford and was recognized for his work out of the New Orleans office.
Kevin Clouther (Col ’01)
Kevin Clouther (Col ’01) will publish a collection of stories, entitled Maximum Speed, in November 2023. In the stories, character Billy’s improbable reappearance connects Nick, Andrea and Jim, and forces them to revisit the shared secret of their past. The book moves across time and plays with multiple points of view to dramatize youth’s aftershocks.
Clouther is also the author of We Were Flying to Chicago: Stories (2014).
Thomas Cook (Com ’81)
Thomas H. Cook Jr. (Com ’81 CM) has been named the Best Lawyers® 2024 Tax Law “Lawyer of the Year” in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is also listed as a leading tax lawyer by Chambers USA, a prominent ranking agency for law firms and lawyers. Cook works with Wyrick Robbins Yates & Ponton LLP in Raleigh.
Frank Macgil (Com ’91)
Frank S. Macgill (Com ’91), a partner at HunterMaclean, a law firm with offices in Savannah and St. Simons Island, Georgia, was recently selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© 2024. Founded in 1983, Best Lawyers is an annual publication that recognizes attorneys for outstanding achievements in their areas of practice. Attorneys are selected through peer-review surveys that have been completed by thousands of leading lawyers who confidentially evaluate their peers.
Michael Trimble (Col ’04 CM)
Lt. Col. Michael Trimble (Col ’04 CM) has earned a Ph.D. in military strategy from the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, the U.S. Air Force’s graduate-level strategy school. His dissertation focused on security cooperation and air advisers in the war on terror.
Phillip Fowler (Educ ’78 CM)
Christopher Corbett (Col ’78 CM) and Phillip Fowler (Educ ’78 CM), first-year roommates at Humphreys Dorm in 1974, reconnected on July 22, 2023. They had not seen each other since 1978. Corbett was a resident advisor for three years and Fowler for two.
Mark Delcuze (Col ’80 CM)
Rev. Mark S. Delcuze (Col ’80 CM) is retiring after 10 years as rector of Christ Church Parish, Kent Island, Maryland. In 38 years of ordained life he has served Episcopal Church parishes in six dioceses. A lifelong ecumenist, he was appointed ecumenical and interfaith officer in two dioceses and held leadership positions in the Virginia Council of Churches and other interfaith councils. He is a five-time deputy to the General Convention and has been active in promoting the full inclusion of LGBTQ persons in the life and leadership of the church. He and his wife Mary Jerome Delcuze (COM ’82 CM) will live in Annapolis, Maryland.
Tom Kloiber (Com ’90)
Rob Elliott (Com ’90 CM) and Tom Kloiber (Com ’90 CM) took on the Triple Bypass, a 118-mile bike ride across Colorado, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their 1993 cross-country bicycle trip. They proudly wore their Virginia crossed-sabres bike jerseys, drawing plenty of attention and remarks from fellow riders. The jerseys also allowed them to meet several other Wahoos from all over the country who were participating in the ride.
David Hein (Col ’76, Grad ’82 CM)
David Hein (Col ’76, Grad ’82 CM) has been appointed distinguished teaching fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in Mecosta, Michigan.
Amy Rosenberg (Col ’95 CM)
Amy Rosenberg Allshouse (Col ’95 CM) graduated from Santa Clara University School of Law in May, 2023 with a J.D., CIPP/US certification and a High Tech Law Certificate with Honors.
Anne McCall (Col ’81 CM)
Anne E. McCall (Col ’81 CM) was named president of The College of Wooster, effective July 1, 2023. Her inauguration is scheduled for October 28, 2023.
An inspirational and values-driven administrator with a track record for building innovation through inclusive excellence, a dedicated teacher and mentor, and internationally recognized scholar of nineteenth-century French fiction and life writing, President McCall is the second woman to lead Wooster since its founding in 1866. She also is a tenured professor in the Department of French and Francophone Studies.
McCall previously was provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at Xavier University of Louisiana—ranked fifth among Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the U.S. according to U.S. News & World Report and first among all institutions for the number of African American graduates completing medical school and multiple Ph.D. programs.
William Gentry (Col ’81 CM)
William C. Gentry (Col ’81 CM) of Gentry Law Firm LLC in Marietta, Georgia has been elected to serve as secretary of the 54,000-member State Bar of Georgia. Gentry was installed June 10 during the organization’s annual meeting in Savannah.
Gentry also serves on the state bar’s executive committee and has represented the Cobb Judicial Circuit on the Board of Governors of the State Bar. He earned his law degree from the University of Georgia School of Law and was admitted to the state bar in 1986.
His law practice focuses on family law, including divorce, high asset property division, child custody and alimony cases. He serves as chair of the state bar’s Senior Lawyers Committee and is a past president of the Cobb County Bar Association.
Edward Coleman (Col ’04)
Ed Coleman (Col ’04) has been named in the 2024 edition of Best Lawyers in America for his practice in insurance litigation and personal injury. Inclusion is by peer evaluation only and fewer than 6% of all U.S. lawyers are included in this annual publication.
Thomas Grant (Col ’92)
Thomas C. Grant (Col ’92) has been named to the 2024 edition of Best Lawyers in America® in the practice area of Commercial Litigation. Grant is a partner with Freed Grant LLC in Atlanta, where he focuses his practice on commercial litigation, commercial real estate, and insurance defense matters. He received his law degree at Emory University School of Law.
About Freed Grant LLC www.freedgrant.com
About Best Lawyers www.bestlawyers.com
Best Lawyers is the oldest and most respected peer-review publication company in the legal profession. Their lists of outstanding lawyers are compiled by conducting exhaustive peer review surveys in which tens of thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers.
Mohamed Vaid (Com ’99 CM)
Mohamed Vaid (Com ’99 CM) has been appointed senior vice president, business solutions profit & loss, for Dematic Americas. In this role, Vaid will oversee the project execution team for Dematic’s Americas region. Vaid previously served as Dematic Americas’ senior vice president, customer service.
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