Nashville Business Journal recently released its 2021 “40 under 40” list of honorees, featuring six Vanderbilt alumni and two faculty members:
- Maya Bugg, EdD’18, president and CEO, Tennessee Charter School Center
- Christiane Buggs, MEd’14, board chair, The Metropolitan Nashville Board of Public Education and founding board member of The Equity Alliance
- Austin Dirks, BE’08, CEO and founder, GreenLight Medical
- Amanda Strickland Floyd, BA’06, attorney, Bone McAllester Norton PLLC
- Lagra Newman, BA’05, founder and head of school, Purpose Preparatory Academy
- Lauren Oschman, BA’10, partner, chief marketing officer and chief experience officer, Vestia Personal Wealth Advisors
- Julia Whitacre, BS’06, principal, Smith Seckman Reid Inc.
- Ryan Belcher, assistant professor of otolaryngology – head and neck surgery, Vanderbilt School of Medicine
- Karl Zelik, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering and physical medicine and rehabilitation at Vanderbilt, and chief scientific officer and co-founder at HeroWear
According to Nashville Business Journal, the honorees were chosen from more than 300 nominations submitted by the public. The honorees then completed questionnaires highlighting their professional accomplishments, community involvement and other details. An independent panel of 10 judges who were past winners chose this year’s honorees based on the questionnaire answers.