Class Notes

William Mell Griffin III (Col ’79 CM) has been named the 2025 Outstanding Lawyer of the Year by the Arkansas Bar Foundation and the Arkansas Bar Association. He is a partner at Friday, Eldredge & Clark, LLP, where he serves as vice chair of the firm’s management committee and leads the litigation practice group.

Lisa Filemyr (Engr ’02 CM) was honored as a Luminary award recipient by the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association. The award recognizes senior-level women who serve as a role model in their company, actively mentor and sponsor others, help advance other women’s careers and exhibit dedication to the healthcare industry. Filemyr is the executive director of engineering at epocrates, a company under the athenahealth umbrella, that develops software to aid medical professionals. At athenahealth, she champions diversity, supports employee resource groups and advocates for women in STEM.

Greg Hansard (Col ’03) published his second book, Virginia Cider: A Guide from Colonial Days to Craft’s Golden Age (University of Virginia Press, October 2024). The book looks at the history and techniques of making the iconic Virginia beverage from the colonial era to today. Included in the book are a guide and map of all the cideries in the state. Hansard says that inspiration for the book came from a work experience in 2014 at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, where he worked in collaboration with breweries, meaderies and cideries to brew recipes from the museum archives.

Oneya Fennell Okuwobi (Col ’01 CM) released her first monograph, Who Pays for Diversity? Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do about It with University of California Press, on March 18, 2025. Drawing on accounts of employees from across the workplace spectrum, from corporations to churches to universities, Who Pays for Diversity? details how the optics of diversity programs undermine the competence of employees while diminishing their well-being and workplace productivity. Okuwobi argues that diversity programs have been a costly detour on the path to racial justice, and getting back on track requires solutions that provide equity, dignity, and agency to all employees, instead of defending the status quo. Dr. Okuwobi is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Cincinnati.

Corinna Barrett Lain (Law ’96) published Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection (NYU Press 2025). Based on seven years of deep research, this exposé takes readers into the notoriously secretive world of American executions, using shocking revelations about lethal injection to shine a light on the American death penalty more broadly. The story of lethal injection is a story of state law-breaking and cover-ups, fake science and torturous drugs, gross incompetence by woefully inept executioners, and a stunning indifference to the way prisoners die at the hands of the state. She examines all the ways that the state cannot be trusted with the power to take life, and all the ways it has tried to cover that up.

Lain is the S.D. Roberts & Sandra Moore professor of law at the University of Richmond School of Law.

Tyler B. Tassone (Engr ’10 CM) has been named a director at Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox, a prominent intellectual property law firm in Washington, D.C. As one of five new directors, his company commends him for his skill and excellence in strategic counseling, portfolio management and prosecution of patent applications. Though he primarily handles medical device patents, he also has experience with clean and renewable technologies, as well as consumer projects. He studied chemical engineering at UVA, during which time he worked in a graduate research lab, before receiving his law degree from Villanova University.

Valerie I. Uduji (Col ’20 CM) has been admitted to the State Bar of Michigan. Uduji works for Warner Norcross + Judd, LLP., in their Detroit office. Her prior positions include internships with Justice Kyra Bolden in the Michigan Supreme Court and with a judge in Washtenaw County Trial Court in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She received her law degree at Michigan State University after studying foreign affairs and anthropology at UVA.

Adam Ruffin (Arch ’02), Katie MacNelly (Arch ’02), and Danny MacNelly (Arch ’02) are proud to have their practice ARCHITECTUREFIRM featured in “A South Forty: Contemporary Architecture and Design in the American South,” an exhibition at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., which celebrates contemporary architectural practices in the American South. Featuring over forty architecture firms, the exhibition examines how southern architects are responding to a diverse set of challenges, including natural disasters, rapid urbanization and changing cultural landscapes. The exhibition showcases innovation and functionality with a respect for the region’s heritage. Ruffin considers his time at UVA as being crucial to his understanding and love of southern architecture. “A South Forty” will be open to the public through 2026.

Mary Wayne Watson (Grad ’83 CM) gave a presentation entitled “John Charles McNeill: Poet Laureate’s Home Songs” on Feb. 23, 2025, at the Scottish Heritage Center at St. Andrews University in Laurinburg, North Carolina. McNeill was the first recognized Poet Laureate in North Carolina and received the prestigious Patterson Cup for literature from President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905. McNeill was Dr. Watson’s great uncle. The presentation can be found on YouTube.

William Cyrus Roger Clemo (Col ’14 CM) earned a Ph.D. in marine sciences on Dec. 15, 2024 from the University of South Alabama. Clemo is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the U. S. Naval Research Laboratory at the John C. Stennis Space Center, Mississippi.

Meena Khandelwal (Col ’85, Grad ’88, Grad ’95) has published her second ethnographic monograph, Cookstove Chronicles: Social Life of a Women’s Technology in India. It examines traditional, biomass-burning mud stoves, the women who build and use them, and the experts who have been trying to ‘improve’ them for decades. She answers the question of why so many Indian women continue to use wood-burning, smoke-spewing stoves when they have other options. Khandelwal, a professor of anthropology, recently won the 2025 President and Provost Award for Teaching Excellence at the University of Iowa, her third teaching award.

Duncan Clarke (Grad ’70 CM) has published a new novel, Murder on the Appalachian Trail. The novel follows a criminal law professor who works with his beloved German Shepherd, a runaway teen and the FBI to solve a series of murders on the Appalachian Trail. Clarke, who has hiked the Appalachian Trail twice, draws on his experience and love of the trail in his writing. Murder on the Appalachian Trail can be found online through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It is published by Bell Isle Books. Clarke is a professor emeritus of international relations at American University and is a member of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.

Ronnie Poff (SCPS ’12 CM) was initiated as the national president of Pi Sigma Epsilon (PSE), a co-ed business fraternity focused on professional development in sales, marketing and management. Poff is an associate professor at Virginia Tech.