Class Notes Winter 2019
2010s
Tony Balcaen (11MAT), a teacher at Iowa City High School, received an Inclusive Teaching Award from the Iowa City Office of Equity and Human Rights.
Brett Burk (14BA) is a community engagement manager for Ethnic Minorities of Burma Advocacy and Resource Center, a Des Moines-based nonprofit that recently earned a $175,000 Google Impact Challenge grant for its RefugeeRISE program.
Justin Carr (13PHR), a former Navy SEAL, is a pharmacist for the California Department of Corrections in Soledad, California.
Tania Davis (19BA) is a graduate manager for the Clemson University women's basketball team in Clemson, South Carolina.
Elizabeth Fischer (19BSE) is a staff engineer at the Chicago office of Manhard Consulting, a full-service engineering and surveying firm.
Travis Henderson (11BA, 14MA), a teacher at Iowa City West High School, received an Inclusive Teaching Award from the Iowa City Office of Equity and Human Rights.
Roger Hileman (10MA) is the lead evaluator at the UI College of Public Health's Institute for Public Health Practice.
Jane Huffman (17MFA), editor-in-chief of the Guesthouse online literary journal and adjunct assistant professor for the UI's Magid Center for Undergraduate Writing, has earned a 2019 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.
Melanie Kneisel (13BSE, 14MS) is a software engineer for Microsoft's Enable team, which creates technology for people living with disabilities.
Jacob Molden (19BSE) is a staff engineer at Manhard Consulting in Lombard, Illinois.
Luis Gonzalo Pinilla (14MA, 15MFA), an artist in Urbana, Illinois, exhibited his artwork this past summer at Kanagawa Kenmin Hall in Yokohama, Japan.
Ana-Monica Racila (13BS, 16MA), a PhD student in medical anthropology at the UI, was awarded a fellowship from the American Association of University Women to pursue academic work and lead innovative community projects to empower women and girls.
Andrew Schaefer (12BS) received a doctor of pharmacy degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine-Georgia in Suwanee, Georgia.
Kelli Todd (12MPH) is president and chief executive officer of the Des Moines-based Iowa Chiropractic Society.
Alyssa Whiteaker (11BA, 15MSW) is a school social worker for Minneapolis Public Schools.
2000s
Jennie Lillis Baranczyk (04BA), head women's basketball coach at Drake University, recently served as a celebrity coach for the Game for Good softball game at Principal Park in Des Moines to raise money for the nonprofit Opportunity on Deck.
Mike Brody (00BA), a Minneapolis-based comedian, released a comedy special titled Not Afraid of Butterflies, which is available on Facebook, YouTube, and the Dry Bar Comedy app.
Christopher Buresh (01MD, 06R, 12MPH), professor of emergency medicine at the UI Carver College of Medicine, received the UI College of Public Health's Outstanding Alumni Award.
John Demory (00BA), an art teacher at the Regina Catholic Education Center in Iowa City, received an Inclusive Teaching Award from the Iowa City Office of Equity and Human Rights.
Nicole Donnelly (08MA, 09MFA), a Philadelphia-based artist, exhibited her work and created paper arts activities for Art Splash at the Philadelphia Museum of Art this past summer.
John Eggum (05BA, 05BBA, 08JD), a partner at Foran Glennon law firm in Chicago, recently received the 2019 President's Commendation by the Illinois Defense Counsel.
Mayuri Patel Farlinger (04BBA), director of revenue management for Alliant Energy in Cedar Rapids, has been named to Public Utilities Fortnightly's "Fortnightly Under Forty 2019" list, which recognizes rising stars in the industry.
Michelle Hall (01BSE), a prosthetist at Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare in St. Paul, Minnesota, worked as a consultant to create a museum exhibit about prosthetics at the Bakken Museum in Minneapolis.
Richard Landon (07MA, 11JD), an attorney at the Minneapolis-based law firm Gray Plant Mooty, has been named to the 2019 Up and Coming Attorney list by Minnesota Lawyer.
Joseph Lee (02BSE) is director of business development for Second Life Mac, an Apple device buyback company based in Skokie, Illinois.
Rebecca Lehmann (05MFA), assistant professor of English at Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana, won the Donald Hall Prize for Poetry for her second book of poems, Ringer, published by University of Pittsburgh Press.
1990s
Dean Adams (94MA, 95MFA) is director of the Center for Faculty Excellence at Montana State University in Bozeman.
Tavian Banks (97BS), a former Hawkeye and NFL player, recently served as a celebrity coach for the Game for Good softball game at Principal Park in Des Moines to raise money for the nonprofit Opportunity on Deck.
Kimberly Eddins Radaker Bays (99BBA) is CEO of the Exponential Property Group in Southlake, Texas, which includes property management, graphics and signage, and materials companies.
David Bissinger (90BA), a founder of the Houston-based law firm Bissinger, Oshman & Williams, has been named to the Best Lawyers in America list, the Texas Super Lawyers list, and as one of America's Top 100 High Stakes Litigators for 2019.
Stephanie Stitt Cox (94BS, 99MD), a family physician in West Des Moines, is the author of a children's book titled My Doctor and Me ABC.
Harry Denny III (90BA), associate professor of English at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, is co-editor of a new book titled Out in the Center: Public Controversies and Private Struggles, published by Utah State University Press.
Hamlett Dobbins (98MA, 99MFA), a Memphis-based painter, exhibited his work this past fall at a solo show at the David Lusk Gallery in Memphis.
Gregory Downs (99MFA), a history professor at the University of California-Davis, is author of The Second American Revolution: The Civil War-Era Struggle over Cuba and the Rebirth of the American Republic, published by the University of North Carolina Press.
Jason Forgy (99BA) is owner of Freshcraft restaurant in Denver, Colorado.
James Hoehns (92BSPh, 94PharmD), a UI College of Pharmacy clinical associate professor and program director at the Northeast Iowa Medical Education Foundation, received the Family Practice Center Faculty Teacher of the Year award.
Nick Mauro (99BBA, 02JD) is a senior associate at Carney & Appleby law firm in Des Moines.
Lisa Nesper Petrie (94MA), a teacher librarian at Elizabeth Tate High School in Iowa City, received an Inclusive Teaching Award from the Iowa City Office of Equity and Human Rights.
Nadeja Wesley (99MSW), a fourth-year doctoral student at the Institute for Clinical Social Work, is a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist of Louisville, Kentucky.
1980s
Dan Halstrom (83BBA), president and CEO of the United States Meat Export Federation based in Denver, Colorado, represented the U.S. beef industry at a recent White House signing ceremony announcing a trade deal with the European Union.
Angelica M. Hernandez (89BA, 93JD), a partner at the Houston-based law firm Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, received the Outstanding Third Year Director Award for her service with the State Bar of Texas Board of Directors.
Peter Hlavin(80BBA), a former Hawkeye track and field athlete, placed second at the National Senior Games in the high jump with a leap of 5 feet, 7 inches, which tied the world-leading mark for his age bracket.
David Koch (81BS), a founding partner of Plave Koch law firm in Reston, Virginia, and adjunct clinical assistant professor at the University Michigan Law School and New York University School of Law, has been named by London-based Who's Who Legal to its international list of "Thought Leaders—Global Elite 2020."
Steve Meyer (84MD), an orthopedic surgeon in Sioux City, Iowa, recently took his 50th trip to Tanzania with Siouxland Tanzania Educational Medical Ministries, the interdenominational Christian service organization he co-founded.
Cormac O'Sullivan (87BSN, 08PhD), a UI clinical associate professor of nursing and director of the Student Registered Nurse Anesthetist program at UI Hospitals & Clinics, received the Program Director of the Year award from the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists.
Ann Patchett (87MFA) is author of the new novel The Dutch House, published by Harper.
Cathy Hopkins Skotowski (81BS, 91MS), a UI clinical associate professor of pediatric dentistry, received the 2019 Collegiate Teaching Award from the UI College of Dentistry for her work in student development.
Mark Stamand (84BSPh), of Palm Bay, Florida, recently retired after a 35-year career as a pharmacist with Walgreens.
1970s
Kevin Boatright (75MA), director emeritus of external affairs for the Office of Research at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, has been named to the governing board of his undergraduate alma mater, Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln.
Karen Bartos Boyd (78BSChE) is chief mechanical estimator at Gilbane Building Company in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Richard Cherwitz (74BA, 75MA, 78PhD), founder and director of the Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium, is now professor emeritus after his recent retirement from the Department of Communications Studies at the University of Texas in Austin.
Shirley Maloney Mueller (67MS, 71MD, 74R, 76R, 77F, 78F), adjunct professor of neurology at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, is author of Inside the Head of a Collector: Neuropsychological Forces at Play, published by Lucia/Marquand.
Paul Pomrehn (71BS, 75MD, 79MS), who is currently serving as a visiting professor in the Adult Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic at UI Health Care, received the UI College of Public Health's Outstanding Alumni Award.
1960s
Shelley Haven (76MA, 78MFA), an artist and fine arts teacher in New York, exhibited paintings and drawings inspired by Umpachene Falls Park in New Marlborough, Massachusetts, at this past fall's Marlborough Artists Invitational.
Charles Troe (69BBA) is author of a new book titled We Are That We Are: Theism, Spiritualism, Naturalism, and a Path to Spiritual Existentialism.
Robert C. Smith (59BA, 62MD, 68R) is university distinguished professor of medicine and psychiatry at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, and the author of two textbooks from McGraw-Hill, Smith's Patient-Centered Interviewing and Essentials of Psychiatry in Primary Care.
Robert Worthington (65MA) received the Spotlight Award from the Minneapolis Local Organizing Committee for his work as a volunteer ambassador during the NCAA's Final Four men's basketball event.
1950s
Shirley Nichols Sparks-Greif (55BA), a volunteer for the Celebrating Families program through Prevention Partnership International in San Jose, California, authored a journal article titled "Family skills training programs" for the Drug Court Review, and recently spoke on a panel at the National Association of Drug Court Professionals conference in Washington.
1930s
Betty Styer Calkins (39BA), the late artist and educator of Peoria, Illinois, had a new gallery named in her honor at the Asheville Art Museum in North Carolina.
faculty & friends
Ramprakash Govindarajan, clinical assistant professor at the UI College of Pharmacy and director of Pre-formulation and Formulation Development at UI Pharmaceuticals, received a College of Pharmacy Teacher of the Year award.
Serena Gumusoglu, a PhD student in neuroscience at the UI, earned a fellowship from the American Association of University Women to pursue academic work and lead innovative community projects to empower women and girls.
Kashelle Lockman, a clinical assistant professor at the UI College of Pharmacy and the Carver College of Medicine Department of Internal Medicine and a clinical pharmacy specialist at UI Hospitals & Clinics, received a College of Pharmacy Teacher of the Year award.
Dave Roman, UI associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Experimental Therapeutics, received a College of Pharmacy Teacher of the Year award.
Jerry Schnoor, UI professor of civil of environmental engineering, received the Lifetime Achievement in Environmental Chemistry award at the 10th National Conference on Environmental Chemistry at Nankai University in Tianjin, China.
Mary Schroeder, UI associate professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science, received a College of Pharmacy Teacher of the Year award.
Fred Skiff, professor and chairman in the UI Department of Physics and Astronomy, was appointed to the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of Energy.