Alumni

Joe Clement, BE’97, a senior engineer with Kansas City-based MRIGlobal, is helping develop a human-like robot designed to provide data on the effectiveness of protective military gear against exposure to dangerous chemicals. Read More

Westley Taylor, BA’11, is one of the 30 most creative people in advertising under the age of 30 according to Business Insider. Hailing the honorees as the “next generation of leaders,” the website developed the list on the basis of agency and peer nominations along with its own research… Read More

Deliverance Helped Make James Dickey, BA’49, MA’50, a Household Name. Forty Years Later It Casts a Long Shadow over Southern Appalachia. Read More

Dean Eric Johnson, center, stands with volunteers for the New York City Chapter: Ben Crane, BA’12, Alex Quintana, BA’05, MSF’06, Lisa Ganz, BA’13, Jamie Hooker, BA’12, Jena Acuff, BA’07 (Photo by Shia Levitt) Eighty-four Vanderbilt alumni and guests attended the Feb. 18 Tech Entrepreneurship Panel… Read More

Black Girls CODE founder Kimberly Bryant is available on Thursday, Feb. 20, to discuss introducing girls of color to tech careers. Read More

David Wasinger, JD’88, had been the sole partner at a five-attorney firm in St. Louis, Mo. that was mostly focused on local business litigation and had never represented a whistleblower. But that changed in January 2012 when an old business acquaintance turned to him when he was ready to go… Read More

Matt Rubinger, at age 25, is director of luxury accessories for Heritage Auctions, an international auction house. Three years after graduting from  Vanderbilt University in 2010, Rubinger made $9 million for his company, according to Forbes. Rubinger made his career in sales after spending his high school and college years… Read More

John Gass, BE’74, former vice president of Chevron Corporation and former president of Chevron Gas and Midstream, has been appointed to the board of directors of Suncor Energy, Canada’s leading integrated energy company. Read More

YP, the largest local search and advertising company in the U.S., announced that Allison Checchi, BS’99, has been appointed chief marketing officer. In this role, Checchi will be responsible for leading YP’s marketing, advertising, branding and communications efforts to improve the way the company connects consumers with local businesses. Read More

Over the past 28 years with the parent company of the Grand Ole Opry and Ryman Auditorium, Steve Buchanan, BS’80, MBA’85, the president of Opry Entertainment Group, has resurrected the Ryman into a beloved performance space. Buchanan used his rebranding and rebuilding skills to lead the Grand Ole Opry into… Read More

Former AmeriCares president and CEO Curt Welling, JD’75, has joined Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business as a senior fellow in its Center for Global Business and Government and the Center for Business and Society. Welling assumed the joint appointments Jan. 1, following his 11-year tenure at the nonprofit global health… Read More

Robert T. Means Jr., MD’83, has been named dean of the James H. Quillen College of Medicine at East Tennessee State University, effective March 1. He comes to ETSU from the University of Kentucky where he currently serves as executive dean and professor of internal medicine and is a member… Read More

Hannah Stahl, BA’12, received Vanderbilt’s Margaret Stonewall Wooldridge Hamblet Award, allowing the means for travel and independent art activity for one year. She visited Italy, Amsterdam and Poland—where her trip to Auschwitz inspired 10 paintings of the faces of female prisoners, shortly before execution. The display is currently on view… Read More

Following a nationwide search, Dr. Christine Benz Smith, BSN’76, has been selected as the Director of the UTC School of Nursing.   She has served in several capacities at the university since she joined the UTC School of Nursing faculty in 1997. Read More

Kristin Lemkau, BA’89, will become Chief Marketing Officer for JPMorgan Chase. In this role, she will oversee brand strategy and advertising, sponsorships, market research and event marketing across the firm. She will work closely with each of the businesses on their product strategies and marketing approaches, and work to build… Read More

Combining their love of college football and knowledge of the New York Stock Exchange – and some savvy and sophisticated technological skills – Will Schreiber (BA ‘13, economics) and McArthur Gill (BE ’13, mechanical engineering) developed Stadium Stock Exchange during their final semester. In one year, the venture has… Read More

Vanderbilt alumna Leslie Labruto’s early career trajectory illustrates just how many ways a young civil environmental engineer can accommodate both her heart’s leaning and her tangible talents – in as many places as possible. Before she graduated from the School of Engineering in 2011, Leslie’s studies and service work had… Read More

“The truth is this: We have allowed a human-rights nightmare to occur on our watch,” she told a packed house at Langford Auditorium back in January while delivering the keynote address for Vanderbilt’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration. “In the years since Dr. King’s death, a vast new system of racial and social control has emerged from the ashes of slavery and Jim Crow.” Read More

Todd Jackson, BA’96, EMBA’08, is the recipient of the Vanderbilt Alumni Association Board of Director’s new Alumni Volunteer Award. As founders and co-chairs of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Young Ambassadors, Jackson and his wife, EB, have helped raise $250,000 and award seven Discovery Grants to innovative cancer… Read More

Evan Mack, B.Mus’03, is the recipient of one of the newest awards presented by the Vanderbilt Alumni Association Board of Directors — the Young Alumni Professional Achievement Award. Read More