Class Notes

Andrew G. Lee (Col ’85, Med ’89 L/M) published his 10th ophthalmology textbook, Neuro-Ophthalmology: Global Trends in Diagnosis, Treatment and Management. Dr. Lee is currently president of the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society and lives in Houston, Texas, with his wife, Hilary Beaver (Med ’91) and his two daughters, Rachael and Virginia.

Lawrence Familant (Col ’67) made a contribution to the UVA Health Foundation for stem cell research concerning multiple sclerosis in memory of Lloyd A. Godlin.

On Jan. 29, 2019, Delta 468 was crewed by four pilots from New York JFK to Tel Aviv, Israel. Included in the crew were pilots Capt. Doug Ray (Engr ’80), not pictured, First Officer Scott Repass (Col ’00) pictured left, and First Officer Lance Rush (right), whose daughter Emma Rush (Col ’21) is a current student.

Lindsay Mott Rosti (Arch ’06) and Andrew Rosti (Col ’06) and daughters London, 5, and Harper, 3, welcomed Harrison Finn Rosti, on Sept. 19, 2018.

Deborah Sheetenhelm Hammond (Arch ’82) has released her nineteenth novel. Scotland for the Summer, it is a contemporary story about second chances set primarily in the Highlands of Scotland and in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. Scotland for the Summer is available on Amazon.

Michael Cairo (Grad ’94, ’99), professor of political science at Transylvania University, will assume the position of interim vice president for academic affairs and dean of the university on Feb. 16, 2019. For the past three years, Cairo has served the university as the associate dean for academic affairs.

JoAnne Mancini (Col ’90 L/M) published Art and War in the Pacific World: Making, Breaking, and Taking from Anson’s Voyage to the Philippine-American War. She lives in Dublin with her husband and two children.

Donna Reid Foley (Col ’82 L/M) married Robert K. Rennhack on Dec. 8, 2018, at Second Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. Foley is an independent book editor and Rennhack is deputy director, western hemisphere, for the International Monetary Fund. The couple resides in Potomac, Maryland.

Christy Williams (Col ’05 L/M) married Robert Coombs on June 9, 2018, in Brooklyn, New York, at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Their families and closest friends, including many UVA alums, were in attendance.

Charles H. Miller Jr. (Educ 76) was elected as vice chairman of the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors in Chatham, Virginia, on Jan. 4, 2019. He served the county’s school board from 2003 to 2018. He previously served as a principal in Pittsylvania County and in North Carolina. Miller currently serves as chief financial officer for American Logistics and Freight and as a pastor of Conservspeak Christian Ministries International. He also owns the O.B. Clement Group, an insurance services provider in Chatham. He also has published a book, None, but the Righteous, which is in its fourth edition. Miller and his wife, Eloise, recently celebrated 42 years of marriage and have four adult children, 13 grandchildren and one great-grandson.

Gwendolyn Denise Perkins (Col ’85 L/M) presented “The Teacher Leadership Journey” at the International Academic Forum Conference on Education in Honolulu, Hawaii, in January 2019. She is an urban school administrator in Virginia and teaches graduate education courses as an adjunct instructor with private and public universities.

Elizabeth Gress Muenster (Col ’74 L/M) married David W. Hunt (Col ’74, Law ’77 L/M) on Jan. 2, 2019, in Great Falls, Virginia. They met in Jeff Hall (Hotel C) in 1973.

Laura Heim (Arch ’81 L/M) was elevated to the AIA College of Fellows in a ceremony at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City in June 2018 in recognition of her significant contributions to the field. She founded her firm, Laura Heim Architect, in 2006 and has worked on more than 30 projects in the Sunnyside Gardens Historic District, a 1920’s planned community, establishing and advancing preservation standards while inserting contemporary programs and design into the modest brick homes. Her firm is located in Sunnyside, Queens.

Gunes Hopson (Col ’97, Law ’01 L/M) has joined Automattic/WordPress.com as associate general counsel and works with Paul Simienski (Law ’02), the general counsel. Being part of a company that powers over 30% of the internet inspired Ms. Hopson to start her own travel blog: fotogenictravel.com. Anecdotally, Ms. Hopson had a chance encounter with law professor A.E. Dick Howard at Bodo’s Bagels on the Corner when she was visiting the Grounds with her family in November 2018. Mr. Howard claimed that he remembered her as a student (maybe he was just being nice?), and he complimented her seven-year-old son regarding his wahoo gear.

Steve Hayes (Col ’70) was elected as chairman of the board of trustees of the College of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, New York. Prior to his election, Hayes had served on the board of trustees for 15 years. He is an entertainment lawyer in New York City, counting Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen among his clients.

Kate Hendricks Thomas (Col ’02) published an anthology, Bulletproofing the Psyche: Preventing Mental Health Problems in Our Military and Veterans. An assistant professor of public health at Charleston Southern University, Thomas’s anthology pulls together a team of leaders in the fields of security studies, social work, public health, and veterans’ health practice to outline the case for such skills-building. Mental fitness training methods include body-based protocols long used in the treatment sector to rewire brains after trauma. Weaving together personal stories from military veterans and the latest in holistic behavioral medicine research, this book offers a call to action and health for those interested in peak performance. Watch the book trailer at www.bulletproofingthepsyche.com. 

Greg Lawler (Col ’76 L/M) was awarded the 2019 Wolf Prize in mathematics from the Wolf Foundation. 

Ryan Coonerty (Law ’01) is the founder and host of a new podcast, “An Honorable Profession,” that profiles state and local leaders who are rising stars in American politics. Coonerty is the chair of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors in California.

Peter Lovie (Engr ’64 L/M) published a book, ETA and Its Jackups: Pioneering, Engineering and Making it in America, which tells the story of his company, Engineering Technology Analysts, and its innovative designs for jackups, elevated rigs used in offshore oil drilling. Learn more here. 

Michael O. Campbell (Res ’10) joined Eye Care and Vision Associates as eye physician and surgeon. Campbell, a board-certified ophthalmologist with more than nine years of experience in comprehensive eye care in New York and Pennsylvania, specializes in wellness, cataract surgery and laser treatments. He lives in Orchard Park, New York.

Arthur “Tucker” Miller (Educ ’74) retired from the University of Montana after 33 years as a professor and former chair of the Health and Human Performance Department. Miller spent 40 years in public and higher education, including positions in Crozet, Virginia, at Idaho State University and at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.  

Ronald S. Warren Jr. (Col ’71 L/M) retired in July 2017 from the University of Georgia as professor of economics after 32 years of service. He was previously assistant professor of economics at the University of Virginia, economic policy fellow at The Brookings Institution, and economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. During his career, Warren published more than 40 articles in scholarly journals and served in numerous administrative positions at the department, college and university levels. He lives in Athens, Georgia, with his wife, Joanna. Their daughter, Rebecca Rainbow (Col ’16 L/M), lives in Charlottesville.

Don Jenkins (Col ’71) published a book, The Lost Civil War Diary of John Rigdon King (Arcadia Publishing/The History Press) on Oct. 29, 2018. Jenkins wrote the book, a biography of a 17-year-old civilian from Hagerstown, Maryland, alongside the transcription of the civilian’s diary, after retiring from a lengthy career in public service.

Tim Witthoefft (Engr ’06 L/M) and Sarah Vannoy Witthoefft (Nurs ’06 L/M) welcomed their first child and future Wahoo, Nathan Daniel, on Nov. 25, 2018. He weighed 7lb 7oz and was 21in long.

Tara E. Nauful (Col ’89 L/M) recently joined the boutique law firm Beal after completing two-year clerkship with the U. S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of South Carolina. Prior to her clerkship, Nauful was in private practice for 23 years, representing financial institutions and other lenders in bankruptcy and insolvency-related matters. Her most recent article, “I Confess! The Ethical Obligation to Tattle on Yourself,” was published in the October 2018 issue of the American Bankruptcy Institute Journal.

R. Scott Stephenson (Grad ’90, ’98) is the the new president and CEO of the Museum of the American Revolution. Stephenson has a background in history and film, including time as a consultant for Last of the Mohicans and the TLC show “How Do You Think You Are?” with guests like Scott Foley, Angie Harmon and Valerie Bertinelli. Stephenson was previously vice president of collections, exhibitions and programming at the museum, which opened in 2017. 

David G. Rojohn (Engr ’74) contributed to a book by his sister, The Piggyback Flight Pilot’s Journey, which is about their father’s landing of two B17s simultaneously after a mid-air collision over the North Sea in World War II. The book, which chronicles Glenn Rojohn’s journey as a pilot, life as POW and the aftermath, was the result of several years of work and research and comes out a year before the event’s 75th anniversary.

Matthew M. Ryals (Col ’11) recently earned his doctorate from the Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology Program of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Jason Magill (Com ’99 L/M) and his wife, Jessica, welcomed their first child, Nicholas Jason, on Dec. 4, 2018. The family lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Adam Kesselman (Col ’02) was named executive director of the Center for Ecoliteracy, a non-profit dedicated to smart, hopeful and vital education for sustainable living in K-12 schools.

James Erickson (Col ’08) and his wife, Jenna Brick Erickson (Nurs ’10) welcomed their fifth child, Anna Martha, on Sept. 20, 2018. Anna joins sister, Julia Rose, age 4, and three brothers, Benjamin, age 2, Joseph, age 5, and Finley, age 7. They live in Culpeper, Virginia, where Jenna works as a labor and delivery nurse at UVA Culpeper hospital and James teaches fifth grade at Grymes Memorial School in Orange, Virginia. 

Michael N. Widener (Col ’72 L/M) is adjunct professor of business law and ethics in the School of Business at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. His paper, “Populist Placemaking: Grounds for Open Government-Citizen Spatial Regulation Discourse,” will be published in Vol. 119 of the West Virginia Law Review in early 2019.

Wishing our fellow ’Hoos a joyful holiday season and a happy new year! from Shawn (Col ’01) and Meghan Carroll White (Col ’01 L/M), Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. 

Irwin Shur (Col ’80, Law ’83) has retired after 35 years of law practice, the last 10 as vice president, general counsel and secretary for Snap-on Inc. In his last few years in practice, he received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Milwaukee Business Journal in 2014, and served as a member of the US Department of Commerce Manufacturing Council from 2015-2016. In addition to keeping a hand in the business world in some capacity, he intends to spend more time on his music, as well as that of his daughter, who recently released her first album, Ceasefire, recorded with her father in the fall of 2018.

Evan Mulvihill (Col ’08, Med ’13) and his wife, Christine, welcomed their first child, Lucas Patrick, on Dec. 11, 2018. Mulvihill is a third-year pediatric rheumatology fellow at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and is completing a masters in public health at the Ohio State University. Christine is a pediatric clinical pharmacist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. 

Rabbi Anna Levin Rosen (Col ’02 L/M) is in her third year as executive director of Hillel at the University of Chicago, where she is responsible for the full range of activities involving Jewish undergraduate and graduate students. She lives with her husband, Tal Rosen, and three children in the Lakeview section of Chicago, where they all enjoy city living and being near the home of the Cubs.  

Mark Scharf (Grad ’84 L/M) had three of his new plays recently published: The Quickening, his adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine and his play Fortune’s Child. Visit his website for more information. 

Deborah Blevins (Law ’83) was appointed to the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers in 2018. Prior to joining the Commission, Blevins was a partner at Gilmer, Sadler, Ingram, Sutherland & Hutton in Pulaski, Virginia. Blevins is the managing deputy commissioner of the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Department and was hired by the Commission in 2004.

Marcus Holmes (Col ’02 L/M) has been awarded the William & Mary Alumni Association’s 2018 Alumni Fellowship Award for excellence in teaching, research and mentorship.

Leslie S. Leighton (Col ’74 L/M) has been appointed a visiting lecturer in the department of history at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. He teaches American history and the history of public health and medicine to undergraduates.

Veronica Jones (Col ’96 L/M) earned her master’s degree from the University of Southern California in May 2018 and was recently named chief operating officer at the National Abortion Federation in Washington, D.C.

Heather Jablonski Capparra (Col ’06 L/M) and her husband, Michael, welcomed their third child, Mackenzie Grace, on Nov.1, 2018. Mackenzie joins big brothers Mikey, age 5, and Grayson, age 2. The family lives in Stafford, Virginia.

Rebecca Ogur Sinclair (Col ’91) received the Medical Society of Virginia’s Salute to Service Award for Outstanding Service with the Uninsured & Underserved in 2018. Read more about it here. She also received the Virginia Health Care Foundation’s Unsung Hero Award-Physician in 2006 and the United Way of the National Capital Area’s Humanitarian Award in 2005.