1965
On March 22, a portrait honoring the Hon. Haskell Thomas Abbott III was unveiled at the Horry County Justice Center. The ceremony, attended by about 100 retired and current lawyers, judges and court staff, recognized Abbott’s service as a family court judge for South Carolina’s 15th Circuit, Seat 3. He served on the bench from 1996 until his retirement in 2008. The portrait was commissioned by the local bar, including Horry and Georgetown counties.
1986
Stuart Matthews accepted a position as the Savannah River Nuclear Solutions’ principal engineer/design authority at the Savannah River Site. He is proud to be part of a team supporting the Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration’s nonproliferation objectives through surplus plutonium processing.
1992
Amy Wood Kelly, chief operations officer for DailyClout and program director for the Pfizer and Moderna Documents Analysis Project, edited the book “The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity.” The book, published by Skyhorse Publishing, was released on May 7.
1996
Dr. Stephen Jones launched Second Daily, an online auction company for classic and collectible cars specializing in vintage Land Rovers, Land Cruisers, Porsches and Ferraris. Jones gives a percentage of the proceeds to support local and national charitable foundations with interests in automobilia, such as the Austin Hatcher Foundation for Pediatric Cancer, the Mountain Education Fund and 10 Women of Hope. Jones is vice president of advanced analytics for the RxAnte/Mosaic Pharmacy. He lives in Chattanooga, Tenn., with his wife, Lindsey, and their three children.
2000
Sara Katharine Dunlap, chair of NBC Universal’s International Women’s Inclusion Network, attended a reception at Buckingham Palace. She met several notable women, including the late Queen Elizabeth II; Queen Mathilde of Belgium; Birgitte, duchess of Gloucester; Dame Helen Mirren, Melanie Brown and Dame Kelly Holmes.
2001
Justin Daubert was promoted to colonel in the U.S. Army. He serves as the infantry branch chief at the Army’s Human Resources Command. This summer, Daubert will depart Fort Knox, Ky., to attend the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.
On April 2, the South Carolina Senate unanimously confirmed Justin Powell as the 17th secretary for the state Department of Transportation. The SCDOT Commission appointed Powell on Jan. 18. He was previously the department’s chief operating officer, responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of SCDOT, including its $5 billion construction program and maintenance of the nation’s fourth-largest state highway system. Powell joined SCDOT in 2019 as deputy secretary for finance and administration, overseeing the agency’s $2.7 billion budget and the growth of its construction program from $3 billion to $5 billion.
2002
Katherine Williams O’Connor and Will Johnson participated in a community fundraising event for former South Carolina governor and presidential candidate Nikki Haley in Columbia, S.C.
Ryan Langley has started The Langley Law Firm in Spartanburg, S.C.
2005
Kat Slayton and Nate Buhler were married in September 2023 in Valle Crucis, N.C. They live in Charlotte, N.C., with Buhler’s children, Avery, 10, and Henry, 5.
2008
Ashley Glasgow Langley was named a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers. She has been with the company since 2009 and has served in various roles, most recently as private assurance services director. Her husband, Michael Langley, recently became president and CEO of Cannon Roofing in Spartanburg, S.C.
Laurie Traywick began working as Midlands regional director for the office of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham.
2009
Roger Edward Henderson Jr., an attorney, joined Hood Temple ’86 at Hatfield Temple Law in Florence, S.C. The firm specializes in serious personal injury and workers’ compensation cases. It also has offices in Conway and Dillon, S.C.
Dr. Jacqueline Savage has been appointed associate program director for the Traditional Internal Medicine Residency program at Yale University. She is an assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine and currently practices inpatient and outpatient internal medicine in New Haven, Conn.
2010
Dave and Cally Patterson Banks welcomed Robert Rafe Banks on Feb. 17, 2023. He joins big brothers Wood and Griffin. The family lives in Greenville, S.C.
2011
Anna Barber Dawson and Hood Dawson welcomed Edward Hood “Teddy” Dawson IV on June 16, 2023. He joins his big sister, Caroline. The family lives in Greenville, S.C., where Anna is an attorney with Canal Insurance Co. Hood practices law with Gallivan, White and Boyd.
Kevin Pogue was recently promoted to vice president of Colliers South Carolina. Pogue has been with Colliers since 2022, when he joined the firm’s office in Spartanburg, S.C., as a senior brokerage associate. His expertise spans multiple market sectors, assisting landlords and tenants with a special focus on land, industrial and investment properties. Pogue had served in the U.S. Marine Corps.
2012
Dr. Stephanie Lenes George and her husband, Gerry George, recently opened Carolina Roots Dentistry in Fort Mill, S.C.
Courtney Green Knittle and her husband, Scott, welcomed a son, Raleigh George, in August 2023. He joins big sisters Emma and Maryella. The family lives in Leesburg, Va., where Courtney is an account executive for Quorum, a public affairs software company headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Meg Wilson Richards and Jeremy Richards celebrated the adoption of their daughter, Skylar Richards, on Feb. 28, 2024. Meg and Jeremy were previously her foster parents and are excited to make Skylar officially part of their family.
Justin and Mary Kathryn Jolly Ward welcomed a son, George, on May 13, 2023. George already loves basketball games and Boss the Terrier!
2013
Dr. Michael Carper and his wife, Emily, welcomed a daughter, Sydney Margaret, on Jan. 3, 2024. She joins big sister Morgan.
Taylor Buckner Grimshaw and her husband, Phillip, welcomed Annabelle Rose Grimshaw on Sept. 7, 2023. The family lives in Ware Shoals, S.C.
2016
Josh Simpson was named to the Post & Courier’s 2024 list of Black Leaders to Know in South Carolina. He was recognized for his work with Kid on the Left, a nonprofit he founded, and for being the youngest and first Black mayor of Reidville, S.C.
2017
Jessica Meggs and Allan Copp Jr. were married on Jan. 20, 2024, in Greenville, S.C.
2018
Elie Brantley Hart has authored a “romantasy” novel that was recently published on Amazon. “Out of Embers and Shadows” is a tale of love, war, betrayal and dark secrets.
Riley Garrison Johnson was recognized as a “Woman on the Move” by Forsyth Woman Magazine in Winston-Salem, N.C. Johnson serves as director of philanthropy at Leadership Winston-Salem. She is a member of the Junior League of Winston-Salem, the Association of Fundraising Professionals and First Baptist on Fifth. She also serves on the Winston Under 40 Advisory Board and the West Salem Community Garden Council. She is married to Clay Johnson ’16. They enjoy spending time together with their dog, Brawley.
2019
Meghan McCully was recently promoted to legislative assistant for U.S. Sen. Tim Scott. She will lead the senator’s health, budget and social security portfolios.
2020
Rhett Andrews married Payton Diggs on Feb. 2, 2024, in Laguna Beach, Calif. The couple lives in Murfreesboro, Tenn. Rhett is a healthcare strategy consultant with pH Blueprint in Nashville, Tenn.
Catie Cronister was promoted to data scientist II at Oncocyte Corp. in Nashville, Tenn.
Reagan Elaine Owens was recently promoted to senior operations manager at MUSC Health, the clinical enterprise of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
Liesel Rutland and Benjamin Carlson were married on April 20, 2024, in Greenville, S.C. They live in Columbia, S.C.
Mary Thalassinos recently directed her first production, “Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse,” with the South Carolina Children’s Theatre. Every show was sold out.
2021
Molly Corbett accepted a position as a biologics sales manager at Cartessa Aesthetics in Durham, N.C.
2022
Meredith Bean was recently involved with two severe weather research campaigns, PERiLS and DELTA. She is working with several universities and is pursuing a master’s degree in atmospheric sciences and meteorology at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Bean is researching the “Rolling Fork,” a storm system that produced an EF4 tornado and devastated the towns of Rolling Fork and Silver City, Miss.
2023
Yasmine Lee served as the production assistant for “The Little Box of Hope,” a film written and directed by Edgar Bravo. The film will be released in local theaters this summer before hitting streaming services.
Grace Levitt is in her first year of the Ph.D. chemistry program at the University of Virginia. She is a joint student in the Landers and Venton labs, where she works on developing electrochemical sensors for wearable devices for seizure detection. This summer, Levitt will work at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, to learn more about fabricating electrodes.
FACULTY
Rebecca Forstater, assistant professor of studio art, is an invited panelist at Clemson’s 2024 Research Symposium panel “Hallucinatory Practice: Machine Learning and the Boundaries of Creative Production.” She is also exhibiting work at Coco Hunday Gallery and has been announced as the juror for the 35th Annual Juried Competition at the York County (S.C.) Center for the Arts.
Dr. Cissy Fowler, professor of sociology and anthropology, served as a guest lecturer on ethnographic research methods for Research Project Design, a course in the American University of Rome’s graduate program in Food Studies and Policies for Sustainable Production and Consumption. She was also a panelist in the virtual roundtable “The Anthropologist as Vulnerable Observer: Compounding Disasters and Anxiety in the Face of Climate Catastrophe” as part of the Society for Applied Anthropology annual meeting.
Dr. Jocelyn Franklin, assistant professor of French, organized the panel “L’oeuvre de Makenzy Orcel à travers des contextes haïtiens” for the 20th & 21st Century French & Francophone Studies International Colloquium in February. She presented the paper “À la recherche d’une mère sous la dictature de papa-à-vie dans Maître Minuit.”
Dr. Ramón Galiñanes, director of undergraduate research, did a write-up in Political Science Today magazine highlighting the scholarship of Dr. Kimberly Hall, associate professor of English, and Dr. Rachel Vanderhill, chair of the Department of Government and International Affairs, on the topic of disinformation. The magazine is distributed to 10,000 members in about 100 countries.
Dr. Natalie Grinnell, Reeves Family Professor in Humanities, gave the keynote address, “Loving the Monster: Medieval and Modern Werewolf Romances,” at the 31st Annual Northern Plains Conference on Early British Literature on April 12 in Grand Forks, N.D. Her article “Creating a Modern Bestiary,” will appear this summer in “Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture,” a special issue on teaching medieval and non-medieval literature side-by-side.
Dr. Rachel Grotheer, assistant professor of mathematics, co-organized the session “Beyond Mathematics: Interdisciplinary Collaboration” at the Mathematical Association of America Southeastern Section Meeting held March 14 -16. She also gave a talk in the session titled “I Spy an Animal: Faculty-Student Collaborative Research in Ecology.”
Dr. Kimberly Hall and Dr. Kim Rostan, associate professors of English, published “Memetic Witnessing: A Transhistorical Analysis of Reconstruction Testimony and #SayHerName” in the journal “Soundings.”
Dr. Aaron Harp, assistant professor of music, sang the role of Jesus in South Carolina Bach’s performance of the “St. John Passion” in March. He also sang bass in a recent performance of Charpentier’s “Litanies de la Vierge and Missa Assumpta est Maria” with Chicora Voices, a professional choir based in Greenville, S.C.
Dr. Stacey Hettes, professor of biology, had her manuscript, “Dispatches from the Couch, A Neuroscientist and Her Therapist Conspireto Reboot Her Brain,” accepted by Apprentice House Press for publication in spring 2025.
Dr. Ryan Johnson, associate professor of accounting, published an article in the March/ April edition of the Tennessee CPA Journal titled “A Post-it Note Approach to Ethical Decision Making.”
Eric Kocher, assistant professor of environmental studies, was selected as the winner of the 2024 Rattle Chapbook Prize for his manuscript “Sky Mall,” which will be published in the fall.
Dr. Dawn McQuiston, professor of psychology, organized the inaugural South Carolina Innocence & Justice Conference held at Wofford on May 3.
Dr. Anne Rodrick, Reeves Family Professor of History, has two publications appearing this summer: “Lecturing the Victorians: Knowledge-based Culture and Participatory Citizenship,” published by Bloomsbury Academic Publishing, 2024, London; and “Chatting up the Sciences: The Mid-Victorian Lecture-Gossip,” in “Victorian Review.”
Dr. Kristina Štefanić Brown, assistant professor of German, wrote the article “Germany and Mediterranean Crossings: Suppressing Past Traumas and Revisiting Present Ones in Burhan Qurbani’s Berlin Alexanderplatz,” which will appear this June in “I.S. Med. Interdisciplinary Studies on the Mediterranean.”
Dr. Jim Stevens, assistant professor of finance, presented a working paper titled “Gentrification Trends during the Covid- 19 Pandemic” at the annual meeting of the American Real Estate Society, in March in Orlando. He also served as a discussant for a manuscript titled “Capitalization of Property Tax Incentives: Evidence From Philadelphia.”
Dr. Jessica Tomkins, assistant professor of history, was an invited panelist for the ASOR-sponsored discussion panel “The Interdisciplinary Nature of Ancient Near Eastern Studies in the 21st Century” at the American Academy of Religion Southeast Regional Meeting held in March in Charleston, S.C. She also presented her paper “What Do Kings Do? Reevaluating the Relationship Between King and Subject” at the annual meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt, which was held in April in Pittsburgh.
Michael Webster, assistant professor of studio art, will be an artist-in-residence at the McColl Center this summer in Charlotte, N.C. His work was exhibited recently at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, the Bo Bartlett Center at Columbus State University, Black Mountain College Museum and the Lyndon House Art Center in Athens, Ga.
Dr. Gillian Young, assistant professor of art history, contributed an essay to the exhibition catalogue for “Joan Jonas: Goodnight Goodmorning,” published by the Museum of Modern Art in March. She also lectured on Jonas in March at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University.
Steve Zides, senior instructor of physics, was awarded a NASA Space Grant in the Research and Education Curriculum Development Subprogram to develop the course Lunar Dreams: the Past, Present and Future of the Moon.