Alumni Profiles
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Dr. Jill Moses, MD’91, and Annie Moon, MSN’03, lead the fight against COVID-19 in the Navajo Nation
Two Vanderbilt alumnae—Dr. Jill Moses, MD’91, and Annie Moon, MSN’03—are helping lead the fight against COVID-19 in the Navajo Nation, the country’s largest Native American reservation. Read MoreFeb 18, 2021
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Austin Dirks, BE’08: A ‘GreenLight’ to help health care
GreenLight Medical CEO Austin Dirks bills his company as a smarter way to evaluate new medical technology, using a cloud-based system that pulls together quality and value-based data to streamline collaborative purchasing decisions in hospital and health care systems. Read MoreNov 3, 2020
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Chris Murdock, BA’99, and Tom Milic, BA’99
Class of 1999 alumni Chris Murdock and Tom Milic started a recruiting company with a new way of doing business that has grown into a firm with international reach. Read MoreNov 3, 2020
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Monique Nelson-Nwachuku, BS’96: A Different Path
A profile of Monique Nelson-Nwachuku, winner of Vanderbilt’s 2020 Alumni Professional Achievement Award, who is chairman and CEO of UniWorld Group, the country’s longest-standing multicultural marketing agency. Read MoreNov 3, 2020
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Ben Schecter, BS’18, and Allie Golden, BS’18
Last spring, as thousands of health care employees worked tirelessly to do good in the wake of COVID-19, Houston native Ben Schecter and several Vanderbilt friends, including fellow Class of '18 alumna Allie Golden, decided on a model that would help struggling local restaurants and serve health care workers at the same time. Read MoreNov 3, 2020
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Kenneth Epps, BS’90: Logistically Speaking
Kenneth Epps, rear admiral and deputy chief of staff for fleet ordnance and supply in the U.S. Fleet Forces Command, understands the importance of logistics in today’s military. Read MoreAug 4, 2020
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Michael Ainslie, BA’65: ‘A Nose for Trouble’
Michael Ainslie has a knack for seeking out—and solving—difficult problems, as he writes in his new book A Nose for Trouble: Sotheby’s, Lehman Brothers, and My Life of Redefining Adversity. Read MoreAug 4, 2020
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Asa Briggs, MSN’12: Continuity in Mental Health Nursing
Watching his aunt struggle with bipolar disorder, Asa Briggs traded in his legal aspirations to pursue a career in mental health care. Read MoreAug 4, 2020
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‘Know Better, Do Better’: Charlane Oliver, BS’05, focuses on educating and energizing the Black electorate
Oliver is a co-founder of the Equity Alliance, an organization dedicated to educating and energizing the Black electorate. Read MoreJul 23, 2020
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Barbara Bell, EdD’18: Veteran Vision
Photo by Susan Urmy As director of the Center for STEM Education for Girls at Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, retired Navy Capt. Barbara Bell wants to give girls the confidence and knowledge to excel in technical careers long dominated by men. A 28-year veteran and one of the first… Read MoreFeb 17, 2020
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Duc Pham, MD’98: From Vietnam to Vanderbilt
Duc Pham often speaks about how lucky he has been, despite a difficult childhood during the Vietnam War after which his father, a police captain in South Vietnam, was sentenced without trial by the North Vietnamese to seven and a half years of hard labor in a prison camp. “When… Read MoreFeb 17, 2020
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Lauren Mandel, BA’15: The Art of the Possible
Like many people her age, Lauren Mandel developed her funny bone to the antics of comedians like Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph on "Saturday Night Live." Read MoreNov 7, 2019
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Ann Therese Ndong-Jatta, MS’84: UNESCO Education Leader
It was with a scholarship from the Africa–America Institute that Ann Therese Ndong-Jatta enrolled at Vanderbilt to study educational leadership. Honored with the institute’s Distinguished Alumna Award, she now invests those skills in her native Africa. Read MoreNov 7, 2019
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Amanda Iovino, BA’08: Pushing for Positive Change
Photo by Pamela Lepold Congress passed the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in June 1919, and the amendment became law Aug. 26, 1920, giving American women the right to vote after a decades-long fight. This year, the centennial of women gaining the right to vote, a record number of… Read MoreNov 7, 2019
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Tom Mulder, BMus’12: Musician and Mentor
Photo by Elena Cherkashnya Look no further than Tom Mulder to sing the praises of ArtSmart, a nonprofit begun three years ago in which classical musicians provide free individualized music lessons to high school students in underserved communities. “There’s a power in that one-on-one relationship between a teacher and a… Read MoreNov 7, 2019
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On the Hunt: Elaine Shannon, BA’68, Investigative Journalist
Investigative journalist and New York Times best-selling author Elaine Shannon has spent decades reporting from the globe’s danger zones. Her latest book recounts the efforts to take down notorious criminal Paul LeRoux, whom she describes as “a twisted-genius entrepreneur and cold-blooded killer who brought revolutionary innovation to transnational crime.” Photo… Read MoreAug 20, 2019
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Border Roots: Donald R. “Dee” Margo, BA’74
Dee Margo (photo courtesy City of El Paso) EDITOR’S NOTE: As this issue of Vanderbilt Magazine was going to press, the world was just starting to hear about the tragic mass shooting that took place in El Paso on Aug. 3. Mayor Dee Margo wrote on Twitter in the immediate… Read MoreAug 20, 2019
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Engineering to Inform Medicine: Dr. Jeffrey Williams, BE’92
On the wall of heart-rhythm specialist Jeffrey Williams’ medical office is his seventh-grade essay in which he writes that he wants to be a cardiologist. He doesn’t remember writing it, but his younger self accurately predicted the future. As co-director of the Heart Rhythm Center at Lakeland Regional Health in… Read MoreAug 20, 2019
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A Focus on Women’s Health: Sarah Vaillancourt, MSN’18
Sarah Vaillancourt (Photo by Kevin Richtik/Caroline Photography) Sarah Vaillancourt’s mission—to help women get the care they need—far predated her nursing degree. “I knew I wanted to work in women’s health before I knew exactly what I wanted to do or how I wanted to do it,” says Vaillancourt, who earned… Read MoreAug 20, 2019
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Dr. Constance Mobley, PhD’98, MD’03 Transplant trailblazer
Dr. Constance Mobley is among only 14 female African American physicians in the U.S. who are abdominal transplant surgeons. She directs the surgical and liver intensive care unit for Houston Methodist Hospital. Photo by Tommy Lavergne As a molecular physiology and biophysics doctoral student at Vanderbilt, Dr. Constance Mobley… Read MoreMay 23, 2019