Alumni

The Big Short brings Burry’s market genius to silver screen In 2010 Michael Burry, MD’97, became known as the first financial analyst to predict America’s financial crisis. The New York Times bestseller The Big Short, written by Michael Lewis, tells the story of how Burry and a few others discovered… Read More

Nashville’s ‘Negotiators’: How Samar Ali Gets Enemies In Syria To Sit Down And Talk Samar Ali, BS’03, JD’06, a former Alumni Association Board member and an attorney for Nashville law firm Bone McAllester Norton, is a third-party mediator in Syria. WPLN recently interviewed her as part of its live journalism… Read More

Learn how Jack Rutledge, BMus’03, MBA’09, turned his talent for music and business to become head of catalog and selection for Amazon Music. Learn how he blended his music and business acumen into a successful career. Read More

Would working at a toy company really be all fun and games? Erin Sullivan can tell you. She has worked at Mattel since landing a marketing internship while a student at Owen. Now senior director for Fisher-Price marketing, she has handled virtually every Mattel brand, except dolls, in her 11… Read More

Greg Brink, EMBA’03, is a senior risk manager at Fannie Mae and has spent his career working with commercial mortgages. His wife, Ann Marie, is a professional musician who is the associate principal violist for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. They met at a patrons’ event for the orchestra in Dallas. Read More

Heiki Miki, MBA’96, travels the globe as Shinagawa Refractories’ executive officer and general manager of overseas business for Americas, Europe/Middle East and Oceania—and as one of Vanderbilt’s most visible and appreciated international supporters. The 2015 Owen Distinguished Alumni Award recipient formed the Vanderbilt Japan Chapter in 2015 and is taking… Read More

Maria Renz, MBA’96, technical adviser to the CEO of Amazon.com, recently returned to Nashville to attend an Owen Alumni Board meeting. During her visit she also spoke during an Opening Bell event and sat down with Dean Johnson for a video interview that covers leadership, career and how technology is… Read More

Steve Buchanan, BS’80, MBA’85, arrived on Vanderbilt’s campus in 1975 with plans to become an environmental engineer. His experience on the university’s concert committee opened his eyes to a career in the country music industry. Billboard.com profiles Buchanan’s executive producer role on the television show Nashville and his work to… Read More

James Hill, MS’06, PhD’09, an associate professor of computer and information science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, has become one of the youngest African Americans to become a tenured professor in computer science at a research university in the United States. Read More

Justin Cox, BE’04, faced a conundrum four years ago – keep working at a steady, prestigious job with the federal government or turn his home brewing passion into a business. The Vanderbilt University School of Engineering alumnus decided he wanted no regrets as an old man and chose the latter. Read More

If you have ever posted or watched a video on Twitter, then you have witnessed the work of Can Envarli, BS’05. Read More

Pregnancy doesn’t necessarily require hospital care. That simple premise is what led Cara Osborne, MSN’01, to co-author a landmark study demonstrating the safety and effectiveness of giving birth outside a traditional medical setting. It’s also an idea that she’s put into practice as the founder of Baby+Company, a group of… Read More

In recent years there has been a noticeable trend in Vanderbilt student-athletes making it to the pros. The Fall 2015 issue of Vanderbilt Magazine highlights these athletes—that have gone pro in seven different sports—and the impact their success has on Vanderbilt athletics. Read More

Just south of Denver, the vision for a futuristic development is coming to reality. The new community is called Sterling Ranch and Brock Smethills, BE’13, is the chief operating officer. In the next 20 years, the five-square-mile, $4.3 billion planned community will take shape as a futuristic city—and Vanderbilt students… Read More

Hamilton Turner didn’t require much assistance while recruiting at the fall Engineering & IT Industry Career Day – the 2010 computer engineering alumnus knows his way around just fine. But his ties to Vanderbilt University run deeper than that. As a Ph.D. candidate at Virginia Tech, his doctoral adviser was… Read More

Wild Hundreds, the first book published by Nate Marshall, BA’12—much of it written while he was a Vanderbilt student—offers a portrait of life in West Pullman, his home town on the south side of Chicago. Chicago Magazine profiles Marshall in its October 2015 issue. Read More

An office/living room designed by Havenly that can be used for working or entertaining. (Julia Brenner/COURTESY OF HAVENLY) The Washington Post featured Havenly, co-founded by Emily Motayed, BA’10, and her sister Lee Mayer in the article “Two companies target millennials with quicker, more affordable design help.” Havenly… Read More

Five years after visiting Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, 20/20 Research CEO Jim Bryson, MBA’85, opened a school in Haiti this week, serving 31 kindergarten students. The school is near Cabaret, about 16 miles from Port-au-Prince, and the students are from nearby villages. Read More

Tori Trout smiled and chatted persistently, hour after hour, as hundreds of young engineering students lined up to listen to her pitch for working at Halma plc — the same pitch that convinced her just a year ago. Trout studied chemical engineering at Vanderbilt, graduated with her bachelor’s degree in… Read More

Charles King, BA’91, a top agent who has represented Oprah, Janet Jackson and Tyler Perry, has a vision for entertainment that is more multicultural and more digital. Read More