Class Notes

Brian C. Drummond (Col ’80 CM) has been elected to the board of trustees of the George Mason University Foundation for a three year term. Brian is currently serving his second three year term on Virginia Bar Council. He continues to practice law in Northern Virginia, and he divides his time between his homes in West Falls Church and Cocoa, FL. 

Katherine Snider (Col ’94 CM) is the CEO of Good+Foundation, a national nonprofit that uses a multi-generational approach to address family poverty. Good+Foundation meets the short-term needs of mothers, fathers and caregivers living on low-incomes while also helping families create pathways for long-term, self-determined success.

In her fourteen years with the organization, Katherine has led the development and launch of several new initiatives including the organization’s Fatherhood Initiative, the publication of a Child Support Toolkit, a $900K microgrants program to provide cash assistance to parents who are struggling to pay for basic necessities and the Good+Training Academy which trains social workers, home visitors and frontline workers to intentionally engage fathers in their case work. 

Anne Newgarden (Col ’83 CM) has published Adventures of a Soul: Psychics, Mediums, the Mystical, and Me. The book is memoir chronicling her explorations in the metaphysical realms and how they transformed her worldview and her life. The book features Dr. Jim Tucker and the UVA Division of Perceptual Studies’ work investigating children’s past life memories. 

Newgarden’s other published works include Becoming Jane: The Wit and Wisdom of Jane Austen, as well as Christmas in New York and Christmas Around the World, pop-up books with artist Chuck Fischer. 

Mary Brancaccio (Col ’81 CM) has published her first poetry collection, Fierce Geometry. Her poetry travels the emotive back roads and roadside attractions of one woman’s journey through longing, love and loss. 

Brancaccio’s poetry has appeared in Naugatuck River Review, Minerva Rising, Edison Literary Review, Lake Affect Magazine and Adana, among others. Her poem, Unfinished Work, was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is included in several anthologies of poetry, including Writing the Land: Maine, Writing the Land: Northeast, Farewell to Nuclear, Welcome to Renewable Energy (a response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster) and Veils, Halos and Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women. 

Frank Sica (Arch ’78) was honored with two awards from the American Institute of Architects. Sica received AIA New York State’s prestigious Henry Hobson Richardson Award,  which recognizes AIA members practicing in the private sector who have made significant and transformative contributions to the quality of New York public architecture. He also received this year’s Robert and Louise Bethune award from the Buffalo/WNY AIA in recognition of a lifetime of notable contributions to the profession of architecture through practice, mentorship, and community leadership.

Julia Truelove (Nurs ’14, ’15) and David Ensey (Engr ’14) were married on October 6th, 2022 in Washington, D.C. The couple became friends after he invited her to interview for the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society. Truelove is the daughter of Margaret Kositch (Col ’83 CM) and Graham Truelove (Col ’83). The wedding party included Amanda J. Ray-Fehlinger (Engr ’13 CM), Patrick Greco (Col ’13, Law ’16), and Kathryn (Kingsbury) Greco (Col ’15 CM), with many other ’Hoos joining to celebrate. The couple lives in Washington, DC, where Truelove is a nurse in the Burn/Trauma ICU at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, and Ensey is the Director of Data Analytics at Optoro, a reverse-logistics technology firm. 

Marlene W. Hall (Col ’96 CM) has joined Real Brokerage LLC in McLean, Virginia. Licensed in Virginia and Washington, D.C., Hall is an Air Force veteran raised in Northern Virginia with eight years of experience as a real estate agent.

Holly Donahue Singh (Grad ’05, ’11 CM) published her first book, Infertility in a Crowded Country: Hiding Reproduction in India (Indiana University Press), an academic monograph based on long-term fieldwork in North India.

In Lucknow, the capital of India’s most populous state, the stigmas and colonial legacies surrounding sexual propriety and population growth affect how Muslim women, often in poverty, cope with infertility. Singh draws on interviews, observation, and auto ethnographic perspectives in local communities and Lucknow’s infertility clinics to examine access to technology and treatments and to explore how pop culture shapes the reproductive paths of women and their supporters through clinical spaces, health camps, religious sites, and adoption agencies.

Singh is a faculty member at the Judy Genshaft Honors College at the University of South Florida. 

For more information about the book: https://iupress.org/9780253063878/infertility-in-a-crowded-country/

Above left: Singh presents a copy of the book to Dean Charles Adams (Grad ’79, ’85) of the Judith Genshaft Honors College at the release event at USF.

Ed Coleman (Col ’04) was selected to the 2023 “Legal Elite” list by Business North Carolina magazine for his litigation law practice. Inclusion is based entirely on peer review and fewer than 4 percent of the lawyers in North Carolina are recognized on this list. Coleman is a partner at Ragsdale Liggett PLLC in Raleigh, North Carolina and practices in civil litigation defense.

Justin Humphreys (Col ’01) wrote the introduction to a new edition of The Man Who Fell to Earth, published by Centipede Press. 

Alison Deich (Col ’10) has been named to Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PPLC’s partnership. Deich is a partner in the law firm’s antitrust practice, where she represents a wide range of plaintiffs in antitrust, civil rights and environmental litigation. She is currently working on a number of high profile antitrust cases such as Jien v. Perdue Farms, where the firm represents a proposed class of poultry plant workers. 

Dr. Mark W. Dewalt (Grad ’86 CM) published an article in The Journal of Plain Anabaptists Communities this past fall, entitled “Amish Mortality Rates in the Twenty-First Century.” 

John W. Via III  (Engr `84 CM) has joined Rice University as a Professor of Practice and Associate Director of the Master of Engineering Management and Leadership (MEML) program, based out of the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership (RCEL). The in-person version of the MEML was launched in 2021 and the online program was launched in 2022. The program honored its first graduates in December 2022. 

Via also continues to serve as a Trustee for UVA’s School of Engineering. 

Carolyn Oare (Col ’17 CM)  married David Wilkes on November 12, 2022 at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Washington, DC. In attendance were Jean Wang (Col ’18 CM), Henry Hull (Arch ’16, ’17), Morgan Hull (Col ’17) and Kathleen DiSanto (Col ’05). Carolyn and David are living in Arlington, Virginia while David is stationed at Andrews Air Force Base.

Bhakti Patel (Col ’99) has been appointed as Managing Principal of the Austin, Texas office at CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, which is a top ten professional services firm offering assurance, tax, consulting and wealth advisory services.