Class Notes
Lara Gastinger (Col ’98 CM)
Lara Gastinger (Col ’98 CM) will be featured in Charlottesville’s first Botanical Art Festival, to be held Sept. 7-12 at the Botanical Garden of the Piedmont. Gastinger will kick off the festival with “Introduction to Nature Journaling,” an introduction to a technique known as the perpetual journal. Attendees will learn strategies to observe and document the natural world around them. Gastinger will demonstrate her drawing and painting techniques and will provide opportunities for the attendees to draw along with her.
The festival will offer free art programming for all ages, botanically-themed workshops, and collaborations with regional artists and organizations, culminating in a ticketed botanical art show supporting local artists and the garden. It is the first of its kind for the region and is intended to bring the garden to the attention of many Virginians.
Dr. Luis G. Pedraja (Grad ’94)
Luis G. Pedraja (Grad ’94) has been appointed as a delegate to the New England Board of Higher Education by Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey. The appointment highlights Pedraja’s leadership in higher education and his dedication to expanding educational opportunities in Central Massachusetts.
Pedraja has served as president of Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, Massachusetts for seven years and has more than 30 years of experience in higher education. During his tenure, QCC has increased enrollment, launched student success initiatives, developed a strategic plan, expanded community partnerships, enhanced workforce development programs, and achieved reaccreditation from the New England Commission of Higher Education.
https://theworcesterguardian.org/f/qccs-president-named-to-ne-board-of-higher-ed-by-gov-healey
Jonathan McCullers (Col ’89 CM)
Dr. Jon McCullers (Col ’89 CM) has been named dean of the College of Medicine and vice president of health affairs at the University of Houston in Houston, Texas. He previously served 13 years as chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.
Brian Cafferty (Grad ’90)
Brian G. Cafferty (Grad ’90) has joined the boutique law firm GoldMark Partners LLP as a partner. Cafferty brings an extensive background in real estate, corporate governance, and finance to the firm, which is located in Needham, Massachusetts and is focused on commercial real estate and corporate law. His expertise spans corporate creation, governance, acquisitions, zoning, commercial leasing, and environmental compliance. He has successfully represented clients in various courts and provided strategic counsel on operational and compliance matters. He has handled the development, financing, and leasing of industrial, suburban office, retail, and multi-family projects, including brownfield sites. Cafferty is also experienced with Chapter 91 filled tidelands and Chapter 21E hazardous waste sites.
Before joining GoldMark, Cafferty served as vice president of legal affairs at Combined Properties, a full-service real estate investment and development firm, specializing in the development and acquisition of high-quality office, residential, industrial, and retail properties in the Boston area. Cafferty received his J.D. from Boston College School of Law.
Jason Nadolinski (SCPS ’22 CM)
Jason S. Nadolinski (SCPS ’22 CM) has been selected to serve as the director of the student affairs division of the Military and Veterans Student Success Center at Florida Atlantic University.
In this role, he will lead a professional staff dedicated to serving and supporting over 1,700 military and veteran students, their dependents, and the U.S. Army ROTC battalion at six campus locations across south Florida. He will create and sustain meaningful education pathways and a sense of special membership for the entire service member community across FAU, which has earned the Military Friendly School designation for twelve straight years and the Military Spouse Friendly School recognition for 2022-2023.
Nadolinski accepted this position upon retirement as a senior special agent/ team leader with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where he served from 2001-2023. He also retired from the U.S. Navy as a master chief petty officer after combined active duty and reserve component service of over 26-years. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy and the Naval War College – Senior Enlisted Academy.
He was a member of the second group of public safety leaders to earn the UVA Master of Public Safety degree and credential in 2022.
Kim Bridges (Col ’87 CM)
Kim Bridges (Col ’87 CM) has been promoted to associate professor in the School of Education at Virginia Commonwealth University. She joined the Department of Educational Leadership in 2018 after earning a doctorate in education leadership (Ed.L.D) from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She directs the Ed.D. capstone experience, a year-long collaboration with graduate student teams and partner organizations. Her scholarship and facilitation work focus on local governance and state policy for sustainable K-12 improvement.
Mark Bateman (Col ’79, Engr ’86 CM)
Mark Bateman (Col ’79, Engr ’86 CM) has retired after 45 years with Lockheed Martin’s undersea systems facility in Manassas, Virginia. He worked off-site at the Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Connecticut, since the start of the Virginia-class submarine program in 1996. Bateman was a principal hardware systems engineer and served as the engineering liaison to the shipyard. He supported development and testing of the sonar, combat and imaging systems for the Virginia class and the new Columbia-class programs. He received a letter of appreciation from the Navy’s Program Executive Office, Attack Submarines, citing his “systems engineering competence, technical expertise, and exemplary work ethic has set the standard of excellence for future generations.” Bateman lives in Ledyard, Connecticut, with his wife, Paula. They have two children, Chelsea Lauren Bateman (Nurs ’13 CM) and Callie Anne Bateman (Nurs ’16 CM).
William Matthew Ruberry (Col ’76)
William Matthew Ruberry (Col ’76) has published Harmony in Black and White, released in October by Doggy Dog World Publishing. Ruberry was a reporter for the Greenville (S.C.) News, then an award-winning reporter and editor for the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch. This is his first novel.
The book is set in Richmond and Charlottesville. Here is the description:
Jack Sullivan is a rookie reporter at the Messenger newspaper in Richmond, Virginia. When he’s assigned to the local police beat, he never expects to uncover a network of crime amid the systemic racism enshrined in the city’s Confederate history.
As the young journalist pulls at the threads of a story that spans from a record high in city homicides to interstate arms running, he is forced to confront the prejudices that color his young life and career.
Inspired by the author’s own reporting in the wake of the march by white supremacists in Charlottesville and the murder of George Floyd, Harmony in Black and White is an unflinching newsroom drama and an examination of the impact of race and implicit biases on our media, law enforcement, and the systems that govern them.
Emily Schmidt (Educ ’20 CM)
Emily Schmidt (Educ ’20 CM) and Bryce (Land) Schmidt (Com ’20) were married in Plymouth, Massachusetts on July 26th, 2024, with many ’Hoos in attendance. Sarah Snow (Educ ’20 CM), Emily’s first year hallmate in Watson-Webb, was the maid of honor. Emily and Bryce met second year when Emily lived two floors above Bryce in Lambeth Field Apartments. Bryce proposed to Emily on the Lawn last year.
Katie Appel (Col ’07)
Katie Appel (Col ’07 CM) and Francisco Gavaldá were married May 11, 2024 in Antigua, Guatemala, with 13 UVA alumni on hand to celebrate. Appel has lived in Guatemala since 2016, managing U.S. government-funded projects on topics related to anti-corruption, education, and violence prevention. Like UVA’s Academical Village, Antigua is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and served as the capital of Guatemala for nearly 300 years. The wedding took place in San Jose el Viejo, church ruins dating back to the 18th century, under the shadow of three volcanoes. Wahoos in attendance included (from left to right): Emily Archambeault-Wahlberg (Col ’07 CM), Amanda Huffman Doyle (Col ’06), Chelsey Jones (Col ’07 CM), Payal Maheshwari (Com ’06, Darden ’12), Remy Kauffmann (Col ’08), Colleen Sweeney (Col ’07 CM), Brian Gavron (Com ’08, Darden ’13 CM), Bowman Dickson (Col ’09 CM), Serena Bolliger (Col ’07), Katie Cristol (Col ’07 CM), Steve Giballa (Col ’06), Allison Murphy (Col ’07, Grad ’08), Appel, and Daniel Cullop (Col ’07 CM).
Patrick Melmer (Col ’12, Med ’17 CM)
Monica N. Melmer, MD, MS (Col ’11, Med ’17 CM) and Patrick D. Melmer, MD (Col ’12, Med ’17 CM) welcomed their third child, Harrison James, on July 1, 2024. He is adored by his sisters, Kennedy Caroline (4) and Madison Grace (2). His favorite lullaby is the Good Old Song. Now that they are outnumbered, the Drs. Melmer have switched from traditional man-to-man coverage to the Pack Line Defense. The family lives in Richmond where Monica and Patrick are assistant professors in the Division of Addiction Medicine and Department of Surgery, respectively, at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Karl Frisch (SCPS ’23 CM)
Karl Frisch (SCPS ’23 CM) was re-elected as chair of the Fairfax County (VA) School Board on July 11, 2024. With a $3.5 billion budget, 200 schools, 183,000 students, and 27,000 employees, Fairfax County Public Schools is Virginia’s largest and America’s ninth-largest public school system.
Frisch was elected in 2019 to represent Providence District on the school board, garnering more votes than any candidate for that office in the district’s history. In 2023, he was re-elected by a wider margin. He is the first openly LGBTQ+ person elected to local office in Virginia’s largest county.
Before joining the school board, Frisch was a nonprofit executive and public policy specialist. In addition to his work on the board, he serves on the board of directors for the University of Virginia Queer Alumni Network (QVA).
Valerie Thornton (Col ’87)
Valerie Johnson Thornton (Col ’87 CM) graduated with a doctorate in education from Regent University on May 3, 2024. Thornton is as a second-grade teacher at Norfolk Academy in Norfolk, Virginia.
Richard Neal Willetts (Educ ’06)
Neal Willetts (Educ ’06) married Elijah Akers in a late afternoon ceremony at Ford’s Colony Country Club in Williamsburg, Virginia on June 26th, 2024. Katie Morgans (Col ’07) did one of the readings, and numerous UVA friends attended. Surrounded by over 100 family, friends, and co-workers the couple celebrated in true ’Hoo style and kept the party going until late in the evening at a local bar after the reception. Akers is a veteran of the U.S. Navy, and the couple will move to Columbus, Ohio where he works in the IT industry and Willets works as a project manager for a small software company.
Patricia Leonard (Col ’88 CM)
Patricia A. Steenberg Leonard (Col ’88 CM) has been named one of the Top 50 woman lawyers in the State of Florida by Florida Super Lawyers. Leonard is a business trial attorney at Shutts & Bowen LLP in West Palm Beach, Florida, where she practices commercial litigation, labor and employment litigation, and intellectual property litigation.
Jay Jerome (Grad ’81 CM)
Jay Jerome, Ph.D. (Grad ’81 CM) has received the 2024 Distinguished Scientist— Biological Sciences Award from the Microscopy Society of America. This award is the highest award given by the society and recognizes preeminent senior scientists who have a long-standing record of achievement during their career in the field of microscopy or microanalysis.
Arthur Kahn (Col ’69 CM)
Arthur Kahn (Col ’69 CM) is in his third season screening arthouse and repertory films at Thetford (VT) Academy’s Martha Jane Rich Theater. Thetford Arthouse Cinema hosts residents and visitors in the Vermont/New Hampshire Upper Valley twice weekly for twelve weeks of free films, refreshments and discussion, with support from The Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation and Vermont Humanities.
Myron Santos (Col ’01 CM)
Myron Santos (Col ’01 CM) has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy for his work on The Amazing Race in the category of Outstanding Picture Editing for a Structured Reality or Competition Program. It is his second nomination; his first came for RuPaul’s Drag Race: All-Stars in 2019. Santos and his wife and their 9-year-old daughter live in Los Angeles. He is a member of the Motion Picture Editors Guild (IATSE Local 700) and The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and is on the board of the U.Va Entertainment Club of Los Angeles.
James Wilson (Grad ’06, Grad ’11)
James Wilson (Grad ’06, ’11) has published America’s Cold Warrior: Paul Nitze and National Security from Roosevelt to Reagan. Wilson could not have written the book without the “amazing” experience of completing a Ph.D. in American History at UVA from 2005 until 2011 with Melvyn P. Leffler, Edward Stettinius Professor of History, Emeritus.
Andrew Lee (Col ’85, Med ’89 CM)
Andrew G. Lee, M.D. (Col 85, Med 89 CM) published the second edition of his textbook, Emergencies in Neuro-ophthalmology. Dr. Lee served this year (2023-2024) as president of the Houston Ophthalmological Society and president of the Houston Neurological Society.
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