University of Missouri–St. Louis astronomy students take advantage of the new red Adirondack chairs and tables that have been placed outside of the library and around campus. The chairs were donated by Chancellor Kristin Sobolik and her husband, Scott Peterson.
The astronomy students were taking a pause while doing an experiment to track the path of the sun during a class led by Mohi Saki, assistant professor of physics and astronomy. The students will gather data again later in the semester to compare the results.
With a circulation of 109,347, the University of Missouri–St. Louis publishes UMSL Magazine twice a year to showcase the transformative impact of the university – its students, alumni, faculty, staff and supporters – on our state, nation and world.
Chancellor
Kristin Sobolik
Associate Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Communications
Justin Roberts
Director of Public Relations and Content
Steve Walentik
Editor-in-Chief
Heather Riske
Writers Ryan Fagan
Burk Krohe
Melissa Landry
Heather Riske
Steve Walentik
Timothy Wombles
Director of Creative Services
Traci Moore
Art Director
Wendy Allison
Designers
Marty Baragiola
Brittany Riehlman
Photographer
Derik Holtmann
Printer
Progress Printing Plus Lynchburg, Virginia
UMSL Magazine
Office of Marketing and Communications
60 J.C. Penney Building
1 University Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63121 magazine@umsl.edu umsl.edu/magazine 314-516-5851
Address Updates
Office of Alumni
Engagement
414 Woods Hall
1 University Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63121 umslalumni.org
314-516-5833
| News and achievements from around
6| Nathan Muchhala, associate professor of biology
7| Elena Jenkins, Doctor of Nursing Practice student
8| Nicole Northway, CEO of Emerson and Friends
9| Nick Boyd, owner of Big Belly Deli
10| Justin Bennett, admissions coordinator for U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, founder of Mindful Perspective, adjunct instructor of Social Work
11| Felice McClendon, executive director of Delmar Main Street Alumni news
32| Class notes and updates from alumni near and far
Digging into the past For nearly two decades, Michael Cosmopoulos, the Hellenic GovernmentKarakas Foundation Professor in Greek Studies and recent inductee into the famed Academy of Athens, has led an archaeological excavation in Iklaina, Greece. His work there, with support from hundreds of students, has shed light on the origins of a two-tiered system of government.
Having their say Through a unique co-design process, UMSL’s Community Innovation and Action Center gives local youth a voice in developing programming at the Saint Louis Zoo’s upcoming WildCare Park.
| Hidden history Theresa Coble, the E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor of Experiential and Family Education, leads a federal initiative recognizing women’s stories across national parks, lands and programs.
LETTER FROM THE CHANCELLOR
It’s been an exhilarating start to our fall semester as we welcome both new and returning students to the University of Missouri–St. Louis. This year, we proudly embraced one of the largest entering classes to date with 1,200 new students, most of whom are first-time college attendees. Their energy and enthusiasm are a reminder of the potential that lies within each of us.
After celebrating our 60th anniversary last year, UMSL is on a remarkable trajectory toward becoming one of the nation’s premier public research universities. This fall, we climbed six places to No. 135 in U.S. News & World Report’s rankings of top public universities. Additionally, we are honored to have earned the No. 1 spot on Forbes’ 2024 list of Best Online Colleges in Missouri.
At UMSL, we take pride in being an institution of opportunity where students from all backgrounds can transform their futures through education. UMSL has once again been recognized by U.S. News & World Report for its commitment to social mobility, ranked No. 1 in Missouri and No. 92 nationally for our success in graduating students who receive federal Pell Grants. We have made this list every year since its debut in 2020, maintaining our position as the top institution in the state for three consecutive years.
Our achievements reflect not only the hard work of our students but also the profound impact of our more than 117,000 alumni who are making significant contributions to their communities and professions. Each story our community shares in the following pages underscores the transformative experience that UMSL provides.
As we embark on this academic year, let us celebrate our shared commitment to growth, opportunity and excellence. Together, we are shaping a brighter future for ourselves and those who will follow.
Gratefully forward, Kristin Sobolik
A DRAMATIC TRANSFORMATION OF THE UMSL CAMPUS IS UNDERWAY, WHICH WILL SERVE OUR UNIVERSITY, REGION AND FAR BEYOND FOR DECADES. STAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LATEST “TRANSFORM UMSL” NEWS.
TRANSFORMING UMSL
UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
A massive renovation of University Libraries, including the Thomas Jefferson Library and St. Louis Mercantile Library, is currently underway. The project seeks to build a collaborative space that preserves and enhances the traditional aspects of the library while also creating a more modern, engaging and flexible space to meet the needs of university scholars and library patrons alike.
Plans for the renovations include creating a new entrance to the Thomas Jefferson Library with direct access to the Quad on the north side of the library. Designed to create a welcoming and innovative space for students to gather, the project will feature an expanded café with extended evening hours, an expanded computer lab and refreshed group and individual study spaces.
The Mercantile Library will also receive a new entrance to create an inviting setting worthy of its treasures, as well as a new art gallery with two exhibition wings that’s slated to open in December. The library will feature educational space for talks, curator’s colloquia, artists’ panel discussions and other innovative programming exposing UMSL and K-12 students to Missouri’s art heritage.
To learn more about the Transform UMSL initiative, visit umsl.edu/transform
UMSL launching new School of Engineering in 2025
In an effort to meet the workforce needs of St. Louis and the state of Missouri, UMSL will establish a new School of Engineering in the fall of 2025. The new School of Engineering will operate alongside the UMSL/Washington University Joint Undergraduate Engineering Program and will cater to more traditional, full-time students with classes held during the day on the UMSL campus. It is also intended to build upon the joint engineering program’s 30-year track record of success with ABET-accredited Bachelor of Science degree programs in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering.
Missouri’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget, signed by Gov. Mike Parson, directed an initial capital investment of $15 million to the university to support the planning, design and construction of labs, classrooms and student community spaces in the Science Complex that will be used to train more engineering students. As renovations begin this year in the Science Complex, the university will also be moving to hire a director to oversee the operations of the new school as well as new faculty members to help mentor and teach students.
The program has graduated approximately 1,400 students in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering.
BLANCHE M. TOUHILL PERFORMING ARTS CENTER BY THE NUMBERS
2023-24
203 total events
113,000 total patrons 40% university-sponsored events
29
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra performances
Last year, the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center celebrated 20 years of bringing audiences of all types, from UMSL students to classical music fans and book-lovers from around St. Louis, to UMSL’s North Campus. This fall, UMSL is once again partnering with the St. Louis Symphony to host concerts at the 123,000-square-foot venue while the orchestra’s permanent home, Powell Hall, is under construction.
LEAVING ON A HIGH NOTE
Retiring UMSL Police Chief Dan Freet awarded Chancellor’s Medal Chancellor Kristin Sobolik had a surprise in store toward the end of her annual State of the University Address on Aug. 23: She called UMSL Police Chief Dan Freet to the stage to present him with the second Chancellor’s Medal in honor of his outstanding contributions to the university. Freet has made a mark over the past 11 years with the UMSL Police Department, the last seven as chief and director of institutional safety. The department was reaccredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies last year, for instance, and recently named the fifth-safest college campus in the country in a report from SafeHome.org. The unexpected honor came only a few weeks ahead of Freet’s planned retirement. “Everyone, when they’re not just leaving a job but when they’re actually retiring out of a chosen field, would love to leave on a high note, on a positive note, feeling good about what they’ve done but also feeling good about the people that they’ve served,” Freet says. “That’s exactly how this feels.”
While at UIndy, she helped launch three new fellowships for students, including one with Eli Lilly and Company.
Ken and Nancy Kranzberg honored with Lee Medal for Philanthropy
Ken and Nancy Kranzberg have put their stamp on the cultural fabric of St. Louis with their support of the arts, helping to transform the Grand Center Arts District and launching the Kranzberg Arts Foundation. But they have championed many other causes such as education and have invested heavily in the University of Missouri–St. Louis, endowing professorships and student scholarships and contributing to capital projects such as the construction of the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center and the Public Media Commons in Grand Center and the renovation of the Thomas Jefferson and St. Louis Mercantile Libraries currently underway. In recognition of their support of UMSL over more than 35 years, Chancellor Kristin Sobolik presented the Kranzbergs with the 2024 E. Desmond and Mary Ann Lee Medal for Philanthropy during the 33rd annual Founders Celebration on Sept. 26.
Norma Hall-Thoms named new dean of the College of Nursing
After a nationwide search, Norma HallThoms became the new dean of the College of Nursing on July 1.
Hall-Thoms, who formerly served as dean of the University of Indianapolis School of Nursing from 2017 to 2023, has also been named the Dr. Donald L. Ross Endowed Chair for Advancing Nursing Practice. In this role, she’ll build on her passion for communitycentered health care to
expand the college’s education and community service activities and advance nursing practice. She’s excited about the future for the College of Nursing and UMSL more broadly, particularly as the university moves forward on the ambitious Transform UMSL plan, and the opportunity to expand its reach throughout the community.
FIVE QUESTIONS WITH ...
NATHAN MUCHHALA, associate professor, Department of Biology
Unlike most people, Nathan Muchhala is drawn to, rather than repelled by, bats. After earning his BA in biology in 1998, he spent a year in Ecuador on a Fulbright Fellowship, studying the types of fruits that bats feed from and the flowers they pollinate. He fell in love with pollination and montane forests, and both have been central to his research ever since. In 2019, Muchhala co-authored a seminal paper demonstrating that some plants can reorient their flowers after damage to aid in pollination and the continued survival of the species. He was granted a research sabbatical for 2023 to further his research and launch a large-scale project in the tropical forests of northern South America. –TIMOTHY WOMBLES
1
YOU WERE RECENTLY ON SABBATICAL IN COUNTRIES INCLUDING COLOMBIA AND ECUADOR. WHAT KIND OF RESEARCH WERE YOU CONDUCTING? We wanted to study our prediction that pollinators that fly farther, such as birds and bats, would move pollen, and thus genes, better than those that don’t move as far, such as bees, flies and wasps. We chose 20 plant species and collected hundreds of hours of video footage to document pollinators, and then collected leaf tissue for laboratory analyses. I also worked with biologists in both countries, local students and UMSL
students. We captured nectarfeeding bats and held them for several days in screen tents to test how they use vision, echolocation and scent to find their flowers, and how their whiskers work in sensing flower position, allowing for easier nectar extraction.
2
WHAT IS THE VALUE OF A SABBATICAL LIKE THIS? This sabbatical was invigorating, allowing me to devote undivided attention to research again. Being in the field observing nature is what drove me to become a biologist in the first place, and it was great to be able to do this with graduate students from my group as well as local students from both countries. It was also excellent
for making connections – over the year, I gave eight talks to various universities and got a chance to chat with many biologists.
3
HOW DOES THIS PROJECT TIE IN WITH WHAT STUDENTS CAN EXPERIENCE WORKING IN YOUR LAB HERE AT UMSL? Many of my graduate students work in Latin America, so this experience was great for all of us to make connections and find other possible study sites. A lot of the data we collected will be processed here at UMSL with the help of undergraduate students, including tabulating pollinator information from videos and extracting DNA from the leaf samples for our genetic analyses.
4
WHAT CAN THE AVERAGE PERSON DO – OR NOT DO –TO HELP ENSURE POLLINATORS CAN CONTINUE TO THRIVE? Pollinators need natural areas with native wildflowers. Preventing destruction of natural habitats, or restoring them, will help preserve both pollinators and their plants. Reducing use of pesticides in your yards and planting native wildflowers will also help maintain pollinator population.
5
MOST PEOPLE HAVE A FEAR OF BATS. WAS THAT SOMETHING YOU HAD TO OVERCOME? Interestingly, no. I’ve found them fascinating since I started working with them. However, extracting them from nets took some practice, that is, getting used to how to gently disentangle wings while preventing them from flying off!
Elena Jenkins’ passions for art and nursing have always been intertwined. Painting became a way to fill her newfound free time when her daughters headed off to college and a form of stress relief while working as a labor and delivery nurse manager during the COVID-19 pandemic. But her captivating portraits – many of which are on display at The Drip Community Coffee House in St. Louis, which she co-owns with partner LaTosha Baker – are also a form of storytelling inspired by her work in labor and delivery, covering impactful themes including the #MeToo movement and maternal health for Black mothers. Jenkins recently wrapped up her first year in UMSL’s Doctor of Nursing Practice program on the Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner track, putting her one step closer to her dream of opening her own birth center. –HEATHER RISKE
1
WHAT INSPIRES YOUR ART? I love portraits. I’m always intrigued by people’s stories, and I feel like you can really tell stories through people’s eyes and the looks on their faces. I like to incorporate a lot of symbolism within the paintings. For example, I’ve done paintings on the history of Black women in obstetrics – those that have advocated, those that have been affected and one of the moms that died during the pandemic from not being heard – and they’re surrounded by HeLa cells, which grow and multiply, because it’s really about the lessons that we’ve learned and where we can go.
2
WHAT HAS YOUR EXPERIENCE BEEN LIKE IN THE DNP PROGRAM? UMSL has been amazing. So much of the program has been applicable to helping me move forward on the journey to the birth center in ways that I never imagined. I just finished a leadership class, and I never imagined how much information I would have that would be so helpful in envisioning what this looks like and growing who I am as a leader.
3
WHY DO YOU WANT TO OPEN A BIRTH CENTER? Missouri really struggles with maternal health, just like the rest of the country. There are no options between home births and hospital births, like a freestanding birth center, and there’s a real need for that. I believe that women need to be empowered to be able to have their birth the way that they want and to have the ability to choose a low-risk, lowintervention option.
4
WHY ARE BIRTH CENTERS SO IMPORTANT? When you have a midwife model of care, the rate of C-sections goes drastically down in comparison to hospital births. The rate of preterm delivery goes down. Rates of breastfeeding are much higher. Women feel empowered to be able to choose how they labor. General satisfaction with care and feeling like you have that body autonomy is so much more prevalent in the birth center model, and that’s what research has shown.
5
HOW DO YOUR PASSIONS FOR ART AND NURSING FIT TOGETHER? I saw them on dual paths; I never wanted to give up either one, so one inspires the other. My pieces are very thought-provoking with all the symbolism, so I get lots of questions about what they mean. I think I’m bringing awareness in all of the art that I do, because it is inspired by my nursing career. It’s a passion of mine that I always love talking about, and that’s where the art plays into that.
ELENA JENKINS, DNP student, College of Nursing
NICOLE NORTHWAY, ’06
BY HEATHER RISKE
Nicole Northway has always believed that everyone should have art in their lives, whether in a painting on a wall, a book or even pajamas.
“Even my work in the fine art world was trying to blur the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art,” she says. She holds true to that conviction as the CEO and founder of Emerson and Friends, a fast-growing apparel company that specializes in bamboo pajamas with fun, colorful prints. Based in Clearwater, Florida, Emerson and Friends is known for its playful illustrations – all of which are designed in-house – from ocean animals to rainbows, florals and holiday imagery. Lucy’s Room, a sister brand Northway launched in 2022, offers illustrated books, puzzles, stuffed animals, stickers, quilts and toys.
For the first five years of the business, Northway illustrated everything herself, drawing on her experience studying painting at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. After attending two other universities, she quickly fell in love with the supportive network at UMSL.
“It was my favorite out of all the schools that I went to,” she says. “The teachers were phenomenal, and I still think about them a lot. I went to New York City on a travel and study award, and we got to meet working artists and visit all the museums. That was hugely influential on me as an artist and also as a person.”
Northway launched Emerson and Friends out of a spare bedroom in her condo in 2018, and the company has grown exponentially since, thanks in part to key wholesale partnerships with major stores across the country including Anthropologie, Marshalls, Scheels, TJ Maxx and Von Maur. Emerson and Friends made its first $1 million in revenue between 2021 and 2022, and in 2024, the company landed in the top 500 of Inc.’s 5000 list at No. 434, marking a 1,036% increase over three years.
To support that growth, Emerson and Friends recently doubled its team and is building out a new, larger facility with corporate offices and warehouse space. The moves have allowed Northway to delegate certain tasks and settle more fully into the CEO role, though she still makes time to illustrate. When she reflects on how far the company has come in such a short amount of time, she’s often brought to tears, especially when she thinks about all the people who have helped bring her vision to life.
“Our business is all about relationships – the relationships I have with my employees, my customers and our factory partners,” she says. “I think that always shows through in the bottom line. It’s not just about making money; it’s about creating relationships with our employees and facilitating a community for the people who wear the clothes.”
HOMETOWN: COLLINSVILLE, ILLINOIS
DEGREE: BFA, 2006
CURRENT POSITION: CEO OF EMERSON AND FRIENDS
FUN FACT: IN EARLY NOVEMBER, NORTHWAY
APPEARED ON THE DEALS AND STEALS
SEGMENT OF ABC’S “GOOD MORNING AMERICA” TO PROMOTE EMERSON AND FRIENDS.
NICK BOYD, ’18
BY RYAN FAGAN
Born with an entrepreneurial spirit, Nick Boyd has spent his life not only constantly thinking of ideas but searching out others who can help bring his innovative concepts to fruition.
“I’m going to do all of my research first, know exactly what I want,” Boyd says, “and then find the people that I know that can help make it happen.”
That’s how he developed his apparel company, Still Smilin’, out of high school, and how he co-founded both fROOTSnacks Farms, a community garden, and his 5-acre garlic farm. His dreams about a sandwich collaboration with Chris Timmermann – they’ve been friends since middle school – gave birth to Big Belly Deli, the year-old restaurant in Florissant that has created a buzz on the St. Louis food scene.
Boyd credits the lessons he learned pursuing his Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Missouri–St. Louis with strongly influencing his success as an entrepreneur. Boyd graduated in 2018, a year before UMSL started offering its entrepreneurship major in 2019, so he had the opportunity to essentially create his own tailor-made program. He did his research, found the UMSL courses that would be most influential for his future endeavors and charted his own path.
“I feel like I was really blessed,” he says. “I wrote up the degree I wanted for entrepreneurship. I have minors in business administration, marketing and business management because I was able to take in-depth courses in all of those areas. I feel like that really geared me up in every direction, and that’s exactly what I wanted.”
One of the UMSL entrepreneurial lessons: Find a unique element that sets your product apart.
That’s exactly what Boyd and Timmermann have done with their delicious Dutch crunch bread – a San Francisco favorite virtually non-existent elsewhere in St. Louis. A limited supply is baked each day by the deli’s next-door neighbor, the longstanding Helfer’s Pastries. The Dutch crunch retains its crispy topping for about a day at most, and selling anything less than the perfect bread just isn’t an option.
“I’ve been classifying it to the staff as more of a European style,” Boyd says. “Everything is fresh, and whenever you’re out, you’re out. But at least you know it’s fresh, and you’re enjoying it. That’s part of the experience, and we think that’s what brings people back, the fact that it sells out.”
Lines often stretch out the door on weekends at Big Belly for the lunch rush. Patrons have learned to arrive early or risk missing out, and that just isn’t an option, either.
HOMETOWN: FLORISSANT, MISSOURI
DEGREE: BIS WITH EMPHASIS IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP, 2018
CURRENT POSITION: CO-OWNER OF BIG BELLY DELI
FUN FACT: BOYD’S LOVE OF MAKING FOOD FOR HIS FRIENDS AND FAMILY EXTENDS ALL THE WAY BACK TO HIS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DAYS.
JUSTIN BENNETT, ’07, ’10
BY BURK KROHE
After Justin Bennett graduated from the University of Missouri–St. Louis with a BSW and an MSW, he remembers asking what he thought was a perfectly reasonable question: “Can I practice in another state?”
The answer was more complicated than Bennett anticipated. At that time, more than a decade ago, there was no system of reciprocity between states regarding social work licenses. Interstate practice required licensure in each additional state, a time-consuming process that could cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to meet differing licensing standards and continuing education requirements.
That is now poised to change thanks to the Social Work Interstate Licensing Compact, and Bennett is at the forefront of this momentous shift in the social work field. Bennett sits on the Missouri State Committee for Social Workers and serves as the compact commissioner for Missouri, the first state to sign on to the compact.
“It’s exciting that Missouri was the first state,” he says. “It’s something that I’ve wanted for well over a decade, and I know there are professionals who have been practicing longer than I have who have wanted it, as well as younger professionals who have been joining the profession and understand the utility of being mobile.”
Fundamentally, the compact is a legal contract between states allowing social workers to practice in multiple states with a single “compact license.” To join the accord, states must pass the model legislation put forth by the Council of State Governments. To date, 22 states are on board.
The push for the compact began in 2021 with a $500,000 Department of Defense grant to develop interstate licensure for social workers as part of an initiative to promote professional mobility for military spouses. However, the benefits are wide-ranging. Bennett points to digital practice, which has become increasingly popular, and the ability to maintain a greater continuum of care for clients.
“It’s enhancing the mobility of social workers,” he says. “It’s improving access to professional social work services. We have a lot of clients who travel for work, students who go home on break, or families who may have to relocate.”
Bennett estimates compact licenses will be available in one to two years.
“It’s just a matter of operationalizing the compact,” he says. “So, that’s setting the fees, the licensing system, the national database. Basically, it’s developing processes and bylaws, and really examining how to make this an equitable process representative of the social work community and the clients we serve.”
HOMETOWN: PIEDMONT, MISSOURI
DEGREE: BSW, 2007; MSW, 2010
CURRENT POSITION: ADMISSIONS
COORDINATOR FOR U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS, FOUNDER OF MINDFUL PERSPECTIVE, ADJUNCT INSTRUCTOR OF SOCIAL WORK
FUN FACT: BENNETT HAS A LOVE FOR CRYSTALS, ESPECIALLY LABRADORITE. HE BELIEVES CRYSTALS HAVE GROUNDING ENERGY AND ARE GREAT CONVERSATION PIECES.
CATCHING UP
BY STEVE WALENTIK
Felice McClendon is a transplant to St. Louis, having grown up across the state in Kansas City, but she’s lived in the region long enough that it feels like home.
Over nearly three decades, McClendon has come to understand St. Louis’ complicated history, including the fractures and inequities that grew from its past. She also feels invested in its future, wanting to do her part to strengthen it at a time when the city’s population is declining and growth in the wider region has stagnated.
She jumped at the opportunity to serve as the inaugural executive director of Delmar Main Street in May. The nonprofit community revitalization organization launched in 2021 as part of a pilot program funded by Missouri Main Street Connection. It adheres to an evidence-based model shared by more than 2,000 organizations across the country, built around the pillars of economic vitality, promotion, organization and design.
With an office in Delmar DivINe, Delmar Main Street focuses on a roughly 3-mile stretch of Delmar Boulevard and the neighborhoods lying immediately to its north and south as it cuts through the center of St. Louis, from Taylor Avenue west to the border with University City in the Delmar Loop. McClendon, who earned a graduate certificate in nonprofit management and leadership at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, believes the commercial corridor is critical to the health and vitality of the broader region.
Her position has put her in contact with residents and business owners alike as she works to cultivate partnerships, spark community involvement and help bring in new resources to the district, creating a foundation for sustainable revitalization, which she stresses does not have to mean gentrification.
“This is where passion meets purpose for me,” she says. “It’s an honor to be an ambassador to carry forth this idea of community. I’m going to listen to everybody. Everyone deserves to have a voice and a seat at the table. So many times, that’s how things get lopsided – because decision-makers aren’t communicating with people, especially if they are in disinvested communities or have low to moderate incomes.”
There’s momentum building along Delmar with the Maker District growing just west of Kingshighway and businesses filling in along the route of the Loop Trolley. The symbolism of a vibrant Delmar is not lost on McClendon, given that it has for years marked a chasm in the city along racial and socioeconomic lines.
“This is a great opportunity to reverse the storyline about that Delmar Divide,” McClendon says, adding, “I’m here because we’re giving people a reason to stay. That’s not my job description, but that is my job.”
HOMETOWN: KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
CERTIFICATE: GRADUATE
CERTIFICATE IN NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP, 2009
CURRENT POSITION:
EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR AT DELMAR MAIN STREET
FUN FACT: MCCLENDON HOLDS A BACHELOR’S DEGREE IN JOURNALISM AND SPENT THE FIRST 12 YEARS OF HER CAREER AS A SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE WITH KMJM-FM RADIO.
FELICE MCCLENDON, ’09
For nearly two decades, Michael Cosmopoulos, the Hellenic Government-Karakas Foundation Professor in Greek Studies and a recent inductee into the famed Academy of Athens, has led an archaeological excavation in Iklaina, Greece. His work there, with support from hundreds of students, has shed light on the origins of a two-tiered system of government.
By Steve Walentik
Rebecca Bolin
never had trouble getting up ahead of the sun this summer in the Peloponnesian Peninsula of southern Greece.
While some college students might have been yawning or wiping the sleep from their eyes at 6 a.m. as they boarded a bus outside their hotel lobby in the coastal town of Pylos, or dozing off again during their roughly half-hour drive along the winding roads that carried them into the countryside, Bolin was always raring to go.
The University of Missouri–St. Louis senior gazed out the window at the rusty red landscape zipping by her window, feeling as if she had been dropped into a magical land she grew up fantasizing about in her childhood.
“I was obsessed with Greek mythology from when I was really young,” Bolin says. “I have some of these myths memorized still to this day.”
Bolin, now 26 and majoring in liberal studies with an emphasis in anthropology and sociology, joined students from UMSL and elsewhere in making that drive six days a week for three weeks this summer. She had the same excitement as that little girl might have had each morning as she stepped off the bus, eager to begin the approximately 15-minute hike uphill, past groves of olive trees, to their ultimate destination, an ancient palace called Iklaina that is referenced in Homer’s Iliad.
The Late Bronze Age capital sat on a plateau in the low hills overlooking the vivid blue waters of the Ionian Sea. It had been lost to time for thousands of years, but for much of the past two decades, it has been the site of an active archaeological excavation being carried out by the Athens Archaeological Society under the direction of Michael Cosmopoulos, the Hellenic Government-Karakas Foundation Professor in Greek Studies at UMSL.
To support the project, Cosmopoulos has received external grant funding totaling more than $700,000 over the years from both federal agencies and private institutions, including the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and National Geographic Society.
Since the excavation began in 2006, more than 500 students – including 20 this summer – from UMSL and other institutions in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia have studied at the field school at Iklaina and culled through the ground in search of new discoveries. They work in trenches, often standing or kneeling and using pickaxes, shovels and trowels to pick away at the dirt and brushes and brooms to clear off some of the dust that has settled there over centuries.
“We have to be very methodical when we are digging and careful when we’re doing it,” Bolin says.
Even when they progress slowly, it can make for taxing work with the dry, rocky ground offering little cushion for their bodies.
“I wish I had been advised to bring some knee pads because the rocks on your knees can be quite painful after a while,” says Frederick McCullough, another of the six UMSL students who worked at the site between June 17 and July 7 this summer. He is a local pastor in his 50s pursuing a bachelor’s degree in sociology with a minor in anthropology.
The crew begins its days early because the terrain at Iklaina provides little relief from the hot summer sun outside of the canopies erected over the trenches. The students follow the direction of trench supervisors, who show them how to recognize soil changes and guide their movements as they take care to leave minimal imprints on the artifacts and ruins they unearth.
UMSL coordinates a summer study abroad program that gives students from across the globe the opportunity to do work at the site. From the moment Bolin learned about it, she knew she had to be part of the opportunity.
“I took an anthropology class with Dr. Cosmopoulos on Greek culture, and he told us about the project,” Bolin says. “I was like, ‘Wait, an actual dig? Really? I could do that?’ I knew, ‘Yeah, I have to do that.’ I started preparing for it before I even got an acceptance. I was like, ‘I’m doing this no matter what.’”
Beyond digging, they learn how to identify artifacts; operate the Total Station device to survey the ground; conduct flotation, using water to recover small fragments of material from soil samples; and work in the lab to process and analyze any discoveries. They maintain detailed records of all their activities.
“The students’ contributions are invaluable to our project,” Cosmopoulos says. “On a practical level, their work is crucial because the size of our team directly impacts the number of trenches we can open and the volume of artifacts we can process. This allows us to cover more ground and make more discoveries each season.”
But the students provide intangible traits that are just as important.
“They bring an infectious enthusiasm, humor and passion for archaeology and Greek culture that energizes and inspires the entire team,” Cosmopoulos says. “Their fresh perspectives and eagerness to learn often lead to new insights and ideas, making them an integral part of our research community.”
Left to right: Students, including Rebecca Bolin, sorting botanical remains in the field; students excavating; Professor Michael Cosmopoulos with a trench supervisor. (Photos by George Vdokakis)
There was palpable excitement and glee the first time each of the students plucked a figurine or piece of pottery from the ground.
“It’s hard not to be excited when you’re holding 3,000-yearold pottery in your hand,” Bolin says. “Sometimes you found something that you weren’t expecting to find, but the main goal was not finding trinkets.”
Rather, they were primarily focused on uncovering the walls to ancient structures built as long ago as 1600 BCE. By studying those buildings, they’re able to glean crucial information about what life was like for people in the Mycenaean civilization.
Iklaina has been providing some of those secrets since 1954, when Greek archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos first visited the site to investigate reports of ancient walls in local farmers’ fields. He spent four days there uncovering parts of some large buildings as well as an unusually large amount of pottery and fragments of wall paintings, but then he left, and the site was almost as quickly forgotten in archaeological circles.
In the 1990s, Professor George Korres – a mentor of Cosmopoulos’ at the University of Athens – brought new attention to Iklaina when he listed it as one of Marinatos’ most significant unfinished projects. Korres recommended Cosmopoulos continue the work.
That prompted the establishment of the Iklaina Archaeological Project, when Cosmopoulos was still a professor of classical studies and anthropology at the University of Manitoba. He began planning a systematic, interdisciplinary excavation of the site.
Cosmopoulos, who had studied archaeology, history and literature as an undergraduate student at the University of Athens and went on to earn his master’s and PhD at Washington University in St. Louis, continued to grow the project after coming to UMSL in 2001.
He was particularly interested in what the site might reveal about the formation of complex states and wanted to understand the processes that led to them first appearing in that part of Greece before later emerging as the dominant political institutions across the western world.
Over the past 15 years, Iklaina has provided plenty of insight on those questions.
In 2009, Cosmopoulos and his team first excavated a mysterious mound on the site and found the buried remains of a Cyclopean limestone terrace. It’s believed to have provided a foundation for a multistory structure typically only found in palaces and Mycenaean capitals.
That led to further investigation using magnetometry and electric resistivity, and they discovered dozens of buildings extending across an area of nearly 32 acres surrounding the terrace, pointing to Iklaina not being merely a confined palace but an entire city, including paved streets and piazzas lined with homes and workshops.
Cosmopoulos’ work in the years since suggests that Iklaina also was part of a two-tiered system of government under the umbrella of the nearby Palace of Nestor. Clay tablets from around 1200 BCE were found at the palace and explicitly mention Iklaina by its ancient name as a district capital in the realm of King Nestor, one of
the legendary kings in Homer’s Iliad. The epic poem also contains a reference to Iklaina using that same name.
“The evidence suggests that at some point in its history, Iklaina was integrated into the territory of the Palace of Nestor, while retaining some of its previous autonomy,” says Cosmopoulos, who in June was inducted into the famed Academy of Athens, considered the highest honor scholars can achieve in their chosen fields of study. “This integration likely resulted from a process of violent annexation, where smaller independent states were absorbed into a larger political entity but allowed to maintain a degree of self-governance.”***
Standing in one of the trenches, brushing dirt loose from the stone walls around him, McCullough started to get a sense of the layout of each structure.
Mycenaean dwellings usually featured a main room in the center called a megaron that was used for receiving visitors or holding feasts or parties, and McCullough found himself imagining what it would have been like to be transported 3,000 years back in time. In his mind, he saw smoke from a central hearth floating up through a hole in the roof. There were people sitting at tables conversing with one another.
“While we can extract and excavate from the ground the things that are in ruin, one thought did come to me – and this is just the musician in me – you can’t extract the sound,” McCullough says. “We will never know exactly the music. We’ll never know the voices. But that gives great opportunity for imagery and imagination – to
imagine what the sounds are, to imagine the voices, to imagine the conversations. In doing so, even though I don’t speak Greek, I have to imagine that in a language that perhaps is foreign to me.”
Cosmopoulos hopes students who spend time at the field school will find themselves connecting with the past and with different cultures in that way.
They spend their evenings attending classes and seminars taught by Cosmopoulos and some of his colleagues that focus on archaeological theory and methods as well as Greek history and culture. The students also have opportunities to tour different archaeological sites, including the Palace of Nestor and the Temple of Zeus in Olympia.
There is downtime too at some of the pristine beaches that surround the Ioanian Sea, and they get the chance to interact with locals and dine on regional cuisine.
The local village even hosted a festival for the students and the rest of the crew on one of their last nights there this summer.
“They all came together and made these traditional foods from scratch, and got singers, and they would dance till all hours of the night,” Bolin says. “When you were there, you danced. It didn’t matter where you came from or who you were. If you were there, you were considered part of the group, and you danced.”
Cosmopoulos believes those exchanges are a crucial part of the experience for students.
“Ultimately, we hope this experience not only enhances their academic and professional skills,” he says, “but also broadens their worldview and creates lasting memories.”
Bolin remains grateful for Cosmopoulos’ help securing funding from the National Science Foundation through its Research Experiences for Undergraduates program. It’s what made her summer at Iklaina possible.
“I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” Bolin says. “I’d do it again and again and again. It gave me a new look on life. I knew that was going to happen when I left, that this was going to be an experience that changes things.”
She’s already plotting a way to return. She plans to spend the academic year working in the Nicholas and Theodora Matsakis Greek Culture Center at UMSL while she completes her bachelor’s degree. She’d like next to pursue a master’s degree in history with an emphasis in museums, heritage and public history and work on another excavation.
McCullough, meanwhile, has already updated his Facebook page to read “retired” from the Iklaina Archaeological Project. But he’s no less appreciative than Bolin for having gone through the experience or what he carried away from it.
“I think every college student, whenever possible, should find a study abroad program,” McCullough says. “My recommendation is going to always be Greece and this particular program because there’s so much more information that you are able to glean, other than the practice of excavating. There are historical dynamics. There’s the appreciation of the mechanics that go along with it, the science of it. And it’s well-rounded. If you go with an open mind, you can see how it applies to anything that you may be pursuing academically. It’s enriching and enlightening and very exciting.”
Left to right: A Mycenaean bowl discovered in the excavation, UMSL student Frederick McCullough in the field, students dancing in the village, aerial photo of the excavation site from the north. (Photos by George Vdokakis and Matt Stirn)
Having Their Say
Through a unique co-design process, UMSL’s Community Innovation and Action Center gives local youth a voice in developing programming at the Saint Louis Zoo’s upcoming WildCare Park.
BY HEATHER RISKE ILLUSTRATION BY MARTY BARAGIOLA
When Akshaya Boopathi’s mom told her about the opportunity to work on a project with the Saint Louis Zoo, she was immediately in. A lifelong animal-lover, the 13-year-old imagined she might be able to help decide what animals to bring to the zoo and jumped at the chance. That wasn’t exactly what Boopathi, an eighth grader at Southwest Middle School, ended up doing over the course of three months earlier this year, but she’s still walking away from the experience feeling energized and excited.
Boopathi teamed up with two dozen other middle school and high school students from across the St. Louis region to develop ideas for youth educational programming they’d like to see at Saint Louis Zoo WildCare Park, the zoo’s new world-class safari park and conservation center slated to open on 425 acres in north St. Louis County in 2027. Through a unique co-design process facilitated by the Community Innovation and Action Center at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, the group of 25 students, ranging in ages from 13 to 18, worked together to brainstorm and workshop ideas. Over just four sessions between April and June, they developed three distinct possible youth programs to offer at the park: Digital Habitats, Nature Race and STEM Animal Tracks.
“I was very impressed with the speed in which they were able to come up with three distinct, polished, well-thoughtout ideas that anybody at any age group would be interested in,” says Rachel Goldmeier, outreach coordinator at CIAC. “They came together, worked as a group and did a magnificent job – each team.”
Within the next 10 years, WildCare Park is expected to generate over $660 million in economic activity across the St. Louis region. In order to more deeply connect the park to surrounding communities, zoo officials decided to not just create a youth program, but to give community members a say in what the program might look like.
“We understand the need to make sure that their voices are heard,” says Jaclyn C. Johnson, the zoo’s assistant director of education. “We don’t want to do cookiecutter programming, taking what we’ve already done at the main campus and then just applying it at WildCare Park. Knowing that all communities are different, we want to build upon the things that they really want and desire and not just what we think that they want to be involved in.”
To deliver on that goal, the zoo tapped CIAC to help create a co-design process to source ideas from students from across St. Louis. A collaborative approach, co-
design is a way to ensure that all voices are heard when designing different products or services by actively involving the people who will use them.
Community engagement is a major focus of CIAC, which seeks to develop knowledge, connections and tools to advance equity across the St. Louis region. The organization was a natural partner to facilitate the co-design process, which was also supported by faculty and staff from the University of Missouri Extension Community Development and Youth Engagement team, including Community Development Specialist Dwayne T. James, 4-H Youth Development Specialist Melissa Scheer and 4-H Youth Program Associate Drachen Koester.
“One thing that we really try to do at CIAC is center community voice and priorities and focus on equity,” says Sara Mohamed, CIAC’s equity and engagement lead. “We have a lot of
projects in which we are engaging either directly with community members or we’re engaging with partners that work with community. This project is kind of a mishmash of those two, because we are engaging directly with community, but we’re also engaging with our partners who do that direct work with community members. It’s something that we really value and is central to our mission.”
There is excitement building about each of the programs to come out of the co-design process.
An on-site class offered over eight sessions during the summer, the Digital Habitats program would offer an immersive learning experience in
which students could learn about animal habitats both virtually and physically. The program would combine handson experiences with WildCare Park staff – think exploring biofacts such as skulls, antlers and pelts or shadowing zookeepers as they feed animals and clean their habitats – with virtual reality experiences that would allow teens to explore habitats they can’t see in person at WildCare Park.
“A lot of the program involves shadowing because we want them to be able to see how the zoo care workers work and then also learn about why these animals are endangered and how you can help them,” says Angela Mahianyu, a rising ninth grader at Westminster Christian Academy who worked on the Digital Habitats team.
Inspired by The Amazing Race, the Nature Race program would feature a competitive race and overnight stay in which teens would research animals and participate in hands-on activities such as a scavenger hunt, building bird feeders and more. In doing so, they’d learn about native wildlife, conservation work at WildCare Park and ways to help protect the environment.
As a member of the Nature Race team, Boopathi drew on both her own love of nature and her experience at sixth grade camp to help come up with fun activities that would keep kids engaged. She enjoyed getting to meet students from across St. Louis through the
program, which she thinks could have a tangible impact on conservation efforts.
“I think it’s important because many animals are going extinct, and many people are polluting and littering outside, which can hurt the animals,” she says.
“For generations to come, I think people should be able to see all these animals, like elephants – I heard they’re going extinct soon, and there’s not many of them left. There are so many other animals that we haven’t seen yet – like out in nature – so I think it’s great that the zoo can bring in more animals so more people can learn about the environment and how we should really take care of it.
Nature’s just beautiful.”
The third program, STEM Animal Tracks, would be a semester-long program designed to teach teens about STEM and how these subjects can be used to help the zoo and its animals. Youth would be able to participate in hands-on activities, such as habitat restoration and other conservation projects, and also receive mentorship and job shadowing experiences from zoo professionals.
Nevaeh Neal, a senior at Hazelwood Central High School and a member of the STEM Animal Tracks team, enjoyed bouncing ideas off fellow students from across St. Louis and getting their perspectives. Growing up in Florissant, Missouri, she’s always found it important to get involved and be a pillar in the community. She appreciated the zoo’s efforts to involve the community –specifically local teens – in the project and empower them to share their ideas.
“I think it’s important to make sure this is something that is serving the people who live there and also the people that I love
“We understand the need to make sure that their voices are heard. Knowing that all communities are different, we want to build upon the things that they really want and desire and not just what we think that they want to be involved in.”
Jaclyn C. Johnson, assistant director of education at the Saint Louis Zoo
and the people who are going to come to our community and have an opinion about it,” she says. “I thought it was really cool how community-oriented [the co-design process] was and how youth-focused it was. It was really based on what we wanted and what our opinions were and how we wanted the zoo to benefit us as young people who live in that community. I thought that was really helpful and also the push that we had to think bigger. It gave us the confidence that our ideas mattered and that they could be brought to life.”
After presenting their ideas and receiving feedback at a community showcase in mid-June, students met with the co-design team one last time in early July to reflect on their experiences through the program and determine what feedback could
be implemented in the park’s eventual programming. The zoo team anticipates that elements from each of the proposed programs will be piloted. They’ve already begun investigating ways to implement VR technology experiences for guests, for instance, and are currently working on next steps.
In addition to developing actionable ideas for the programming at WildCare Park, the zoo team is hoping that the co-design process facilitated by CIAC can serve as a model when developing future programming back at the zoo in Forest Park.
“We’re hopeful this approach of designing programming together with communities is the future of conservation education for the Saint Louis Zoo,” says Amy Niedbalski, the zoo’s director of conservation, audience research and evaluation.
“We know that not every single program that we develop will go through this process, but we all know that this is a best practice, and we’re trying to make this part of our culture as the Conservation Education Department,” Johnson adds. “We know co-design is a good model and
using it for WildCare Park is setting the stage. We’re all learning this process together, and that’s helping us become better educators.”
As CIAC continues to engage with community partners through the St. Louis area, it is also taking lessons from the experience, which it hopes to implement in new co-design models in the future.
“We’ve been really excited to be a part of this and also to see what kind of future collaborations that this could inspire as well,” Goldmeier says. “Being able to see these different groups come together to build programming as a unit and watching that collaboration – how quickly it’s come together – it’s really just a source of pride in what we’ve been able to build as two teams working on something of great importance for the St. Louis community.”
Hidden H istory
Theresa Coble, the E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor of Experiential and Family Education, leads a federal initiative recognizing women’s stories across national parks, lands and programs.
BY BURK KROHE
Last year
, Theresa Coble found herself reaching new heights in an already impressive career.
In May, United States Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland appointed Coble to the National Park System Advisory Board. Coble, the E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor of Experiential and Family Education at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, described the appointment as “the honor of a lifetime.”
Understandably, she thought an “honor of a lifetime” would be difficult to top, but this May, she was presented with yet another extraordinary opportunity. Haaland tapped her to co-chair a committee in response to President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14121 recognizing and honoring women’s history.
“You’re hoping as a board member to do work that influences the future trajectory of our national parks, meets known needs, and speaks to directions that not only an agency, but the whole Department of Interior could pursue,” Coble says. “You don’t know when you take a position on a federal advisory committee whether such opportunities will surface, and yet, in this case they did.”
The Committee on Recognizing Women’s History will work toward improving the recognition of women’s history across federal parks, lands and programs, including through park and national monument designations. Their recommendations will also inform the Department of the Interior’s actions over the next 10 years.
During an event in Washington, D.C. celebrating the initiative, Haaland and National Park Service Director Chuck Sams underscored the importance of recognizing untold, lesser told and purposefully excluded stories.
“The National Park Service is entrusted with using the power of place to tell the story of our country,” Sams said in a press release. “As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and its vision for equal rights and self-determination, the National Park Service is committed to sharing a fuller and more inclusive account of our nation’s history, a history that is not complete until all voices are represented.”
The committee’s preliminary recommendations are due to hit the president’s desk by December – a relatively tight timeline for a federal project. However, if there’s anyone suited to the task at hand, it’s certainly Coble.
Coble, who earned a PhD in forest resources from the University of Minnesota, has dedicated more than two decades to advancing the mission of the National Park Service through interpretation – an educational discipline that helps people pursue meaning-making and facilitates connections at informal learning sites such as national parks, museums and zoos.
She began partnering with the NPS in the 1990s, conducting research and engaging in interpretative project work at more than 25 national parks, including crown jewels such as Arches National Park and Yellowstone National Park. Locally, she’s supported the Gateway Arch National Park as secretary on the board of directors of the Jefferson National Parks Association. The National Association for Interpretation recognized her contributions to the field in 2019, bestowing the organization’s prestigious Fellow Award.
Coble has also transformed the lives of students from all walks of life – including several NPS park rangers – during her tenure at UMSL. After arriving at the university in 2015, she founded the innovative online Heritage Leadership EdD cohort in the College of Education. Under her leadership, students explore topics related to sustainability, social justice and participatory culture, and the program has grown considerably.
In 2022, Coble brought former NPS Director Robert Stanton – the first Black director in the bureau’s history and the first director to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate – to UMSL to serve as a scholar-in-residence in the College of Education, working directly with the doctoral cohort.
“I have enjoyed it immensely,” Stanton says. “It’s a privilege to work with Dr. Coble, who helps students wrestle with our contested heritage while also facilitating experiences for others that deepen understanding, broaden perspectives, and inspire engagement with the world around us. I stand in awe of her energy, her dedication, her intellect and her
Left to right: NPSAB Chair Molly Ward, NPSAB Member Lindsay Robertson, NPSAB Member Theresa Coble, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, NPSAB Member Breece Robertson, NPSAB Member Aja Decoteau, National Park Service Director Chuck Sams III.
leadership toward the development and mentoring of the cohort in Heritage Leadership. It’s a wonderful experience.”
Breece Robertson, a leader in conservation geospatial technology and author of “Protecting the Places We Love,” seconds Stanton’s sentiments. Robertson met Coble serving as a fellow National Park System Advisory Board member and is co-chairing the committee with her. Robertson was immediately drawn to Coble’s openness and her ability to tackle complex issues – useful skills in their current endeavor.
“Theresa’s in-depth knowledge of interpretation and education, and her longtime boots-on-the-ground experience working with communities and the National Park Service on complex and oftentimes difficult issues, are so important to leading this committee,” Robertson says.
“She puts collaboration and partnerships first and foremost and is a great synthesizer of vast amounts of information and data.”
In selecting members for the committee, Coble and Robertson cast a wide net with the aim of bringing a diversity of experience from many sectors, cultures and worldviews to the project.
The committee includes Heather Ahtone, director of curatorial affairs at the First Americans Museum; Tanya Baker, executive director of the National Writing Project; Aja DeCoteau, executive director of the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission; Anna Danziger Halperin, associate director of the Center for Women’s History at the New York Historical Society; Stephanie Hull, president and CEO of Girls Inc.; Robert Keiter, founding director of the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources and the Environment; Arlisha Norwood, assistant professor of history at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore; and Lindsay Robertson, Chickasaw Nation endowed chair emeritus in Native American law and professor emeritus of law, history and Native American studies at the University of Oklahoma.
“How do we make sure that there’s an inclusive narrative that’s being told about women in our nation’s history?”
– Theresa Coble
By including these voices in the decision-making process, Coble hopes to develop recommendations that will allow the committee to accomplish their core charge, “to identify ways to improve the recognition of women’s history” at federal sites nationwide. That will require fundamentally reexamining the status quo.
“What are new strategies that can be used to bring women’s history into more places and help more people become more aware?” Coble says. “The question of untold, lesser told or purposefully excluded stories of women and girls, that’s another focus area for us. How do we make sure that there’s an inclusive narrative that’s being told about women in our nation’s history? Recently, I heard that only about 7% of the content in K-12 history textbooks is about women – and of that, 60% of the passages are about women’s domestic life. This under-representation, and I’d say misrepresentation, leads to societal blind spots about how women have shaped our nation and our public sphere.”
The country’s abundant Indigenous history offers many avenues of exploration, she notes, such as the Haudenosaunee people’s matrilineal kinship system and the influence it had on early suffragettes. The story of sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké – among the first prominent white women to advocate for the abolition of slavery –also comes to mind.
Existing NPS sites offer plenty of opportunities to expand narratives and tell more nuanced stories. Coble points to the country’s many Civil War battlefield sites. Traditionally men – infantry soldiers, generals, politicians – have been featured, but women also played integral roles during that period. They served as civilian volunteers, de facto business managers, nurses and writers, standing in solidarity with their male counterparts.
Connecting sites thematically throughout the country to provide visitors with a fuller picture of history is also an exciting proposition.
“My sense is that we might recommend tying together federal entities that have rich or unique women’s history elements, creating something that’s beyond just a single heritage site, something that nudges people to migrate from site to site to site,” Coble says. “Some things are unique, but some things are cumulative and additive in ways that the sum is greater than its parts. You could design a planned sequence of activities or experiences so that people can move from place to place and each stop adds a new piece, adds some depth and richness, or brings a previous insight into a new context. These thematic ties would etch ever-deeper arcs of awareness into the hearts and minds of visitors.”
Coble believes digital interfaces will be crucial to visitor experiences over the next decade, as well. She sees potential for technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality to supplement more traditional interpretive techniques.
“I love our imagination, and I think there are lots of ways to bring history to life in our mind’s eye,” she says. “AR and VR are pretty cool. In St. Louis, at Gateway Arch National Park, you can explore the stories of three people who had a connection to the 1850s Mississippi riverfront: Anna Hormann immigrated to St. Louis from Bremen, Germany;
James Eads designed a ‘submarine’ to salvage cargo from sunken steamboats; and John Parker was an enslaved dock worker who loaded and unloaded steamboats to make money to buy his freedom. VR makes their stories and that time period come alive.”
Coble and Robertson realize that December will arrive before they know it, but they’re confident in the headway the committee has made. The group is laying the groundwork for recommendations and has heard from subject matter experts in key topic areas.
“I’m really excited to be a part of bringing those untold, lesser known and purposefully excluded stories to light,” Robertson says, “so that girls and women can see themselves in the history of our country and that insight gives them inspiration to continue to be the amazing changemakers that we are.”
Coble knows interpreting those stories from the past –finding value in them – is the best way to build a better future.
“Interpretation is such a powerful discipline,” she says. “It’s a way to connect people with places, events and ideas. Interpretive experiences prompt us to consider more carefully the patterns that play out in our history, the mindsets that have brought us to where we are and the problems we now face. They’re antecedents – the past is prelude – and maybe national parks can help us learn some strategies and approaches to address injustice. Maybe they’ll motivate us to achieve those ideals that we espoused in our founding documents. Or maybe they’ll help us ask more meaningful questions. Better yet, interpretation can reach people at every stage of their life span, and in the modern era, we need lifelong learning.”
From flash flooding to four-day school weeks, UMSL’s ever-expanding Geospatial Collaborative is influencing research all across campus.
BY RYAN FAGAN ILLUSTRATION BY BRITTANY RIEHLMAN
Through foresight and strategic planning, the University of Missouri–St. Louis is positioned to flourish as an integral part of St. Louis’ burgeoning geospatial ecosystem. The university’s primary geospatial goal is carving out a leadership role in developing a workforce pipeline, a need that will be essential with the expected 2026 completion of the National GeospatialIntelligence Agency’s new $1.7 billion facility just outside of downtown St. Louis.
“The government, higher-education institutions and industry leaders are all working together to make St. Louis known as the Silicon Valley of the geospatial world,” says Reda Amer, the director of UMSL’s Geospatial Collaborative. “With NGA opening its new facility here, other companies have either become established or started new branches here in St. Louis, to be within this ecosystem and the opportunities that come with funding from the government and projects with higher education.”
UMSL is a founding member of the Taylor Geospatial Institute, along with lead institution Saint Louis University and the University of Missouri–Columbia, Missouri
University of Science and Technology, Washington University in St. Louis, Harris-Stowe State University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. TGI is a pioneering entity in the geospatial ecosystem, created to drive research, foster collaboration and create lasting impact.
Amer was hired in February 2023 with UMSL’s workforce directive as his top priority, but not his only task. Another primary objective is helping UMSL faculty members across campus understand how to use geospatial tools, including Geographic Information Systems or GIS, to help inform their research and introduce visuals to improve the presentation of that research. His efforts have been met with widespread enthusiasm.
“The place-based aspect of the data is really important,” says Anita Manion, an assistant professor of political science. “GIS allows us not only to understand it, but to illustrate it and show it to others in a way that’s accessible and understandable.”
Missouri Schools
HOURS
MONDAY - THURSDAY 8:05 AM - 2:50 PM
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Understanding impacts of four-day school weeks
In her role as an assistant professor of political science at UMSL, Manion has two primary areas of study – election administration and education policy – and access to geospatial tools to display and convey the results of her research has been indispensable.
Manion has used GIS data to map out campaign contributions in St. Louis, showing that contributions from the Highway 40 corridor greatly influence races over the entire metro area. That data is more impactful when displayed with a map than in a table.
On the education side, Manion is using a grant from the Taylor Geospatial Institute to study the
impacts of the four-day school week on the recruitment and retention of teachers using data from Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. In 2009, Missouri passed legislation allowing school districts to shift from a five-day school week. Districts were slow to make the rather drastic change, but Manion says roughly 30% of school districts in the state, mostly in rural areas, have adopted the condensed schedule.
“We have seen basically a ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ effect,” Manion says. “We have maps that show over the years which districts are the early adapters, and then how that clusters out. Seeing what local districts do and how that
influences other districts is one thing we’re able to illustrate.”
The legislation was initially presented as a cost-saving measure during a time of economic recession, Manion says, but now it’s being used to address teacher shortages.
If the base pay is the same, the theory goes, wouldn’t a four-day work week be more appealing than a five-day work week?
That’s especially important for districts trying to attract teachers in areas such as foreign languages, STEM or special education, where there is not an abundance of candidates.
“We want to understand, are these policies really working?” Manion says. “If perhaps there are some inconveniences or
negative outcomes that families might experience, are you at least getting the benefits that you set out to get? Is it increasing teacher recruitment and retention?
That’s what we’re trying to understand. And yes, of course, we hope that superintendents and state legislators use evidence to help inform their policymaking moving forward. So often we put laws into place and then just move on but don’t stop to actually evaluate the effects.”
Combatting St. Louis’ urban flash flooding threat
Because of the St. Louis region’s geographical location at the meeting of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, creating solutions to mitigate potential flood damage will always be a priority. But the issues created when the great rivers crest well past flood stage are not the only concern.
“Flash flooding is a real problem in the St. Louis area,” says Sanjiv Bhatia, a professor in UMSL’s Department of Computer Science. “There are a lot of creeks, and these creeks get flooded, quickly. They are very localized, and they cause a lot of problems.”
In July 2022, for example, the Upper River Des Peres in University City –which is less than four miles from UMSL’s campus – flooded after record rainfall totals in one 24-hour period. The rising waters caused more than $30 million in damages, and more than 300 homes eventually had to be condemned because of the quickly rising waters.
Bhatia, who started at UMSL just two years before the Great Flood of 1993, is working on using geospatial tools to help identify areas in St. Louis that are most vulnerable to flash flooding. The goal is two-pronged: To influence urban planning by ensuring excess water has safe exit avenues and to create a warning system available to local emergency preparedness agencies. Bhatia is collaborating with Amer and Badri Adhikari, an associate professor in computer science, on this research project, combining their expertise to enhance the precision of the flood vulnerability models and improve their application for real-world mitigation efforts.
JULY 25-26, 2022
9.49 INCHES IN 15 HOURS
50+ RESCUES
$30+ MILLION IN DAMAGES
300+ HOMES CONDEMNED
Bhatia says one key will be getting data from a wide range of sources. Locally, that includes data from the Metropolitan Sewer District, drone surveys, river gauges and other sensors that measure elements like moisture in the soil, and the project will also target sources such as the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellite and Synthetic Aperture Radar data.
“The idea is to feed everything to machine learning algorithms,” Bhatia says. “In particular, CNNs, convolutional neural networks, are good for recognizing the patterns and LSTM, long short-term memory, is the temporal component, the time analysis. We’ll look at all these different factors which may influence or create conditions for flash floods.”
Bhatia is excited about using geospatial tools to help create real solutions for the region.
“We should be able to predict how much rain can cause a problem in different areas,” Bhatia says. “We can also do the simulations with virtual reality equipment we have in the Geospatial Collaborative lab. The whole idea of AI is to fuse all these different components and hopefully find the patterns in there which possibly we might have missed with mathematical models in the past.”
Researching inland waterways’ role in freight resilience
For faculty members in UMSL’s Department of Supply Chain and Analytics, using geospatial tools is a natural fit, so much so that Assistant Professor Trilce Encarnacion developed a course – Data Visualization for Business Applications – for the College of Business Administration in the fall of 2024. Encarnacion has regularly used GIS software to convey the results of her own research, such as when she analyzed food insecurity in St. Louis, working with UMSL student Alissa Oprisoni.
“The method I use is spatial econometrics, where we get those indicators,” she says. “What is the effect that space has on the outcomes? By virtue of being located here, what is your outcome going to be? Within the metro area, there are great disparities. Why? When you look at the data not on a table but in a space, you see what that means.”
Most of Encarnacion’s focus is on disaster and resilience research, which fits with her part of the five-year, $5 million grant the department was awarded by the United States Department of Transportation.
Haitao Li, the supply chain department chair, is coordinating UMSL’s wide-ranging research, which has entered its second year.
Encarnacion is studying the role inland waterways can play in freight resilience, using data primarily from the Commodity Flow Survey, which shows how domestic companies ship raw materials and finished goods and is produced by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Census Bureau. There are roughly 12,000 miles of commercially active inland and intercoastal waterways in the U.S., with almost all of the inland routes in the Midwest and South. St. Louis, at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and not far from where the Ohio River meets the Mississippi, is in the heart of the system.
“I’m very excited because we are going to develop mathematical models and metrics to understand the role that the waterways can play in supply chain resilience,” Encarnacion says. “And we will leverage the geospatial tools to create case studies based on the U.S., the St. Louis region and Missouri in general and even the Midwest.”
Bringing optometry care to underserved populations
Tareq Nabhan’s passion for bringing optometry care to underserved populations has sent him across the globe –he’s served on five of the seven continents – and he’s excited about how geospatial tools have helped, and will continue to help, advance that mission.
An assistant clinical professor in UMSL’s College of Optometry, Nabhan says he’s motivated by finding new ways to incorporate the still-evolving and growing geospatial technology in assisting not only the people who need eye care but students who are studying to become optometrists. “I think that’s our responsibility as the only optometry school in the state,” Nabhan says. “If not us, then who?”
On a very basic level, geospatial mapping tools help pinpoint areas of need – health care deserts, as Nabhan calls them –whether that’s in remote rural areas of Rwanda or urban areas right here at home. Using the geospatial data, maps can also help visualize the barriers to care that exist in different areas, including complications such as transportation or affordability or even things like language, culture, tradition or religion. But that’s only scratching the surface. Nabhan is focused on using geospatial tools to assure quality of care, too.
Through a grant from TGI, Nabhan and his team took on a project aimed at evaluating the accuracy of how artificial
intelligence maps patients’ eyes and identifies multiple diseases – everything from diabetic retinopathy to macular degeneration to glaucoma.
The research showed promise but indicated that more refinement was needed to help AI provide a comprehensive diagnosis. The grant from TGI was the first AI-specific grant for the College of Optometry, one Nabhan hopes opens doors for other researchers in the college.
Nabhan also wants to make UMSL a hub for telehealth diagnostic care, analyzing readings sent in from retinal cameras at locations that don’t have full-care eye centers.
“We want our optometry unit to be the graders of those images,” Nabhan says, “leveraging AI as the initial screening tool, with us as the examination step in that continuity of care. It’s exciting.”
Another project involves developing electronics simulation training tools that can be shared by both optometry and ophthalmology students.
“We’re working with Reda and his team and really leveraging the geospatial experts in developing an extended reality solution for a computer or an iPad or on a smartphone,” Nabhan says.
“And then we want to develop this into a 3D solution with haptic feedback, force feedback, and get that solution to the students everywhere. That’s a global solution. We’re excited. We need to do it. It needs to be done.”
PHYSICS
Mapping global variances in gravitational and magnetic fields
As director of NGA’s Geospatial Artificial Intelligence Application Laboratory, Dawn King is committed to building a bridge between academia and the Office of Geomatics at NGA. King, who earned both her master’s and PhD in physics from UMSL, has collaborated with her former advisor, professor of biophysics Sonya Bahar, to give students from her alma mater an opportunity to learn about geodesy and real work applications to Earthbased modeling.
The current group of UMSL interns at the GAIA Lab includes physics, computer science and math students, along with students from three other local universities. GAIA Lab is housed on the Moonshot Labs floor at the T-REX center, a nonsecure geospatial facility that does not require government clearance, in downtown St. Louis. The primary project the interns are working on is mapping the variances in gravitational and magnetic fields around the globe.
“The Earth is not a perfect sphere, and the fact that it’s not a perfect sphere drives local differences in the gravitational field and local differences in the magnetic field,” Bahar says.
“All of those things are really difficult to map and to study, so one of the major projects that GAIA Lab is focusing on is using artificial intelligence to optimize the mapping of the irregularities in the magnetic field and the gravitational field.”
One of the real-world applications of their work: Helping to improve GPS data, not only as used by government agencies with satellites and bigger-picture projects, but with the map apps that people across the world use every day on smartphones, tablets and laptops.
“Those very subtle differences are critical for GPS accuracy,” Bahar says. “Not only are there mountains and valleys, but it’s slightly flatter at the poles. There are changes in the pressure on the Earth’s crust, even due to things like climate change driving melting of ice sheets, which is going to change the pressure and lead to sea level rise and also changes in pressure on different parts of the globe, which will lead to expansions and contractions. So the fact that it’s not a perfect sphere, for all sorts of complicated reasons, means it’s important to really map every tiny little detail, every single little dip.”
UMSL physics graduates Marlie Mollett and Xavier Gobble are two former GAIA Lab interns who are now working for NGA, and both Bahar and King hope that’s just the start of a productive pipeline of UMSL students entering the geospatial ecosystem.
You Belong
CLASS NOTES
ONE OF US
IN THE
“ QUOTABLE
I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT UMSL STUDENTS ARE ABLE TO GRADUATE AND HAVE THE SUPPORT THEY NEED TO MAKE THAT POSSIBLE. ”
Sheila Burkett, BSBA 1989, was named to the TITAN 100 in St. Louis list for the second year in a row. After a 20-year career at Edward Jones, Burkett moved into entrepreneurship. Over the past 18 years, she has owned a race car business, completed a historic redevelopment of a commercial property in the Gate District in St. Louis and founded Spry Digital, a company that helps businesses grow by designing and developing digital experiences and tools. In addition to serving as CEO of Spry Digital, Burkett helps ensure students have access to resources that can impact their experience by donating to UMSL. “I attended UMSL on a Pell grant and was able to get through in four years with less than $10,000 in debt,” she says. “I want to make sure that UMSL students are able to graduate and have the support they need to make that possible. UMSL students are so important to the St. Louis metro area workforce. Making sure they graduate gives them access to better paying jobs, helps St. Louis employers fill key positions and will result in a growing St. Louis metro area.”
STAY CONNECTED Follow us and share your news and photos at @UMSL.
Sheila Burkett, BSBa 1989
1970s
Richard Winter, MBA 1976, joined the UMSL Chancellor’s Council in July.
Beth Fitzgerald, BSEd 1977, was awarded Businessperson of the Year by the Kirkwood-Des Peres Area Chamber of Commerce.
Lyda KREWSON, BGS
1977, was appointed to the University of Missouri Board of Curators, the governing body of the University of Missouri System’s four campuses, by Gov. Mike Parson. The appointment must be approved by the Senate in 2025. Krewson served as the 46th mayor of the City of St. Louis from 2017 to 2021. She is a certified public accountant and served as the chief financial officer of an international design firm in St. Louis from 1984 until becoming the first female mayor of the city.
1980s
Countess Price, BSAJ 1983, was inducted into Saint Louis University School of Law’s Fleur de Lis Hall of Fame.
Steven Loher, BSBA 1984, began a new position as a comptroller/ office manager with Pundmann Motor Company.
Tim Jordan, BSBA 1986, began a new position as a consulting project manager with Atlas Digital Group.
Dave Reifschneider, BSBA 1988, joined the UMSL Chancellor’s Council in July.
Sam Ganga, MBA 1989, joined the UMSL Chancellor’s Council in July.
Steve O’Loughlin, BSBA 1989, joined the UMSL Chancellor’s Council in July.
1990s
Renee Moore, BSEd 1990, began a new position as athletic director at Duchesne High School.
Wayne DeVeydt, BSAcc 1993, joined the UMSL Chancellor’s Council in July.
Karen Johnson, BSBA 1993, began a new position as a director of experience management with Edward Jones.
Denise Morris, BA 1995, began a new position as a senior information technology business success leader in Phantom Works at Boeing.
Dean Hess, BSBA 1996, began a new position as a team leader with Edward Jones.
Daniel ISOM, BS 1994, MA 2003, PhD 2008, was appointed to the Bi-State Development Board of Commissioners. Isom spent 25 years with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, rising through the ranks to become the city’s 33rd chief of police in October 2008. After retiring in 2013, he returned to UMSL and served as the E. Desmond Lee Professor of Policing and the Community. Isom, who also holds a master’s in public administration from Saint Louis University and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy and the Police Executive Forum Senior Management Institute, continued his career as the executive director of the Regional Justice Information Service and as interim director of public safety for the City of St. Louis. In 2023, he joined Ameren as vice president of corporate safety, security and crisis management. This July, he also joined the UMSL Chancellor’s Council.
Joseph Blanner, BSPA 1998, joined the board of FOCUS St. Louis.
Sarajeni Hammond, BSBA 1998, began a new position as chief human resources officer with AGI.
Gina Jeffries, MEd 1999, began a new position as principal of North Side Community Middle School.
2000s
Brian Bishop, BSEd 2000, was appointed interim superintendent for the Wentzville School District.
Tony Ricker, BSMIS 2000, began a new position as a senior Linux deployment management, integration and automation specialist with Dell Technologies.
Lauren Updike, BSN 2004, began a new position as a population health RN with St. Luke’s Hospital.
Colleen Songer, BSEd 2005, MEd 2010, began a new position as a counselor/therapist with the Academy of St. Louis.
Robert Corder, BSMIS 2006, began a new position as lead business analyst with Enterprise Fleet Management.
Jon Hubach, MPPA 2006, began a new position as a business development consultant with Missouri APEX Accelerator.
Curt McClanahan, BSBA 2006, began a new position as a mid-market account executive - strategic channel partner with Paylocity.
Keith WELDON, BA 1978, MBA 1982, began a new position as a financial literacy lecturer/ trainer with Rockwood School District. Weldon, who retired from CBIZ in December 2023, started his professional career in banking after earning his MBA. His father advised him early in life to take control of his financial future and retirement plans, leading him to an interest in investing. He has taken that good advice and built a noteworthy career. Additionally, he has spent the past 10 years paying it forward by teaching young people about building wealth and the patience it takes to meet your financial goals. “If you want to control your financial future, start young and plan for the long term,” he says. “Don’t try to get rich quickly.”
Zachary Miller, MPPA 2002, was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the U.S. Army. He currently commands the Army’s Modernization Command in Texas.
Corrine Hinton, BA 2003, began a new position as dean of English and Humanities at Lincoln Land Community College.
Evelyn Bailey Moore, BSEE 2003, joined the UMSL Chancellor’s Council in July.
Laura Powers, BSAcc 2003, MBA 2006, began a new position as a manager of accounts receivable with Boeing.
Kelly Griffon, MSW 2004, began a new position as director of business development and contracts with MapHabit.
Kathleen McKittrick, BA 2007, began a new position as a marketing solutions lead with Bayer.
Francis Lam, BS 2007, MBA 2009, began a new position as a senior manager, photography sales and strategy with Canon Canada.
Tracie McKeown, BA 2009, began a new position as an experience communications specialist with Ascension.
2010s
David Barbero, BA 2010, began a new position as an integration developer lead with the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Alta Jadamba, BS 2010, began a new position as an associate banker with JPMorgan Chase & Co.
David Poger, MPPA 2010, began a new position as a senior information technology service management consultant with PPSS 117.
Rob Ridgway, BSBA 2010, began a new position in strategic accounts with Emi Labs.
Kevin Sullivan, BS 2010, began a new position as a senior lab manager with Boeing.
Kenya Williams, BSN 2010, began a new position as chief executive officer of the National Student Nurses’ Association. This fall, she was also inducted into the American Academy of Nursing.
Keith Yavorski, BS 2010, began a new position as a configuration management engineer with Boeing.
Matthew Davis, BS 2011, BA 2011, began a new position as a personal services counselor with Together Credit Union.
Jeff Ponder, BA 2011, began a new position as a senior content strategist with Material.
Doug Hammerstroem, MS 2012, PhD 2015, began a new position as an analytical lab manager with Boeing Research & Technology.
Syed Jawad, BSBA 2012, began a new position as director of ethics and compliance with Activision Blizzard.
Steven Kraml, BSBA 2012, MBA 2018, DBA 2023, began a position as a robotic process automation manager with CSI Leasing, Inc.
Marie Steinbach, MBA 2012, began a new position as a licensed massage therapist with Quality Life Chiropractic & Massage, P.A.
Jennifer Barlass Amatya, MPPA 2013, began a new position as an English as a Second Language instructor with Bossier Parish Community College.
Alex Clark, MEd 2013, became the assistant principal at Kirkwood High School.
Melissa Ehmke, MSN 2013, DNP 2018, began a new position as an assistant professor of nursing with the Goldfarb School of Nursing at Barnes-Jewish College.
Samuel J. Fredeking, BA 2013, MBA 2017, began a new position as a human resources manager with HTH Companies, Inc.
what is the best advice you ever received?
Jeff Hutsler, BSME 2014, began a new position as director of engineering with Nidec Motor Corporation.
Courtney Kalapinski, BA 2014, began a new position as a legal administrative specialist with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
April Tibbs, BSIS 2014, began a new position as an engineer with Edward Jones.
Holly Wright, BA 2014, began a new position as a procurement agent III with Boeing.
Taylar Heaton, BSBA 2015, began a new position as a client experience manager with PLNK Fitness.
Ernie Moretti, MBA 2015, began a new position as a program director with Boeing.
Kent Morgan, BS 2015, began a new position as a lead reliability engineer with Bristol Myers Squibb.
Haris Ceranic, BSBA 2016, began a new position as a digital product owner with Edward Jones.
Emily Colmo, BA 2016, began a new position as an assistant professor of history at Lindenwood University.
Anthony Cope, BSBA 2016, began a new position as an investment adviser with Craigs Investment Partners.
Rachel Dougherty, BA 2016, began a new position as a paralegal with DJC Law.
Patrick Hogg, MBA 2016, began a new position as a senior director of marketing with Nidec Motor Corporation.
Shayla Jackson, BSBA 2016, began a new position as a commercial credit analyst II with First Bank.
IT’S NOT ABOUT HOW MANY TIMES YOU GET KNOCKED DOWN; IT’S ABOUT MAKING SURE YOU ALWAYS GET BACK UP. YOU CAN’T BEAT SOMEONE WHO REFUSES TO QUIT. BE THE PERSON WHO REFUSES TO QUIT.
Lathon C. Ferguson BA 2003
Jami Hirsch, BLS 2013, MA 2015, began a new position as a communications and volunteer coordinator with Flance Early Learning Center.
Jill Rogers, MBA 2013, began a new position as an operations manager/ executive assistant with John Ward Economics.
Ben Taylor, BSAcc 2013, MAcc 2014, began a new position as a controller with the St. Louis Equity Fund, Inc.
Andrew Berhorst, BSBA 2014, BSAcc 2023, began a new position as chief financial officer with Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition.
Darian Cartharn, BA 2014, began a new position as a clinical sales manager with Intuitive.
Nicole Nelson, BSBA 2015, began a new position as a fleet administrator with RSI Logistics, Inc.
Alex Stoll, BSBA 2015, began a new position as a senior finance manager with Boeing.
Jason Bedwinek, BS 2016, MS 2018, began a new position as a research lab supervisor with Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Alex Bolen, BSBA 2016, began a new position as a manager of settlement operations with Mastercard.
Hannah Miller, BFA 2016, began a new position as a senior product designer with World Wide Technology. Ammar Tineh, BSBA 2016, began a new position as an account manager with WUDUH.
Paul Wareheim, BSEE 2016, began a new position as an engineer III with Qaulus.
Audri Adams, BA 2017, MA 2020, was named the National Academic Advising Association’s Region 7 Award winner for Excellence in Advising. Austin Fischer, BSAcc 2017, MAcc 2019, began a new position as a tax manager with Armanino LLP.
Christina Floyd, BA 2017, began a new position as a senior supervisor in raw materials laboratory with Kindeva Drug Delivery.
Nicholas VIDAL, BS 2015, began a new position as a manager of RPS Data Warehouse User Experience with U.S. Bank. Vidal began his career as a data analyst before becoming a data manager. Acting in these roles, he was able to gain experience as both the primary data user and the person managing the data for the user, preparing him for his promotion to manager of user experience. He is excited about the opportunity to exercise and grow his individual management and leadership skills in his new role. He is grateful to UMSL for the lessons on multivariable regression equations – not just for the mathematics of them, but for the concepts and logic they taught him about keeping multiple variables, and the weight they hold, in mind when facing challenges. His advice to current students is to slow down and avoid putting so much on your plate that you lose your focus.
ONE OF US
Miranda Ming has dedicated her career in education to inspiring young people and removing barriers to their success. She was uncertain of her career path when she transferred to the University of Missouri–St. Louis for her second year of college, but she found an environment that made her feel seen. She related to other students who, like her, had competing priorities. She went on to earn four degrees from UMSL, participating in campus activities such as gospel choir and the Student Life Association as a student, and continues to stay involved on campus as an Alumni Association Board member and a donor. As an educator, Ming has touched thousands of lives and helped students unlock their potential. She served in administrative leadership at Jennings High School and EAGLE College Prep before becoming executive director of Momentum Academy in St. Louis. During her years at Jennings, she worked to create the CLIMB program at UMSL, which brings the university together with local high schools to reduce the opportunity gap facing underfunded districts. She also co-authored “The Path Less Traveled: Creating Authentic STEM Career Pathways by Removing Barriers for Underestimated Youth.”
The book explores how schools, universities and corporations can create the conditions for more youth to realize their potential and poses that, once exposed to STEM or any career field, students from any background can achieve success that may have once seemed impossible.
– Melissa Landry
Miranda Ming, BSEd 2008, MEd 2010, EDSP 2011, PhD 2015
HOMETOWN: St. Louis CURRENT LOCATION: St. Louis OCCUPATION: Executive director of Momentum Academy
WHAT HAS BEEN THE MOST SURPRISING THING TO COME FROM THE CLIMB PROGRAM?
Over 80% of program interns pursue careers in STEM, many at UMSL, and graduate from college within four years.
YOU’VE SPOKEN TO THE IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATORS HAVING A COMMUNITY. WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO NEW EDUCATORS LOOKING TO BUILD A SUPPORT SYSTEM?
Look for those who are driven to the purpose of the work and those who can help coach and develop you to truly be great. Find teachers and leaders who are not satisfied with the current status quo in education.
Finally, find people who have receipts – student data to prove they can provide results in literacy, math or their selected content area.
WHAT LESSONS FROM UMSL HAVE HELPED YOU ALONG THE WAY?
No one ever does anything alone.
WHAT IS SOME OF THE BEST ADVICE YOU HAVE RECEIVED?
Listen more than you speak.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO YOU TO SUPPORT UMSL?
UMSL is a gateway, by location and infrastructure, to other opportunities, whether it be through career opportunities, certifications, grants for entrepreneurship or a degree. You can choose your path.
Jessiree Jenkins, BSPPA 2017, began a new position as Midwestern regional director with FoodCorps.
Mohamed Langi, BSIS 2017, MBA 2020, began a new position as a senior principal consultant with Slalom.
Aidan Leisti, BSAcc 2017, MAcc 2021, began a new position as an internal audit supervisor with Enterprise Mobility.
Jordan Lucas, BS 2017, MA 2019, began a new position as an economist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engineering Center.
Sarah An Myers, BA 2017, MA 2021, began a new position as a writer with Talkiatry.
Nathan Theus, BA 2017, MA 2019, began a new position as a manager in CS&S Trader Services with Charles Schwab.
Tony Withouse, BS 2017, began a new position as a digital marketing manager with St. James Winery.
Chris Zuver, BLS 2017, began a new position as a docket manager with Gamache & Myers PC.
Elijah Alexander, BSBA 2018, began a new position as an account manager with Grainger.
Christopher Chandler, BSIS 2018, began a new position as a senior software engineer with Avalon Healthcare Solutions.
Saha Cilic, BSBA 2018, MBA 2022, began a new position as a senior verification letter specialist in compliance with Edward Jones.
Laura Cope, BSBA 2018, began a new position as a branch manager with Enterprise.
Colin Kinkade, BSPPA 2018, MPPA 2021, began a new position as an assistant director with the Municipal League of Metro St. Louis.
Amanda Mann, BES 2018, began a new position as a parent educator with Harmony-Emge School District #175.
Emese Mattingly, BA 2018, began a new position as a salesforce administrator II with Lutheran Church Extension Fund.
Jennifer Reyes, BSAcc 2018, began a new position as a senior client accounting manager with Cushman & Wakefield.
Katy Robertson, MBA 2018, began a new position as director of development for Rx Outreach.
ALUMNI NEWS
Wayne DeVeydt and Warner Baxter receive honorary doctorate degrees
The honorary doctorate degree is the highest form of recognition offered by the University of Missouri–St. Louis to persons of exceptional distinction. The two most recent recipients are Managing Director of Bain Capital Wayne DeVeydt, BSAcc 1993, who received Doctor of Humane Letters in December 2023, and retired Ameren Chairman and CEO Warner Baxter, BSBA 1983, who received Doctor of Business Administration Honoris Causa in May 2024.
DeVeydt and Baxter have a lot in common. Both are leaders in their industry – Baxter in energy and DeVeydt in finance – and both are UMSL alums, as well as the first members of their families to attend college. They are generous, not just supporting philanthropic initiatives financially but also giving of their time and knowledge to help nonprofit organizations move their missions forward, making an impact in St. Louis and around the world.
What are some life lessons that you can share with students and alumni to find success and fulfillment in their own careers?
BAXTER: One of the biggest career and life lessons that has made a huge difference in my life is recognizing the importance of preparation –or, better said, having a preparation mindset. I am a big believer in the concept that success comes about when preparation meets opportunity.
DEVEYDT: It may sound a bit cliché, but success and fulfillment comes from your own life journey and the ability to look back on the impact you had on the lives of others. The
titles you earn will someday be forgotten. The promotions and awards you receive will no longer matter when we leave this earth. But the lives you impact will be a true testament to the quality of the life you lived and the fulfillment and contentment you will hopefully achieve. Unfortunately, this means that success and fulfillment are difficult to measure in the near/medium term. It is a journey that requires real grit and perseverance. The ability to ‘keep showing up’ even when you don’t want to anymore. It is a very simple solution to success and fulfillment, but hard to do.
Why is it important to find ways to make an impact?
BAXTER: Many of my greatest joys and accomplishments have been while I am giving back my time, my talent and/or my treasures to others. The smile you put on peoples’ faces, the stress points you relieve, the tears you wipe away, are priceless.
DEVEYDT: Recognizing that the impact you will have on this world cannot be measured with today’s good feeling or deeds, but will be measured by the impact others will have on this world because of you and how you interacted with others, is a very powerful thought to leverage in your daily life. Finding a way, each and every day, to do a simple kind deed will vastly impact your own personal development and more importantly, the lives of others. There is no greater testament to a life well-lived than to have lived it as a kind, servant leader.
Zachary Smith, BSPAA 2018, MBA 2020, began a position as a hearing care practitioner with Beltone Alliance.
Yibei Wang, BSAcc 2018, MSAcc 2021, MS 2021, began a new position as a U.S. Consulate tax associate with KPMG China.
Shadi Zarghami, BSBA 2018, began a new position as an acquisition associate with Northridge Toyota.
Alisha Acosta, MSW 2019, began a new position as director of quality and compliance with FamilyForward.
Nicholas Badolato, BA 2019, began a position as a logistics support specialist with American Piping Products.
Connor Barry, BA 2019, began a new position as a safety administrator with Tri-National, Inc.
Jelena Basara, BSW 2019, MSW 2021, began a new position as a client access specialist with Compass Health Network.
Parker Bunch, BSBA 2019, began a new position as an outside sales representative with Source One Staffing, Inc.
Justin Cather, BSBA 2019, began a new position as a supply base manager with Boeing.
Eric Dust, BSBA 2019, began a new position as a senior project manager with Boeing.
Jonathan Gabler, BS 2019, began a new position as a staff engineer with Booz Allen Hamilton.
Raúl Macias, BA 2019, began a new position as an English educator with Da Vinci Schools.
Rachel Macy, BS 2019, began a new position as an inside sales account manager with MilliporeSigma.
Sanid Nukic, BSBA 2019, began a new position as a financial analyst with Amdocs.
Brandon Perkins, BS 2019, began a new position as assistant vice president/escalations specialist for Wells Fargo Advisors.
Kimberley Preston, BSBA 2019, MEd 2021, began a new position as an elementary school teacher with the Mehlville School District.
Hannah Serafino, BM 2019, began a new position as an executive assistant in the President’s Office at Maryville University.
Tyler Smith, BSAcc 2019, MAcc 2021, began a new position as a senior auditor with EY.
2020s
Michael Brothers, BSBA 2020, began a new position as a supply chain analyst with Nextracker Inc.
Stephanie Daniels, BS 2020, began a new position as a CMS specialist with Moosylvania.
Tiffany Daniels, BS 2020, began a position as an executive assistant with Jefferson County, Missouri.
Jackson Dvorak, BSBA 2020, began a new position as an acquisitions associate with AA Medical.
Selmedin Esmerovic, BSBA 2020, began a new position as a universal banker with CIBC.
Kimberlyn Holman, BA 2020, began a new position as a senior admissions representative with Miller-Motte College.
Christy Ivory, BSW 2020, MSW 2022, began a new position as a clinical social worker with Mercy.
Ryan Ly, BSBA 2020, began a new position as a quality assurance specialist with Medix Biochemica.
Robert (Bob) O’Neill, BSME 2020, began a position as a project engineer with Grumman|Butkus Associates.
Marina Prediger, BSBA 2020, MBA 2022, began a new position as an internal auditor with Lenovo.
David Schmidt, BSBA 2020, began a position as a senior sales execution specialist with Centene Corporation.
Ashma Singh, BSIS 2020, MS 2021, began a new position as a project manager with RapidFire Safety & Security.
Casey Ward, MSW 2020, began a new position as a grants and contracts coordinator with Children’s Advocacy Services of Greater St. Louis.
Christopher Arellano, BSBA 2021, began a new position as a client services group manager with Fisher Investments.
Jessica ETIM, BSW 2021, MSW 2023, began a new position as a case manager with Mercy. While in the BSW program at UMSL, Etim completed her practicum at UMSL’s Student Advocacy and Resource Center with Robin Kimberlin and Shereka Kemp. During the practicum, she learned how to assess and address the needs of students who were facing challenges that impacted their ability to focus on school. Etim furthered her knowledge and experience working as a basic needs support specialist for St. Louis Community College, a role in which she provided case management assistance to underserved students. She learned how to develop a strong rapport with the individuals on her caseload, bringing compassion and a commitment to expanding services to meet needs. In her new position, Etim enjoys providing high-quality social work services to her patients and their families with complex needs in ways that aid in their everyday lives.
LeAnn Johnson, BSBA 2020, began a new position as a TESS lead with RSM US LLP.
Kellen King, BSBA 2020, began a position as a product analytics manager with Franke Foodservice Systems.
Mary Kosta, BA 2020, began a new position as a healthcare recruiter with Amergis Healthcare Staffing.
Kayla Lake, BSW 2020, MSW 2022, began a position as a medical social worker with SSM Health at Home.
Dustin Barton, BS 2021, began a new position as an associate data analytics and metric integration quality engineer with Boeing.
Anna Bass, BS 2021, began a position as a quality control analyst with Pivot Bio.
Amber Brown, BLS 2021, began a new position as a clinical supervisor with Mercy.
what do you know now that you wish you knew as a student?
I WISH I KNEW JUST HOW IMPORTANT INTERNSHIPS ARE. FROM MY CORPORATE EXPERIENCE, I’VE LEARNED THAT COMPANIES ARE MORE INTERESTED IN YOU GROWING AND DEVELOPING FROM AN EARLY AGE. HAVING BOTH A GOOD NETWORK AND INTERNSHIP WILL SET YOU APART FROM MOST OF THE COMPETITION. AFTER WHICH, IF YOUR PERFORMANCE IS UP TO PAR, THE SKY IS LITERALLY THE LIMIT.
Brandon Perkins, BS 2019
McKenna Burst, MBA 2021, began a new position as an assistant brand manager in marketing with Nestlé Purina North America.
Daniel Dyszlewski, MS 2021, began a new position as a project manager with MilliporeSigma.
Ginger Edwards, BM 2021, began a new position as a music educator with the Ritenour School District.
Jason Ellard, MS 2021, began a new position as director of Cybersecurity Architecture and Operations with Post Holdings.
Nicole Faulkerson, BSBA 2021, began a new position as a senior IT service management analyst with HealthEquity.
Olivia Frank, BA 2021, began a new position as a NICU family support program coordinator with the March of Dimes.
Haley Geiser, BSBA 2021, began a position as a quality engineer with Gulfstream Aerospace.
Michelle Tamara McCarthy, BS 2021, began a position as a financial analyst with Bank of America.
Todd Merrifield, BSBA 2021, began a position as a warehouse coordinator with Andon Specialties, Inc.
Kush Modi, BSAcc 2021, began a new position as a multi-state tax consultant with Deloitte.
Bharath Mukka, MS 2021, began a new position as a senior security signature engineer with Qualys.
Kirsten Pfitzner, BSBA 2021, began a new position as a senior specialist with Anheuser-Busch.
Lucas Rachocki, BSBA 2021, began a new position as a customer success manager with Elsevier.
UMSL Alumni Association honors Distinguished Alumni
1
At the Founders Celebration on Sept. 26, the UMSL community came together to celebrate distinguished alumni and outstanding philanthropists. At the event, the UMSL Alumni Association presented the Distinguished Alumni Award to 1 - Jerry Dunn, MA 1997, PhD 2002; 2 - Timothy P. Green, BSBA 1990; and 3 - Richard Winter, MBA 1976, for their contributions to their respective fields and their continued
Madison Grady, MS 2021, began a new position as a senior scientist with bioMerieux.
Nichole Guysick, BSBA 2021, began a new position as an office manager with Generator Supercenter.
Samantha Howse, BA 2021, began a new position as a program manager in recruitment marketing strategy with BAYADA Home Health Care.
Kevin Kaleta, BSBA 2021, began a position as a solution architect with Moneta.
Kayla Kapral, BS 2021, began a new position as a natural resource ecologist with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
Madison Kukic, BSEd 2021, began a new position as an operations lead with Faith Group, LLC.
Miguel Maisterra, BSBA 2021, began a position as a wealth management advisor with Banorte Securities.
Seth Malinee, BSAcc 2021, MAcc 2023, began a new position as a staff accountant with Holt and Patterson.
Killian Standish, BSBA 2021, began a new position as a department supervisor with H&M.
Madison Turnbeaugh, BSBA 2021, began a new position as an admissions database coordinator with Logan University.
Jessica Vallecillo, BSN 2021, began a new position as an RN in the Women’s Specialty Unit with the Methodist Healthcare System.
Candace Wiley, BLS 2021, began a position as an accounts payable specialist II with Spectrum Brands, Inc. Almetris Wright, BS 2021, began a new position as a quality control chemist with Vi-Jon.
2
Kelly Regel, BSBA 2021, began a new position as a fraud operations specialist with Citi.
Clayton Risch, BA 2021, began a new position as an account manager with Actalent.
Paige Schmittling, BES 2021, began a position as an outpatient therapist with Chesterfield Counseling Associates.
Adam Schoedel, MEd 2021, began a new position as a middle school teacher, athletic director and coach with Immanuel Lutheran School.
Armin Sehovic, BSBA 2021, began a new position as a disbursement coordinator with Cushman & Wakefield.
Cassie Esswein, MSW 2022, began a new position as a contracts manager with FamilyForward.
Bryce Kulinski, BSME 2022, began a position as a structural test and evaluation engineer with Boeing.
Nicole Lajun, BS 2022, began a new position as a forensic review analyst with Watchtower Security.
Kait Murphy, BS 2022, began a position as a technical scientist with Chemia Corporation.
Paul Niemann, DBA 2022, began a new position as a teaching assistant professor in sales and marketing with the University of Arkansas.
3
4
commitment to UMSL. The Outstanding Young Alumni Award was presented to 4 - Evan Garrad, BS 2017. These awards are given to esteemed alumni to recognize distinction in their professional accomplishments and their service to the community while embodying the core values of UMSL. Through their efforts, they transform lives in St. Louis and beyond as they work to improve the world around them.
Ryan Younger, BSBA 2021, began a new position as a transport specialist with Consumer Product Partners.
Abby Anderson, BSN 2022, began a new position as a department coordinator/registered nurse for SSM Health.
Nicholas Bartman, BSIS 2022, began a new position as a data infrastructure engineer with ACR Alpine Capital Research, LLC.
Sidra Chaudhry, BSBA 2022, began a new position as a securities operations specialist with Wells Fargo Advisors.
Jonathan Cochrum, BSBA 2022, began a new position as a marketing assistant with McCarthy Building Companies, Inc.
In Memoriam
Justice Ragsdale, BS 2022, began a new position as a process engineer with Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Marissa Robertson, BES 2022, began a new position as quality assurance coordinator with Willows Way.
Corlia Spears, BSBA 2022, began a new position as a recruitment coordinator with the University of Missouri–St. Louis College of Business Administration.
Tango Walker, EdD 2022, began a new position as director of student services with St. Louis Catholic Academy.
Matthew Argent, BA 2023, began a position as a field marketing representative with Techtronic Industries.
Cam’meya Banks, BS 2023, began a position as a special education teacher with Supplemental Health Care.
Erin Bess, BA 2023, began a position as a community support specialist with Compass Health Network.
Deylan Bremer, BSAcc 2023, began a new position as a donation attendant with MERS/Goodwill.
Jamie Casagrande, BS 2023, began a new position as a quality laboratory technician with NCERC at SIUE.
Kenna Gottschalk, BA 2023, began a new position as a member experience coordinator with Gainey Ranch Golf Club.
Priyanka Gugulothu, MS 2023, began a new position as a data engineer with N2 Cloud LLC.
Reoki Hasama, MS 2023, began a position as a purchasing coordinator with Mutual Trading Co., Inc.
Trey Ruckman, BSBA, MBA 2023, began a new position as a supply chain analyst with Bunge.
Kimberly Sanchez-Portillo, BS 2023, began a new position as an education case manager with the Jewish Vocational Service of Kansas City.
Josie Santel, BA 2023, began a new position as a personal trainer with Integrity Training Systems.
Kristen Stadler, MS 2023, began a new position as a formulation senior research associate with NewLeaf Symbiotics, Inc.
Mollie Torres, BM 2023, began a position as a front-end developer with Seventh Harmony Marketing LLC.
Faith Van Horn, BSN 2023, began a new position as a pediatric registered nurse with University of Missouri Health Care.
Jarchelle Williams, BSAcc 2023, began a position as an accounting transaction analyst with Boeing.
Shelley Berry, BA 2024, began a new position as an alumni and annual giving associate with the University of Missouri–St. Louis.
Taylor Cook, MPPA 2024, began a position as director of development with Covenant House Missouri.
Larenz Taylor, MPPA 2024, began a new position as a management analyst with the City of McKinney.
Indushree Channasagar Venkatesh Murthy, MAcc 2024, began a new position in assurance with EY.
WHERE IN THE WORLD?
Kenya Williams has a deep love and appreciation for St. Louis and its special charm. “When asked where home is, I always respond that I live in New York City but St. Louis, Missouri, raised me,” she says. “While New York has been an exciting new chapter, St. Louis will always hold a special place in my heart.” Williams moved to New York to join the National Student Nurses’ Association as the director of governance and policy. She was inspired and excited about the opportunity to make an impact on the future of nursing education while supporting student nurses on a national scale. The role has since transitioned into her current position as CEO, and she continues to drive the mission of NSNA forward while positively influencing the nursing community. With experience living and working in New York, she shares her recommendations for a few can’t-miss items to add to your travel itinerary. – Melissa Landry
WHERE TO STAY
I’d recommend the Upper West Side for its balance of residential tranquility and access to cultural attractions. It’s a wonderful place to call home when you’re new to the city. For first-time visitors, staying in Midtown Manhattan is an excellent choice to be close to iconic landmarks like Times Square, Broadway theaters and Central Park.
MUST-SEE
ATTRACTIONS
The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Central Park are absolute must-sees. The blend of art, history and nature offers an iconic New York experience. Additionally, taking a stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge is a must, offering breathtaking views of the skyline and a sense of the city’s grandeur. Don’t miss Jane’s Carousel in Brooklyn Bridge Park for a charming and nostalgic ride with stunning views of the East River and Manhattan. Another must-visit is the Apollo Theater in Harlem, which is not only a historic landmark but also a cultural cornerstone where you can experience incredible live performances and the rich history of African American contributions to music and entertainment.
HIDDEN GEMS
The Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park is a hidden gem that many people miss. It’s part of the Met and offers a serene escape with beautiful medieval art and architecture. Another hidden gem is the Staten Island Ferry, which provides stunning views of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline – all for free. Additionally, visitors can enjoy a unique ride on the Roosevelt Island Tramway, offering spectacular aerial views of the city as they travel to Roosevelt Island, where they can experience unique views of the city and a peaceful atmosphere away from the hustle and bustle.
FOOD TO TRY
You can’t leave New York without trying a classic New York slice from Joe’s Pizza and a bagel with lox from Russ & Daughters. But don’t stop there – the food scene here is incredibly diverse. Make sure to experience the Greek flavors in Astoria, Queens, where you can enjoy authentic gyros and souvlaki. The city’s culinary landscape is an adventure in itself, with endless delicious discoveries around every corner.
FAVORITE THING ABOUT NEW YORK SO FAR
My favorite thing about New York is the cultural diversity. The city is a melting pot of backgrounds and experiences, which creates a uniquely rich and inspiring environment. Additionally, the endless entertainment options, from the dazzling Broadway shows to live music, art galleries and street performances, make every day an adventure. There’s always something new and exciting to explore.
WHAT YOU LOVE MOST ABOUT WORKING IN NEW YORK
I love the innovative spirit and drive that defines the professional landscape here. The collaboration and ideas that flow through the city are unparalleled, making every day an inspiring challenge.
with Kenya Williams, BSN 2010
REWIND
Free spirits
In this photo circa the 1970s-1980s, University of Missouri–St. Louis students take a breezy ride through campus in a convertible Volkswagen Beetle. Have a favorite photo from your days at UMSL? Share it with us at magazine@umsl.edu.
The UMSL Scholarship Fund opens doors for students to pursue their academic dreams, and you can, too. Every dollar given in support of scholarships helps students get one step closer to the future they aspire to for themselves and their families. Your generosity can help ease financial stress and reduce barriers that keep a student from continuing their academic journey. You can transform lives. Please support the UMSL Scholarship Fund today.
