Class Notes March 2017

Class Notes March 2017

1960s

Manny Pokotilow, WCL/JD ’64, was selected by his peers for inclusion in Best Lawyers in America 2017.

Lawrence Reed, CAS/BA ’64, spent 34 years teaching in the Philadelphia public school system and 12 years as associate director of a nonprofit for senior activities and an adult day service program for people with Alzheimer’s. He is now retired.

Betsy Thomason, CAS/BA 66, published Just Breathe Out: Using Your Breath to Create a New, Healthier You, which helps readers use active, spine-stretching outbreath for relaxation, strength, and pain and stress management. justbreatheout.com

Lillian Borrone, CAS/BA ’68, was elected to the National Academy of Construction. She serves on the board of directors of STV, an international engineering firm. She was inducted October 20, 2016 at the NAC annual meeting in Napa.

Eddie Goldberg, SPA/BA ’68, wrote The Joint Ventured Nation: Why America Needs a New Foreign Policy. The book was released in October by Skyhorse Publishing.

William Anderson, CAS/BA ’69, who worked for more than 30 years as a Department of Defense attorney and contractor, is coordinator of the Germanna Community College Veterans Mentor Program, which helps student vets transition to civilian life.

1970s

J. Davis Leslie, SPA/BA ’71, of Rackemann, Sawyer & Brewster, was selected by his peers for inclusion in Best Lawyers in America 2017.

Jeffrey Baxt, SOC/BA ’79, a volunteer with KitchenCred, worked on a partnership with the NFL Alumni Association to support the nonprofit culinary program, which seeks to empower youth.

1980s

Mike Lovitt, SPA/BS ’80, is a Chick-fil-A franchise owner and retired lieutenant colonel, US Army. He was recently sworn into the Virginia Defense Force, at the same military grade, as chief of recruiting.

Barry Stein, SPA/BS ’80, was selected by his peers for inclusion in Best Lawyers in America 2017.

Larry Chloupek, Kogod/BS ’83, recently retired from the National Institutes of Health as management liaison director. He spent 33 years in the federal government. He and his wife Jenn retired to Scottsdale, Arizona.

Mark Morrison, SOC/BA ’85, joined Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine as director of development.

1990s

Daniel Vaccaro, WCL/JD ’90, was selected by his peers for inclusion in Best Lawyers in America 2017.

Bill Carey, CAS/MA ’91, published his first book, Enter the Drones: The FAA and UAVs in America. He is a senior editor with Aviation International News in Washington, DC.

Seth Elliott, SIS/BA ’91, was appointed chief commercial officer and chief marketing officer of Bloombees, a Madrid-based enterprise that enables small merchants and artisans to engage in global instant commerce in digital and mobile environments.

Florence Jewell, CAS/BA 92, received the Women of Color STEM 2016 Technology All-Star award during the 21st Women of Color STEM Conference in Detroit. The award recognizes accomplishments in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics community.

Thomas Legare, SPA/MA ’94, was appointed director of change management at Tufts Health Plan.

Bridget Hargadon Hughes, CAS/BA ’95, self-published Unlocking the Heart of Healing, which helps readers cultivate a state of heart that unlocks the inner molecules of medicine and engages the heart-mind-body connection to heal.unlockingtheheartofhealing.com

Saima Huq, SOC/BA ’95, produced and costarred in Tennessee Williams’s Outcry in the East Village. This was the third show staged by her company, Always Love Lucy Theatre. Huq also reviews theatre.

Jean Manes, SPA/MA ’96, was confirmed as US Ambassador to El Salvador. She is a career member of the Foreign Service.

Baylen Linnekin, CAS/BA ’97, WCL/JD ’09, a food lawyer, scholar, and adjunct faculty member at American University, is the author of Biting the Hands That Feed Us: How Fewer, Smarter Laws Would Make Our Food System More Sustainable. The book focuses on ways that federal, state, and local regulations proscribe sustainable food practices.

Ramzi Ramey, SIS/BA ’98, founded the publishing company Auut Studio and its inaugural project, MonroeWorkToday.org. An homage to the legacy of Monroe N. Work, the website unites history and technology to produce the most comprehensive map of recorded lynchings in the United States. Among other advisors, he received input from SIS Professor Carolyn Gallaher.

K. Edward Shanbacker, SPA/MPA ’98, executive vice president of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia, was presented with the Medical Executive Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Medical Association. The award honors an executive who has contributed to the goals and ideals of the medical profession.

Patricia Solley, SOC/MA ’98, is currently serving in the United States Peace Corps in Moldova, where she has successfully fundraised for and completed a project that transformed her English language classroom.

Jon Cullum, SIS/MA ’99, published his first novella, Sherlock Holmes and A Hole in the Devil's Tail, under the pen name Viktor Messick.

Allen Loughry, WCL/LLM 99, WCL/SJD ’03, is Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

2000s

Alexandria Dilks Pandola, CAS/BA ’00, was named executive director of the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles. She partnered with the Kennedy Center to present Debbie Allen’s “Freeze Frame . . . Stop the Madness” at the Eisenhower Theater last fall.

Karen Dunak, CAS/BA 02, earned the William Rainey Harper Award for Outstanding Scholarship from Muskingum University. She is an associate professor of history and was recognized for excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service.

Thomas McChesney, SPA/BA ’02, is senior assistant dean of graduate programs at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business. He oversees 450 MBA and MS students and a department that handles admissions, student services, and career management. 

Jessica Garvey, Kogod/BSBA 03, received the 2016 Women Worth Watching award, which celebrates the achievements of top female executives.

Shannon Westfall, Kogod/BSBA ’07, recently left a successful investing career at JP Morgan Private Bank to launch Vinfluence, a monthly wine club that showcases artisanal wines from boutique vineyards, with a portion of the proceeds going to charity. Westfall married Rich Golaszewski, Kogod/BSBA ’07, in May 2014 in New York City. Golaszewski is an executive director with Nomura Securities International in New York City. vinfluencewine.com

Jeffrey Buras, SOC/BA ’08, received two Emmy awards for his environmental documentary, The Night’s Watch, which explores light pollution in west Texas oil country.

David Farber, SPA/BA 09, released Jobs to Be Done: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation, which describes a process for understanding why customers buy certain products. He received a law degree from Villanova in 2012, then joined a consulting firm doing growth strategy and innovation consulting.

Alexandra Jacobs, SPA/BA 10, joined the law firm of Montgomery McCracken as an associate in its Cherry Hill office.

2010s

Katelyn Bornak, Kogod/BS ’11, married Alex Miner, Kogod/BSBA ’11, Kogod/MST ’12, on May 21, 2016, in Pittsburgh. Miner is international tax manager for KPMG, and Bornak is a marketing and e-commerce manager for Devex. The couple met on their first day of classes at AU and recently relocated to London, where they studied abroad together in 2010.

Lillian Munn, CAS/BA ’12, completed a year of AmeriCorps service at Providence Children’s Museum. She was part of a team that designed and implemented play-based STEM enrichment activities for 200 low-income elementary school children in after-school and summer learning clubs.

Robert Maisano, SPA/BA ’13, produces a top-rated podcast called “Millennials Don't Suck” with fellow alumnus Ari Andersen.

Caitlan McCafferty, CAS-SOC/BA ’13, SOC/MA ’16, is account manager at Furia Rubel Communications in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Sarah Gray, SOC/MA ’14, published A Life Everlasting: The Extraordinary Story of One Boy’s Gift to Medical Science, about the difference her son Thomas’s short life made. sarahgray.com

Laura Krauth, SPA/MPA ’14, the Immokalee Foundation’s stewardship and donor relations director, has been named to the Leadership Collier’s Class of 2017 by the Leadership Collier Foundation, an affiliate of the Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce.

Diego Sanchez, SPA/BA ’14, wrote an op-ed for Morning Consult on Airbnb regulations and made a TV appearance for cable network Voz de América to talk about the 2016 election along with fellow AU alumnus Eduardo Soto, SPA/BA ’11.

Robert Jimenez, WCL/LLM ’15, an intellectual property litigation and e-discovery attorney, has joined the full-service intellectual property law firm of Espinosa Trueba Martinez, P.L., as an associate. His practice includes intellectual property and commercial litigation, e-discovery, and appellate matters, as well as trademark law representing US companies doing business in Cuba.

Benjamin Schaefer, SPA/MA ’15, is project manager at the Cleveland Metropolitan School District in Cleveland, Ohio.

Erica Thomas, SIS/BA 15, was awarded a Princeton in Latin America fellowship for 2015–16 and a senior fellowship with Princeton in Latin America for 2016–17. She will be completing this fellowship in the Dominican Republic with Yspaniola, an education-based NGO, working on the rights of Haitian immigrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent.

Chelsea Leigh Horne, CAS/MFA ’16, received a 2017 DCCAH Arts and Humanities Fellowship Program Grant Award.

In Memoriam

Raffi Der Krikorian, SIS/MA ’74, October 8, 2016, Tarzana, California

Douglas Dugan, SPA/BA ’81, July 18, 2016, Scottsdale, Arizona