Class Notes

Chris Morris (Arch ’75 L/M), who was named to Architectural Digest’s 1991 “AD–100″ list, has designed various built works across the United States, including Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers; the Dolby Theater (formerly the Kodak Theater), home of the Oscars in Hollywood; Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut; the Chandelier Bar in the Cosmopolitan Las Vegas Hotel; Steelers Hall at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh; and the Meadowlands “Xanadu” shopping/entertainment complex, now the American Dream Meadowlands in New Jersey. In 2013, Morris, having contributed designs to NYC for both Ground Zero’s early development and Mayor Bloomberg’s bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics, became the New York Foundation of the Arts’ first-ever Architecture/Environmental Structures Fellow.    

Christina Villafaña Dalcher (Col ’89) will publish her second novel, Master Class, in April 2020. The dystopian thriller resurrects the American eugenics movement of the early 20th century, asking how far a mother will go to save her child. Her first novel, VOX, has been translated into more than 25 languages and was a Sunday Times bestseller in the United Kingdom.

Matt Coleman (Col ’03, Darden ’11 L/M) and his wife, Christine, welcomed their second child, Matthew Kais, on Jan. 9, 2020. Matt, Christine, big sister Alessia, and Kais live in Oakland, California, where Mr. Coleman is a director at investment manager Nephila Climate, and Mrs. Coleman is the executive director of Sol Sisters, Inc.

Meghan Stahling Brodie (Col ’07 L/M) started The House Finch, a Richmond-based home organizing business. Her business focuses on helping young families get organized and implement systems to make their daily lives more efficient. She also helps clients purge, downsize and unpack into new spaces. Meghan lives in Richmond with her husband Kyle Brodie (Darden ’17) and their daughter. 

Gunes Hopson (Col ’97, Law ’01 L/M), an avid traveler and uber-planner, is now an independent travel advisor affiliated with MEI-Travel. She provides complimentary concierge-style travel planning services. Gunes continues to enjoy writing for her travel blog, fotogenictravel.com, and offers photography services through fotogenicrichmond.com. Additionally, she still practices law full-time as associate general counsel at Automattic Inc.

Joseph Gascho (Med ’73) has a photography exhibit, Diagnosis: Person, on display at Positiveexposure109, a gallery on the north end of Museum Mile, in New York City. This exhibit can be viewed by appointment through the month of February. Gascho is the author of a book of poetry, Cornfields, Cottonwoods, Seagulls and Sermons: Growing up in Nebraska. 

Bendukai Bouey (Law ’97) regrets to inform that his wife of 18 years, Theresa Wing Kay Mann Bouey, died Feb. 3, 2020 after a long and painful 8 year battle with cancer. A homemaker and anchor in her community, Theresa, by the grace and strength of the Lord Jesus, made Ranchos Palos Verdes CA, where the family resided, better, more close knit, and a greater reflection of the love of God. She is survived by her husband Bendukai, three children, Kaiya, Caeleb and Chelsea, parents William and Caria Mann and sister Margaret.

Brooke Andrew Brower (Col ’00 L/M) and his wife, Kate, welcomed their third child, Theodore, on May 2, 2019. Teddy joins sister Charlotte, 6, and brother Graham, 7. The family lives in Bethesda, Maryland, where Mr. Brower is the managing editor of CNN Politics.

As a student at Brooklyn College, I accumulated 99 credits in 1985-1990. I dedicated my life to the AIDS epidemic. In 1985 it was ramped in New York. Makeshift apartments were used for hospice care. I continued working for the AIDS Services Group here in Charlottesville Va. I was at the forefront of using social media as a means of educating and spreading awareness. I was an online outreach worker. testing coordinator and behavioral councilor reducing high-risk behaviors. After the AIDS Organizations closed in 2015 I decided to complete my degree at UVA. During my semester years. I lost my twin brother, I became ill with cancer. However. I was determined to finish each semester with a focus on completing my degree. I graduated in the Fall of 2019 with a GPA of 4.9.9. I was elected to represent the SCPS for the Honor Committee. I am also the vice president for Sigma Alpha Lambda for Public Relations representing the chapter at UVA. I was awarded the Presidents Volunteer Service Award in 2019. I’m proud of my accomplishments and look forward to walking the lawn in May. I hope my story brings confidence in my fellow student to never give up. Life has its way of throwing us curveballs, overcome them with a positive attitude and a goal for achievement.

Patricia Viar Heath (Nurs ’70) moved to a retirement community in Ruckersville, Virginia. with her husband. After completing graduate studies at the University of Arizona, she worked as a clinical nurse specialist and as a nurse educator for 37 years in Texas and in Arizona.

Elizabeth “Liz” Bower (Nurs ’06) and her fiancé, Franklin, welcomed a son, Silas Amos Luke Freeman, on Nov. 24, 2019. Silas joins older brother Trace, age 8. The family lives in Chesapeake, Virginia. Elizabeth and Franklin are planning a wedding and will wed later in 2020. 

Henry N. Ware Jr. (Col ’77 L/M) was inducted as a fellow of the Virginia Law Foundation in January 2020. The VLF has provided over $26 million in grants to support projects throughout the commonwealth that facilitate access to justice, promote an appreciation and understanding of the rule of law, and provide law-related education in support of these ideals. Ware serves on the foundation’s board of directors and is chair of its committee on continuing legal education. He is a member of the Boyd-Graves Conference and his practice, Spotts Fain, in Richmond, Virginia, focuses on products liability/toxic tort defense and insurance coverage litigation. Ware and his wife, Marilynn, live in Manakin Sabot and their three sons, Henry, Shep (Col ’12, Engr ’15) and Robert live and work in Richmond.

Vicki Lemp Weavil (Col ’78) has published the Blue Ridge Library Mystery series under the pen name Victoria Gilbert. Titles include A Murder for the Books, Shelved Under Murder, Past Due for Murder, and Bound for Murder. A fifth book in the series, A Deadly Edition, will be published in December 2020. Vicki is also writing another series, the Booklover’s B&B series, with the first book, Booked for Death, coming out in June 2020. 

Alexander H. Margulies (Col ’80, Law ’84) was a member of the team that received the Transparency Team of the Year Award from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He worked on the U.S. Declassification Project on Argentina that provided the government of Argentina with 7,035 records totaling 48,379 pages of material shedding light on human rights abuses in Argentina between 1975 and 1984. This was the largest government-to-government declassification and release of records in U.S. history. 

Christy McMannen (Col ’02 L/M) recently became the first African American equity partner at Christovich and Kearney, a regional law firm in New Orleans. McMannen is a civil litigator whose areas of practice include premises liability, insurance defense, toxic torts and title insurance litigation. She previously served as in-house counsel at an oil and gas land services firm. She has lived in New Orleans since graduating from UVA, and she is married to Jim Dennard, with whom she has three children.

Corinne Adams Heyning Laverty (Com ’80) published North America’s Galapagos: The Historic Channel Islands Biological Survey. The narrative nonfiction book recounts the story of a group of researchers, naturalists, adventurers, cooks, immigrants, and scientifically curious teenagers who came together in the late 1930s to embark upon a series of ambitious expeditions never before, or since, attempted. Their mission: to piece together the broken shards of the Channel Islands’ history and evolution.

Sometimes called “North America’s Galapagos,” each island supports unique ecosystems with varied flora and fauna and differing human histories. Readers follow the scientists behind closed museum doors and to all eight islands, spending time in the hot and dusty, or wet and foggy, field with them, rejoicing in their successes, cringing at their failures and shortcomings.

A lack of funds and dearth of qualified personnel dogged the pre-WWII expeditions, but only after America enters the war and the researchers are stranded on one of the islands is the survey aborted, their work left for future scientists to complete. This saga of ambition, adventure and discovery is juxtaposed against the fresh successes of a new generation of Channel Island scholars, thereby illuminating the scientific process and revealing remarkable modern discoveries that are changing our ideas of how the Americas were populated. Upon completing this book, the lasting impression the reader may have might not be the raw beauty and uniqueness of these islands, though they will certainly gain that, nor even a greater appreciation for the grandiose and challenging undertaking the scientists attempted, rather, the reader may come to recognize that the larger story of the scientific process continues long after individual efforts cease.

Laverty’s lecture schedule can be found under the “Events” tab of my website: https://www.channelislandscalifornia.com/

Junius P. Fulton III (Col ’81 L/M) will receive the Harry L. Carrico Professionalism Award from the VSB Criminal Law Section on Feb. 14, 2020, at the Criminal Law Seminar in Williamsburg, Virginia. The Carrico Award was named for the former Supreme Court of Virginia chief justice who promoted the ideals of professionalism during his 42 years on the state’s highest court. Judge Fulton has served as a judge of the Norfolk Circuit Court for more than 23 years. Judge Fulton oversaw the development and implementation of both the Norfolk Drug Court and Reentry Court dockets. He claims the distinction of being the longest serving Drug Court judge in the Commonwealth, having presided over the Drug Court docket continuously from 1998 to 2018. He and his wife, Darnell Brown Fulton (Col ’81), live in Norfolk, Virginia.

Monica N. Melmer (Col ’11, Med ’17 L/M) and Patrick D. Melmer (Col ’12, Med ’17 L/M) welcomed their first child, Kennedy Caroline, on Oct. 9, 2019. The family lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where the Drs. Melmer are completing residencies in emergency medicine and general surgery at Grand Strand Medical Center.

Alonya Winters-Ambrico (Col ’00 L/M) and her husband, Maurizio, welcomed their second son, Roberto, on Dec. 13, 2018. He joins big brother Samuel. The family lives in Italy.

Three UVA alumni who work for Brooks Pierce were recognized for their legal work. Jeff Oleynik (Law ’83 L/M) was named to Business North Carolina’s 2020 “Legal Elite” for his work in bankruptcy. Mark Davidson (Law ’83) and George House (Law ’72) were named to the journal’s hall of fame for business and environmental law, respectively.

Scott Surovell (Law ’96) was elected vice chairman of the Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus. He continues to practice civil, criminal and commercial litigation in Northern Virginia.

Thomas L. Rouse (Engr ’75 L/M) was awarded the Community Service Awards by the Northern Kentucky Bar Association and the University of Kentucky Law Alumni Association. He is a past president of the Kentucky Bar Association and has been a practicing attorney since 1978. He is an adjunct professor of Law at the Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University. He recently wrote Applied Ethics: Because Your Law License is Too Valuable to Lose and loves gathering with the Virginia Football Alumni Club before games at Scott Stadium. His daughter and son-in-law are Hillary Rouse Billingsley (Col ’05) and Jamie Billingsley (Com ’05).

Jasmine Hall Ratliff (Col ’99 L/M) has joined the leadership team of Keecha Harris and Associates, Inc. as deputy director for culture and strategy. The role includes staff management along with business and strategy development. The woman-owned national consulting firm, based in Birmingham, Alabama, leads organizational development, project management, and evaluation projects for both nonprofit and for-profit organizations. 

John Markowitz (Col ’05) accepted a job as assistant treasurer, North America for Transurban in the Washington, D.C., metro area. He and his family will be moving from Boston, where John was acting treasurer at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. 

Richard B. Rogers (Col ’95 L/M) has accepted an appointment as the career law clerk to Judge M. Miller Baker of the U.S. Court of International Trade. Rogers and his wife, Agnes, live in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Austin Davis (Engr ’05) and Whitney Dever Davis (Col ’05 L/M) welcomed their third son, Sawyer Brent, on June 25, 2019. He joins big brothers Hudson, 4, and Cooper, 2. Sawyer is the grandson of Martin J. Dever Jr. (Col ’73, Law ’77 L/M) and Donna Oraftik Dever (Educ ’75). The family lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Michael Fordham (Law ’88) was appointed as a high court judge in the United Kingdom. 

Lauren Schwartz (Col ’10) and Lance Shapiro (Engr ’10) were married in Washington, D.C., on June 1, 2019. Many ’Hoos celebrated with them and their families, including forming a dancing circle when “Wagon Wheel” started playing. Lauren and Lance met the first day they moved into the old Webb first-year dorm in August 2006. The couple lives in New York City, where Lauren is completing her fellowship in hematology/oncology at the Montefiore Medical Center and Lance is a patent attorney at Ropes & Gray. 

Trent S. Dickey (Col ’77 L/M), invited by the All China Lawyers Association, spoke on “American Litigation, A Primer for Chinese Companies” at the December 2019 Global Lawyers Forum in Guangzhou, China. Dickey is a commercial litigation and intellectual property attorney with Sills Cummis in New Jersey and New York City.