Wright State
WRIGHT STATE BASKS IN RARE SOLAR ECLIPSE
In April, Wright State University was a prime viewing location for the 2024 Great North American Eclipse, a rare event with Ohio last seeing a total eclipse in 1806 and not expecting another until 2099. The university, especially the Lake Campus in Celina, experienced nearly four minutes of total darkness, attracting thousands. Wright State organized a festive gathering with food trucks, live music, and solar telescopes, ensuring a memorable experience for students and the community. Brad Kerry, president of the Wright State Astronomical Collaboration, said the excitement and educational opportunities the event provided reflected the university’s commitment to making astronomy accessible and engaging for all.
PRESIDENT
Susan Edwards, Ph.D.
PRESIDENT AND CEO, WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION
R. Scott Rash
VICE PRESIDENT FOR ADVANCEMENT
Bill Shepard, ’91, ’15
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALUMNI RELATIONS
Greg Scharer
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING
Mark D. Anderson ’09
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, ALUMNI AND DONOR MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS
Brooke Johnson Leppla ’05, ’11
PROJECT MANAGER
Dennis Bova
DESIGN
Boom Crate Studios
ASSISTANT EDITORS
Andrew Call
Matthew Hinds ’10
CONTRIBUTORS
Dennis Bova
Sarah Cavender ’20
Amanda J. Earnest-Reitmann
Jessica Graue ’04, ’09
Micah Karr ’19
Kara Lynch ’17
Bob Mihalek
Kim Patton
Teresa Richter
Greg Scott
Anthony Shoemaker ’98
Jane Wildermuth
Chris Wydman ’94, ’97
PHOTOGRAPHY
Erin Pence
Chris Snyder
Savannah Payne Photography
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Seth Bauguess ’13
Emily ‘Bing’ Bingham ’16
Amy Jones ’06
Kathy Kuntz
Elaine Pruner
Cristie Scharer
Dave Stuart ’04
Wright State
Alumni Association Board
Wright State University Foundation Board
This is a publication of the Wright State University Foundation and the Wright State Alumni Association for the alumni, donors, and friends of Wright State University.
Submit information, comments, and letters to:
Wright State Alumni Association 3640 Colonel Glenn Highway Dayton, Ohio 45435
937-775-2620 magazine@wright.edu
STEM-focused
Bevin Duckett is a Wright State mechanical engineering alumna and flight software engineer on a NASA probe bound for Europa. Clintoria Williams is an awardwinning associate professor of neuroscience, cell biology, and physiology, and a renal physiologist working at the forefront of chronic kidney disease research. Hany Elemary is a Wright State graduate and entrepreneur making strides in the world of AI automation.
What do they have in common? All are proud members of our Wright State community, but also excel in critical STEM fields shaping our collective future. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, as there are many more talented Wright State individuals just like them making a difference in our world.
Raiders and Lakers are working with sensors, super-computing, broad data networks, semiconductor manufacturing, microelectronics, and artificial intelligence. Dayton and Lake Campus practitioners, researchers, and students are moving the needle in cancer research, neuroscience, cell biology and physiology, PTSD clinical trials, pregnancy research, and environmental science. Wright State alumni are working in biotech, healthcare, environmental agencies, and the defense industry, among many others.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has called STEM careers “tomorrow’s jobs.” Today, they are areas of study with immense importance and impact. Wright State produces the STEM workforce of this region, and our graduates and faculty are highly regarded and recognized nationally and internationally.
In this issue, you will learn more about how the university observed, experienced, and educated students and the community during a breathtaking celestial event, the 2024 total solar eclipse.
We’ll also introduce you to prominent alumni like Lt. Gen. Michael Guetline, commander of Space Systems Command for the U.S. Space Force. Guetline manages the research, design, development, acquisition, launch, and sustainment of satellites and their associated command and control systems.
Take a spin on the track with alums Beth and Todd Hanning and STEMWERX, their
mobile education laboratory that provides advanced technology education opportunities and develops engineering design and dataanalysis education events with auto racing and aerospace themes.
Maybe you have heard of the Apple iPhone, Google Glass, or the Oculus Quest? Meet the Wright State mechanical engineering alum who helped build these industry-defining products, Srinivas Mellacheruvu, director of manufacturing operations at Meta.
I also hope you’ll take time to read about the impressive impact our graduates are having locally in the critically important field of organ donation. And, because it’s summer, it’s time for a trip to the lake! Immerse yourself in Life at the Lake, a feature about Lake Campus environmental sciences students tackling real-world problems while studying along the shores of Grand Lake St. Marys.
Wright State is the home of STEM education in this region, and I am excited to highlight just a few of these impressive stories. I am sure you will agree—great things are happening at Wright State!
Best wishes,
Sue Edwards, Ph.D. President @WSUPrezSue
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WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Linda Black-Kurek ’78, CHAIR
Rob Weisgarber ’77, VICE CHAIR
Loghan Young ’18, ’ 20, SECRETARY
Kristina Kean ’96, TREASURER
R. Scott Rash, FOUNDATION PRESIDENT & CEO (ex-officio)
BOARD MEMBERS
Anupam Bedi ’97, ’99
Dr. Samia Borchers ’81
Chris Brookshire ’11, ’14
Michael Clark ’88
Roberta Cornist-Bordeneau (university student representative)
Michael Daniels
David Deptula ’80 (immediate past chair)
Holly Di Flora
David Donaldson ’88
Susan Edwards, Ph.D. (ex-officio)
Doug Fecher
Karla Garrett Harshaw ’84, ’13
Janet Heppard ’81
Doug Hull ’75, ’78, ’85
Julie Jacobs ’04
Peter Julian ’71
Vercie Lark ’86
Gary McCullough ’81
Hernan Olivas
Randy Phillips ’82
Dr. Thomas Proctor ’85
Sharon Honaker Rab ’75
Bob Reynolds ’88
Dr. Michael Robertson ’11, ’14, ’16
Danielle Rolfes ’97
Tom Sheehan
Matthew Watson ’07
Brittany Whiteside ’06
WRIGHT STATE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Christopher Brookshire ’11, ’14, PRESIDENT
Amanda Opicka ’ 07, ’ 07, VICE PRESIDENT
Mary Murphy ’89, SECRETARY
Keith Meyer ’01, TREASURER
BOARD MEMBERS
Dan Abrahamowicz (ex-officio)
Ben Ausdenmoore ’08, ’11
Elizabeth Ball ’08, ’10
Sam Bernard ’11
David Bowman ’97
Fernando Browning ’12
Amanda Burks ’05
Teresa Ebersole ’08
Christopher Hogan ’11
Karen Hunt ’86
Dr. Christen Johnson ’12, ’17, ’17
Stephanie Keinath ’06
Logan Krause ’19
Edwin Mayes ’89, ’96
Anna Monnett ’83, ’87
Caroline Quiett ’14
Dr. Michael Robertson ’11, ’14, ’16
Topaz Sampson-Mills ’15
Greg Scharer (ex-officio)
Matt Sherwood ’11, ’13, ’17, ’22
Amanda Thompson ’08, ’09
Adolfo Tornichio ’94
Jerry Tritle ’81, ’83
Kip Wright ’90, ’01
New agreement with Dayton Public Schools will cover tuition for eligible students at Wright State
Students from two Dayton Public Schools can receive full-tuition scholarships at Wright State and personalized support and coaching through their high school and college careers through a new pathway program.
Up to 20 students from Belmont and Thurgood Marshall High Schools will be selected annually to participate in Wright State’s Take Flight Program for academically accomplished students with financial need.
The students will be selected for the program when they are in ninth grade and, after graduating from high school, will enroll at Wright State’s Dayton Campus.
In high school, students will be able to participate in activities aimed at reinforcing a collegegoing mindset and routine. Once they enroll at Wright State, the students will work with a dedicated success coach who will mentor them and provide support throughout their first year and beyond.
Wright State recognized as the region’s Military Supporter of the Year
Already known as military friendly for its support of veteran and military-connected students on campus, Wright State was recognized for its broad support of military initiatives and partnerships off-campus as well.
Wright State was named the Dayton Business Journal’s 2023 Military Supporter of the Year during its 2023 Business of the Year award ceremony. The Dayton Business Journal is a local business publication that features industry news about the Dayton region. The Military Supporter of the Year Award validates one of Wright State’s greatest priorities— its commitment to growing as an anchor institution to its neighbor, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Wright State University and Premier Health more closely align operations, creating a transformational partnership
Premier Health and Wright State are closely aligning their operations under a 30-year affiliation agreement that enhances the Dayton region’s access to state-of-the-art medical care.
The new agreement highlights the institutions’ shared commitment to excellence in education, workforce and economic development, research, clinical program development, and community health.
The partnership is transformational and prioritizes producing more clinicians, nurses and other health care providers; spurring new research opportunities; and providing patients better access to vital medical care closer to home.
The agreement formally establishes a primary academic affiliation between Wright State and Premier Health and includes all of Wright State’s colleges and academic programs and all of Premier Health’s sites of care. The partnership also will present new opportunities for federal funding to support clinical activities, teaching, and research.
Premier Health will invest $25 million over two years to support an increase in the class size at Wright State’s Boonshoft School of Medicine and training and programs to grow the nursing workforce.
Wright State and Premier Health created a new leadership position to serve as the dean of the Boonshoft School of Medicine and the chief academic officer of Premier Health.
The agreement is also a catalyst to recognize Miami Valley Hospital as an academic medical center and to grow in clinical training programs at other Premier Health hospitals.
Wright State and Premier Health will each appoint one member of its board leadership to serve as a non-voting representative on the other’s governing board.
Latino Center assistant director recognized as Distinguished Hispanic Ohioan
Catherine Hernandez Hogan, assistant director of Wright State’s Latino Center, received a 2023 Distinguished Hispanic Ohioan Award from the Ohio Commission on Hispanic/Latino Affairs.
The award recognizes groups and individuals who demonstrate outstanding achievements in their professional or community-service endeavors and who serve as role models for Ohio’s growing Hispanic/ Latino community.
While pursuing a Master of Education in Student Affairs in Higher Education at Wright State, Hernandez Hogan served as the graduate assistant for Tony Ortiz, who started the university’s Office of Latino Affairs.
After graduating, Hernandez Hogan accepted a full-time position with the University Center for International Education, creating programming for international students at Wright State. In 2022, Hernandez Hogan was named assistant director of the Latino Center. She assists in the recruitment, retention, and
connection of Latino students to give them a sense of value and community, and the tools they need to succeed.
“I am a first-generation college student, and while there were many areas I had to learn on my own, I had key faculty and staff members guide and mentor me throughout my time in college,” she said. “I felt that I wanted to be that person for the Latino/Hispanic community at Wright State.”
New administrative structure will spur innovation in education in Wright State’s Raj Soin College of Business
The Raj Soin College of Business introduced a new administrative structure designed to promote the sharing of knowledge and best practices to accelerate innovation in business education. The new structure also aims to foster engagement between businesses, faculty, staff, and students to ensure the college’s curriculum remains aligned with the latest business practices.
The college of consolidated its six departments into two interdisciplinary schools: the School of Finance, Accountancy, Management Information Systems, and Economics, and the School of Supply Chain Management, Marketing, and Management. The Master of Business Administration program continues to operate at a cross-disciplinary level.
“The structure of the new schools is designed to facilitate the creation of new interdisciplinary programs, enable the sharing of courses across majors, and enhance operational efficiencies,” said Donald Hopkins, interim dean.
“Restructuring the college’s administrative operations will not only lead to more efficiencies, but will also provide additional opportunities for students to pursue coursework from other disciplines to broaden their field of study,” Hopkins said. “We are focused on providing a forward-thinking business education that allows us the flexibility to create new interdisciplinary programs that meet the evolving needs of students and business partners.”
Students win gold at international synthetic biology competition
A team of 11 Wright State students won a gold medal at the iGEM Grand Jamboree, an annual international synthetic biology competition for young STEM researchers, in Paris. The team was also nominated for awards for the Best Environmental Project and Best Hardware.
The students are members of Wright State’s International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) team. The team includes students from the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the College of Science and Mathematics, Boonshoft School of Medicine, and Raj Soin College of Business.
Their project focused on detecting dangerous manganese in drinking water and soil. The goal is to develop a process that can be used in the field instead of solely in a lab.
Faculty members from the biochemistry and molecular biology, computer science, and mechanical and materials engineering departments, the Office of the Vice Provost for Research and Innovation, and the Lake Campus biological science program mentored the team.
Wright State’s iGEM team previously earned a silver medal in 2022 and bronze in 2021.
LIFE AT THE LAKE
Lake Campus students dive into water studies
BY SARAH CAVENDER ’ 20
WRIGHT STATE–LAKE CAMPUS OFFERS STEM STUDENTS A UNIQUE HANDSON RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WATER QUALITY
“Having the Water Quality Center at Wright State–Lake Campus provides a sort of home base for a lot of the research in the area that deals with water quality and a home base for teaching efforts that go on at Lake Campus,” said Stephen Jacquemin, Ph.D., professor of biology at Lake Campus. Jacquemin has been conducting water quality testing with his students at Grand Lake St. Marys and surrounding wetlands for almost a decade.
“I’m passionate about the environment, and getting students outdoors and providing handson experience,” Jacquemin said.
The program is a four-year Bachelor of Science in Integrated Science Studies with three tracks: pre-health, agriculture, and environmental.
“Just about all of them come through this [Water Quality Center] at one point or another to learn and understand the patterns and processes,” Jacquemin said. “We’ve had students who have finished the pre-health track and have gone on to physician’s assistant school, then on to medical school, dental school, or veterinary school.
“We’ve had students who have finished the agricultural track go more in line with soil and water conservation or USDA [United States Department of Agriculture],” he added. “And we’ve had students with the environmental earth and biological track who have gone to work in labs all around this area of Ohio.”
Morgan Jutte is one of those students who works in a lab at Lake Campus. Jutte graduated with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry from Wright State.
“I work at the Lake Campus, but my job is a full-time technician for the LEARN H2Ohio Wetland Monitoring Program,” she explained. “The program consists of researchers
from Ohio universities working together to determine the nutrient reduction efficiency of constructed and restored wetlands across the state. Because Wright State has two campuses, we cover the largest portion of the state.”
Jutte said, “I think the most exciting and important part is hands-on research experience for undergraduate students. We have a handful of undergraduate students who work in the lab year-round. They learn skills such as water and soil sampling, analytical determination of nutrients, communication, time management, and more that will really help give them the experience they need to land their first fulltime job after graduating.
“Another exciting thing for me,” she said, “is growing up and living in this area my entire life and being able to contribute to the efforts being made to improve water quality in Grand Lake St. Marys and all around the state.”
For third-year student Kenneth Kline, contributing to the conservation efforts in his backyard played a role in getting involved in the program. Passionate about hiking, fishing, and kayaking, Kline reached out to Jacquemin and found the integrated science program to be a perfect fit.
“Most of my work is outside, and I get to help better the thing (nature) that I enjoy,” said Kline. “The lake here has a toxicology problem. This isn’t a problem that’s just occurring here; this is literally all over the world. And you have something to study that’s right outside of the classroom.”
Skye Wendel, a fourth-year integrated science student, grew up in Celina and became passionate about water quality and the program when it was launched in 2018.
“Growing up here gave me a passion for the lake and how it serves our community and the wildlife around it,” Wendel said. “I feel lucky to have gone to such a small college, as it gave me opportunities to get familiar with my professors and to have a close hand in the research that I find exciting.
“I started working for Dr. Jacquemin two years ago, sampling water, going to conferences, and meeting and collaborating with people in the field,” Wendel added. “I really have an interest in the connection between agriculture and water quality because of my work at the lab. I want to continue to help bridge the gap, so farmers have better access to environmental farming practices.”
Wendel said she hopes her degree and experience at the water quality lab will lead to a job with the Ohio Department of Agriculture, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, or National Resources Conservation Services.
In August 2023, a 10-acre site adjacent to the Lake Campus in Mercer County was sold to the Grand Lake St. Marys Lake Facilities Authority to become the future home of a wetland that will help improve the lake’s water quality.
About four years ago, Jacquemin suggested a natural wetland site on the north side of the lake, close to the Lake Campus, which would aid with water runoff and act as a location for students to conduct research.
“It’s important,” said Jacquemin. “We are all people on this planet. We have an obligation and responsibility to leave it a little better than when we found it, and conservation efforts are the path to do that.”
THROWBACK
Professors Emeriti John Fortman and Rubin Battino have been providing chemistry demonstration shows for middle and high school students for more than 35 years.
These polished, fast-moving shows include more than 40 demonstrations, educating and entertaining an estimated 250,000 Dayton-area students. Battino would pound nails into wood with flashfrozen apples, touch off wall-rattling explosions, and ignite hydrogen-filled balloons that would combust into colorful balls of flame. For their grand finale, Battino would stick the thumb of his rubber-gloved hand into liquid nitrogen, groaning with pain as it
quickly froze. He then would pull out his thumb and smash it with a hammer, spraying flesh and bone on the table, and revealing a hand dripping with blood in front of the shocked audience. Yes, it was just a trick, as it turned out to be stage blood, and his “thumb” was actually a sausage. Battino and Fortman did up to 17 demonstrations a year for 35 years, both at Wright State and in the community, loading up their van with hydrogen gas, liquid nitrogen, and
various pieces of equipment. While both Battino and Fortman are now retired, their recorded shows can still be enjoyed online or in their show archive at Wright State University Special Collections and Archives at the Dunbar Library.
For more information about the Wright State University Special Collections and Archives, visit libraries.wright.edu/special
STEMWERX owners turn passion into impact
BY GREG SCOTT
As a youth growing up near Mansfield, Ohio, Todd Hanning visited the racetrack there with his father and fell in love with roaring cars speeding to the finish line. Todd ’00, has become such an enthusiast that he rebuilt a Toyota Celica GT and jokes about his wife, Beth, a fellow 2000 graduate of Wright State University, graciously allowing the newly rebuilt and polished motor to be stored in their first home.
It was an early sign of a match well made. In 2018, Todd invited Beth to camp overnight in the infield during the Rolex 24-hour race. A team owner invited the Palm Coast, Fla., residents into the pit, where eight huge monitors hung in an array displaying live telemetry data. As an electrical engineering major with a focus on digital signals, Beth was enamored by the behind-thescenes aspects of racing, particularly the tech and data acquisition aspects.
“The role of the data engineer and pit crew are impressive. As a robotics coach, I particularly admire the behind-the-scenes team dynamics,” Beth said. “Everyone tends to focus on the driver, but many others contribute to the win. Data engineers are in the ears of the driver, advising when they need to pit, conserve fuel, or push the car to the limit.
“They would not be successful without people behind the scenes making critical calls and providing actionable data.”
Now the Hannings, married for 37 years, share a passion for motorsports. And they are using their passion to inspire young people to seek Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers in motorsports and the aerospace industry.
Leveraging Beth’s engineering background and Todd’s M.B.A. earned at Wright State, they co-founded STEMWERX, a mobile education lab
experience for K-12 students where they learn aerodynamics, robotics, and 3D printing with a backdrop of motorsports.
Young and aspiring innovators benefit from curriculum and resources that provide advanced technology education opportunities.
The STEMWERX vehicle travels to racetracks such as Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach and Talladega Super Speedway in Alabama. It also went to the Rolex 24, the weather tech challenge series with International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) in January. At these events, STEMWERX interviews drivers from teams such as Corvette Racing and WTR Andretti.
The Hannings offer students real-world, handson experience to help prepare them for tech schools, college, and subsequent careers. They become aware of STEM opportunities in the automotive industry and related fields, such as aerospace and other manufacturing industries that require skilled professionals. Students get to code and test robotic cars at many of the STEMWERX events.
“We generate interest in the physics and aerodynamics aspect. Our goal is to paint a picture and let them know they could be in this position someday,” she says. “It is a vision of STEM opportunities that could be available to them in the future.
“I’m grateful to Wright State teachers and staff, who provided leadership opportunities, opened the doors to an Air Force Research Lab internship, and provided a capstone opportunity with National Cash Register,” Beth said. “We want to offer realworld experiences like these to our interns to present a vision for their futures.”
STEMWERX partners with NASCAR, Daytona International Speedway, IMSA racing teams, and Talladega Superspeedway to impact thousands of students. The Hannings host drivers who teach students about various aspects of racing cars, including programming and digital systems. Students benefit from technology sponsorship through the Emerald Coast Robotics Alliance from the Air Force Research Laboratory and the National Defense Industry Association.
“We teach them hands-on coding to program lights and sensors on educational robot cars,” Todd said. “We tell them, ‘You just programmed a feature your parents might have if they drive an Acura, GM, or Toyota. You have a career waiting for you.’ It is real-life experience that drives home the importance of what they learn at a STEMWERX live session.”
The Hannings mesh their skills and knowledge to inspire students to seek technical careers in the motorsports and aerospace industry. Together, they lead STEM workshops and develop STEM-based curricula and camps. Beth writes children’s STEM novels. For older students, they form university partnerships, generate college internship opportunities, and provide mentoring.
Beth and Todd are inspired to provide the mentoring they did not receive as youths. And now they pay it forward by sharing lessons of success.
Beth struggled to find direction in her life and career after graduation. She enlisted in the Air Force and met Todd, now
a retired Air Force officer. She returned to college 10 years later, earning a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and later a master’s degree in Instructional Design and Technology.
“We always tell people that it’s never too late to pursue your dreams,” she said. “You just need to be driven to do it and surround yourself with encouraging people. Todd was very supportive and encouraged me not to give up when Physics III was kicking my butt.”
She credits Wright State for getting her on the right track. The university helped Beth receive a research internship at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, an experience she describes as pivotal in her life.
BETH AND TODD HANNING POSE IN FRONT OF THEIR EDUCATIONAL WIND TUNNEL FROM INTERACTIVE INSTRUMENTS.
“The Air Force is a great place to receive experience. You are handed a lot of responsibility quickly,” she said. “It provided me my first technology positions in the workforce. Engineering Headquarters hired me as a full-time civil servant after I graduated from Wright State, and I soon moved to the F-16 program as a systems engineer.”
Beth has served 24 years in advanced technology for the Air Force, industry, education institutions, and DEFENSEWERX, supporting the Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate and the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology programs in promoting innovation in Florida and Las Vegas.
Todd also gained a new direction through the Air Force and some great mentors. He enlisted in the Air Force and attended college classes at night before attaining his commission. He said the military presented opportunities that steered him in the right direction.
Todd also said Wright State professors created a positive learning environment for him and helped create a custom M.B.A. plan focused on small-business consulting.
“Beth and I were both enlisted and going to night school together,” he said.
“I had some pivotal leaders who saw true potential in me, and I started believing and expecting more from myself. You can do some amazing things with the right opportunity and mentors who break down perceptions of a normal path.
“It does not matter where you come from; that is an important lesson for anyone. This hit home for me as a late bloomer in life.”
Todd said neither he nor his wife took the traditional road, but they both found a successful career path through Wright State and the Air Force.
Todd was a career Air Force acquisition officer who developed advanced technology and had several deployments supporting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. After several years in the unmanned aircraft industry post-retirement, he helped found U.S. Special Operations Command’s innovation lab SOFWERX in Tampa and designed and built the AFWERX innovation hub in Las Vegas.
He has also put his Wright State M.B.A. to work. Todd has been a consultant for various companies after completing his commitment to the military. His entrepreneurial spirit and Beth’s science background meshed while they built
innovation labs together.
The two graduated together in 2000 and, in the process, grew their family while in school. They describe their two daughters as “very talented artists.” Their oldest, Erica, was born while they were stationed at Goodfellow AFB in Texas, and Kelly, their youngest, during their respective time at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Wright State University. Erica works in online marketing and sales and assist her parents with marketing and graphic design efforts.
opportunity with General Motors.
“Richie has been passionate in saying he wants to work in this business. He interviewed and was hired by a small Mustang racing team in Utah,” Todd said. “Richie started as a tire guy and later became a lead data engineer. Our mission is to make these connections and present opportunities.
“We stay in touch with many of our interns. Some have told us their involvement was a transformational
Their youngest, Kelly, earned a Master of Fine Arts at Ohio University, teaches art entrepreneur classes at Columbus School of Art and Design, and is a lead designer creating robotic monsters at The Scare Factory.
The Hannings provide mentorship they did not receive until later in their lives. It drives them to continue offering learning opportunities for motivated youth.
They speak fondly of those who have been part of the STEMWERX team as interns. The first motorsports intern, Richie Leyton, a graduate student of Oxford Brooks in England, inspired students to learn aerodynamics concepts during Scout Days at Daytona International Speedway. Todd connected Richie with race teams and manufacturers, which led to several racing team opportunities, including a stint as a data engineer with Ian Lacy Motorsports, Toyota Gazoo Racing, and a recent
experience in their careers and lives.”
“Mentoring rocks!” Beth said. “I’ve formally mentored more than 60 high school and college students to inspire them to pursue STEM careers.
“The best part is when you’ve invested your time and energy in a student, and years later, they share their life events with you, letting you know they are starting their first job, coaching their own robotics team, starting their Ph.D., or starting a family.”
She concluded, “It is truly rewarding for both of us.”
PAYING IT FORWARD
BY KIM PATTON
A GIFT FROM THREE-TIME WRIGHT STATE GRADUATE DOUG HULL LAUNCHES A TRANSFORMATIVE OPPORTUNITY TO BUILD A COLLABORATIVE HUB WHERE STUDENT RESEARCH IN GENETICS AND GENOMICS CAN FLOURISH.
“Even a blind hog can find an acorn if he roots long enough.”
For more than a decade, Doug Hull read those words on a handwritten 3x5 card in the laboratory of Wright State University biological sciences professor George Kantor.
“It hit home with me,” Hull recalled.
That message of persistence and perseverance resonated with Hull as he worked with Kantor as an undergraduate student, graduate research assistant, and research associate. It also helped inspire his recent gift to the College of Science and Mathematics.
In September 2023, Hull established the Acorn Endowed Fund, which will provide student scholarships, encourage experiential learning, and support the creation of a collaborative hub focused on genetic and genomics research at Wright State.
“THIS IS THE LARGEST GIFT I’VE EVER MADE, BUT IT ALL MAKES SENSE. YOU HAVE TO PAY IT FORWARD. I WAS GIVEN A LOT OF OPPORTUNITIES AT WRIGHT STATE.”
—DOUG HULL ’75, ’78, ’85
“I’m excited and anxious for it to start,” said Hull.
To finance the Acorn Endowed Fund, Hull donates to the university by making Qualified Charitable Donations and rolling over the Required Minimum Distribution from an IRA. He has also made a bequest to the university in his will, which will allow the endowment to grow in perpetuity.
“This is the largest gift I’ve ever made, but it all makes sense,” he said. “You have to pay it forward. I was given a lot of opportunities at Wright State.”
For Hull, those opportunities began in the 1970s in Kantor’s small, one-room laboratory on the top floor of Oelman Hall.
Thanks to the grants that Kantor—who retired from the university in 1998— received from the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, Hull was able to engage in hands-on research as a student and receive a stipend for his work for a decade as a full-time research associate.
Kantor’s projects, which combined biochemistry, molecular biology, and genetics, focused on cancer research. Under Kantor’s tutelage, Hull assisted in examining the potential of ultraviolet light to mutate a cell and transform it into a cancer cell. This focus on DNA repair mechanisms in human cells was designed to demonstrate the relationship between DNA function and structure and cancer.
“It was very interesting. I could never explain what I was doing to family, but it was fun for me,” Hull recalled. “The techniques we were using are nothing compared to today. The technology is more advanced now, and the understanding is much more advanced, but we tried to do what we could.”
When federal budget cuts sliced Kantor’s grants (and Hull’s stipend) in half, Kantor introduced Hull to a medical geneticist at Dayton Children’s Hospital, Richard C. Juberg, who chaired the Department of Medical Genetics and Birth Defects that provided cytogenetics and genetic
KAYCI JOHNSON, A GRADUATE STUDENT IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, EXTRACTS DNA FROM AN ENDANGERED SPECIES OF PLANT
counseling services to the Miami Valley.
While continuing to help Kantor with his research, Hull gained additional research experience and income at Dayton Children’s, where he created the first laboratory in Dayton to culture and evaluate cells collected through amniocentesis. Those were the early days of amniocentesis and Hull’s first introduction to clinical genetics.
“It was a very exciting opportunity,” he recalled.
After earning his bachelor’s degree in biological sciences in 1975 and a master’s degree in molecular biology in 1978, Hull became interested in learning how to trade stocks. He began taking business courses during his tenure as research associate and went on to earn his M.B.A. in 1985, just as Kantor’s final research grant was wrapping up.
“The mad scientist became a business
person,” quipped Hull, who was only unemployed for about six weeks before he began working for Dayton Power and Light (DP&L).
“It wasn’t that different from what I had done in biology and research. It’s managing budgets, doing quantitative analysis, doing research to evaluate how and why you’re doing things,” he explained. “It worked out pretty well.”
Hull retired from DP&L in 2010. He then spent four years as chief financial officer at WYSO Public Radio, followed by three years as CFO for the Dayton Society of Natural History/Boonshoft Museum of Discovery and since 2019 as CFO for the Family Medicine Education Consortium.
When Hull wanted to do more for his community and create opportunities to further education, he turned to his alma mater to give back.
“We are so grateful to Doug,” said Jeffrey
Peters, professor and associate chair of biological sciences. “The things we are going to be able to do with these funds to help students are beyond my wildest dreams. It’s a wonderful, generous gift and opportunity.”
Hull’s gift will be evenly distributed between program development and student scholarships. Program funds will be used to satisfy a wide array of needs, from purchasing reagents that are used at the bench to collect data, to providing opportunities for students to attend genetics conferences where they can network and present their own research, to developing a genetics concentration within the bachelor of biological sciences degree. Looking ahead, Peters would like to see the College of Science and Mathematics offer a Bachelor of Science in genetics.
“Genetics is one of the fastest-growing fields in the job market,” said Peters. “Over
the next couple of years, we’re going to see a lot of job opportunities. Our hope is that we can start preparing students to fill those openings.”
Hull’s gift will also support the establishment of a collaborative research hub where students—both undergraduate and graduate—will gain valuable, hands-on experience working alongside faculty on genetics research.
“His funding opens that door,” said Peters. “What I’m most excited about is being able to work with these students closely.”
Shulin Ju, associate professor of biological sciences, will oversee the collaborative research hub.
“I’d like to express my deepest gratitude to Doug for his incredible support of our genetics and genomics program,” said Ju. “As the program director, I am thrilled to oversee its progress, and I am excited about the transformative impact we
will continue to make together.”
Peters envisions most of the research projects will be developed jointly between students and faculty. However, he welcomes the opportunity to partner with external entities such as Wright–Patterson Air Force Base and other regional employers.
“We would like to form collaborations with potential employers where we may be able to create direct funnels of students into their workforce,” he said. “We want to make sure our students are getting the skills these employers are looking for.”
Another component of Hull’s gift is the creation of the Hull Scholars Program. A minimum of one Douglas R. Hull Undergraduate Scholar and one Douglas R. Hull Graduate Scholar will be selected annually. The students will receive scholarship support to fund their
ELLEN LEE (LEFT), P h .D. STUDENT IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES, AND EMILY MURPHY (RIGHT), UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MUSIC PERFORMANCE, EXAMINE THE RESULTS OF BIRD SAMPLES TESTED FOR NEW CASTLE DISEASE
GERONE STA. ANA, UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, EXAMINES DNA SEQUENCING RESULTS OBTAINED FROM A SPECIES OF AUSTRALIAN DUCK
experiential learning and research.
“I’m happy to have the opportunity to help others pursue their dreams and, hopefully, graduate without a lot of debt,” said Hull.
All of the initiatives supported by Hull’s gift will boost the recruitment and retention of students and ultimately increase graduation rates.
“And, of course, hands-on experience makes students more employable. It’s really exciting to have this opportunity,” said Peters. “I hope we are recruiting students from the Dayton area and beyond, bringing them to our program. To me, that is the signature of success, when we have students applying to our program who might not otherwise go to Wright State.”
Hull’s Wright State story comes full circle as he helps current and future generations of students enjoy the same limitless opportunities he benefited from as a young researcher with a passion for genetics.
“Wright State has always been important to me,” said Hull. “It’s exciting to think that even one student could benefit from my gift and their ideas about the future might be enhanced with the opportunities this money could provide.”
Hull joined Wright State University's Foundation board July 1, 2024.
“WE ARE SO GRATEFUL TO DOUG. THE THINGS THAT WE ARE GOING TO BE ABLE TO DO WITH THESE FUNDS TO HELP STUDENTS ARE BEYOND MY WILDEST DREAMS. IT’S A WONDERFUL, GENEROUS GIFT AND OPPORTUNITY.”
JEFFREY PETERS, PROFESSOR AND ASSOCIATE CHAIR OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
— Doug Hull
(LEFT TO RIGHT) JEFFREY PETERS, PROFESSOR AND ASSOCIATE CHAIR OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES; DOUG HULL; AND SHULIN JU, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
HE’S GROUNDED IN HIS CONVICTION THAT SPACE NEEDS TO BE DEFENDED
By Jessica Graue ’04, ’09
People can try to plan out their entire lives, but it doesn’t always happen the way it was supposed to. For Gen. Michael A. Guetlein, that is actually a good thing.
Guetlein, who graduated from Wright State University in 1995 with a master’s degree in business administration, is now the Vice Chief of Space Operations, the United States Space Force’s second-highest military leader. Previous to his promotion from three- to four-star general in December, Guetlein was the Commander of Space Systems Command. He credits his time in Dayton for putting him on the path to where he is now.
Guetlein grew up in Owasso, Okla., where he graduated from high school. Hunting, camping, and pretty much anything outdoors were his main interests. He studied mechanical aerospace engineering at Oklahoma State University.
His father served in the Korean War, and his grandfather served in World War II. Guetlein told his mother when he was 3 that he was going to be in the Air Force. She thought he might grow out of it, he recalls. He didn’t, and he became the first in his family to earn a college degree.
“I was interested in airplanes and mechanical aerospace, so I took off to Oklahoma State on my own. My parents didn’t even believe I was doing it until I pulled out of the driveway that day. The first semester I kind of ‘band-aided’ it together, and then I got picked for a scholarship starting the second semester,” he said.
He graduated in 1991, and his first assignment was at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) as the AC-130U Gunship Support Manager in the Special Operations
Office. Guetlein said some technical issues with contracts made his job unenjoyable, so he began looking at other services.
“From an experience perspective, I was not having any fun, but from a mentoring perspective, that (first two years) really kind of set the rest of my career,” he said.
While in college, Guetlein was dead set on being a navigator. However, just before graduating, the Air Force said it was not going to accept any more navigators, so his path as an engineer began.
A few years later, navigator training was reopened, but, after a meeting with a colonel while working at WPAFB, his career path completely changed.
“After an hour, he convinced me that I didn’t ever want to be a navigator in the United States Air Force because they were just going to shut down the career field again. He said, ‘You’re always going to be a back-seater, and it’s not in line with your personality, and you should do something else.’
That single moment put my career on a completely different path,” he said.
It was then that he enrolled at Wright State because, he said, earning an M.B.A. in acquisitions is the perfect complement to an engineering degree. Understanding the technical side of the business is one thing, but it’s invaluable to understand the business side as well, according to Guetlein.
“THE WRIGHT STATE DEGREE IS THE ONE WHERE I LEARNED THE MOST OUT OF ALL MY DEGREES. IT’S THE ONE THAT HAS THE MOST APPLICABLE MATERIAL TO THE REST OF MY CAREER.”
GEN. MICHAEL A. GUETLEIN ’95
LT.
GEN. MICHAEL A. GUETLEIN AS A YOUNG CAPTAIN.
It was not an easy degree. I can remember spending a lot of long nights studying in the tunnels, studying to take a test the next day,” he said.
Guetlein said he recommends that anyone earn their M.B.A. from Wright State, especially if the student is in the Air Force or working at WPAFB. He praised the professors for the way they helped students and how they were understanding of their day jobs.
“The instructors understood the demands that were on us, especially travel. So they worked around our travel schedules quite a bit to try to make us successful. That was a huge benefit,” he said.
While only in Dayton for a short time, Guetlein said he enjoyed the city and the people. His favorite moments were the fall season and all the festivals the city offered. He said fall is a great time to be in the Midwest, joking that in Oklahoma, they call the Midwest the Northeast.
In 1993, he worked as the chief of the B-2 Bomber Propulsion office. He received that job offer after a fairly secretive meeting in the base’s basement vaults. The B-2 Bomber program was still mostly “black,” or under wraps, at that time.
“I didn’t even know the B-2 program was in our building. I was hired to be the propulsion manager for all the B-2 airplanes, both at flight testing and production. I had an absolute blast at that job. I learned a lot that I still use to this day,” he said.
Guetlein left Dayton in 1996 and packed his resume with many more positions, appointments, and degrees. He participated in the Air Force Intern Program at the Pentagon and traveled the world. He was deployed to Bosnia and now has three master’s degrees. He worked with Elon Musk at SpaceX and got to see its first rocket fly.
LT. GEN. MICHAEL A. GUETLEIN WITH ASTRONAUT BUZZ ALDRIN.
LT. GEN. MICHAEL A. GUETLEIN SPEAKS AT AN EVENT.
“
WE REALLY NEED OUR YOUNGER GENERATION TO BECOME PASSIONATE ABOUT STEM AND TO CONTINUE TO DRIVE FORWARD AND TO MAKE SURE THE UNITED STATES MAINTAINS ITS TECHNICAL EDGE.
An edge in space as well as other things like artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum. You’re going to get left behind if you don’t understand the technical aspects of what’s coming at you.”
GEN. MICHAEL A. GUETLEIN ’95
“I was the Air Force’s first Offensive Counterspace Program Element Monitor. In layman’s speak, my job at the Pentagon was to run around D.C. talking about how space was contested and how we need to start defending our capabilities in space. I would get laughed out of rooms. I would get told I’m crying wolf,” he said. How wrong his opponents were. He saw how important space was when others did not.
Guetlein moved to many other positions around the country, and in 2021, landed the job of Commander for Space Systems Command in Los Angeles. He is responsible for approximately 15,000 employees nationwide and an annual budget of $11 billion, managing the research, design, development, acquisition, and sustainment of satellites and their associated command and control systems across 20-plus geographically dispersed units.
Guetlein said what he and his team do is absolutely necessary to the United States’ way of life. Keeping the satellites and GPS systems up and running for the country
is crucial. Considering everything that uses GPS now, from phones to ATMs, according to Guetlein, “not having GPS for just 15 minutes in this nation would be catastrophic.”
“I know that what I am doing and what my team of 15,000 is doing is absolutely critical to the defense of this nation and to our way of life, as well as our international partners’ ways of life,” he said.
He said that, if anyone wants to be able to take on his job in the future, they need to be competent in engineering and business. An understanding of the threats that could affect the United States and knowledge of the global environment and global politics are all necessary.
Currently, there is a renaissance in space, Guetlein said, and the younger generation needs to be prepared. He also stressed how important a STEM education is for students.
Despite his travels and responsibilities, Guetlein still enjoys the little things in life. He has two daughters and resides with his wife in Los Angeles. He still loves the outdoors, camping, and motorcycles. His
other interests include brewing beer and creating items out of stained glass.
For someone focusing on space, Guetlein is firmly grounded.
Lt. Gen. Michael A. Guetlein was promoted from three- to four-star General on Dec. 21, 2023, and now serves as the Vice Chief of Space Operations, the United States Space Force’s second-highest military leader.
LT. GEN. MICHAEL A. GUETLEIN WITH HIS FAMILY.
Shedding light on a great darkening
Wright State was primed for the once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse
BY ANTHONY SHOEMAKER ’98
April’s solar eclipse was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for thousands at Wright State University. If you missed the 2024 Great North American Eclipse, you’re not going to see another in Ohio for a long time.
Ohio last witnessed a total eclipse in 1806. The next total eclipse over Ohio will be in 2099. There will be total solar eclipses visible in the United States in 2044 and 2045, but you’ll have to leave Ohio to see them.
According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, only 21 total solar eclipses have crossed the U.S. mainland in the entire existence of the United States.
Wright State and the Dayton region were just inside the path of totality. Wright State–Lake Campus in Celina was in the center of the path and had close to four minutes of total darkness. Large cities such as Cincinnati and Columbus were just outside of the path, forcing people to travel north to see a full solar eclipse. Ohio lawmakers even added $1 million to the state budget for added security to help with the crowds.
“Our eclipse activities were amazing,” exclaimed Brad Kerry, president of the Wright State Astronomical Collaboration. “We had a couple of food trucks, free swag, solar telescopes, and live music. During the actual eclipse, we had clear skies and were able to see everything! I am guessing we had a few hundred people on the lawns as the crowd.”
Kerry said the view of the eclipse at Lake Campus was great as well.
“Overall, it was just an incredible experience for our students,” Kerry said.
The eclipse crossed 14 states and parts of Canada and Mexico. It crossed all of Ohio in a 124-mile diagonal path starting just north of Cincinnati and moving northeast to Cleveland, one of the largest cities in the country in the path of totality.
Wright State did not cancel classes on the day of the eclipse, but instructors were warned that it may not be the best day for an exam.
“I ask that you plan your Spring 2024 course schedules accordingly to ensure students will not be penalized for missing class that day during impacted class time blocks,” said Amy Thompson, Wright State’s provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, in a January memo. “I suggest you not give any in-class exams or high-stakes assignments during that time.”
Kerry said people are fascinated by eclipses, even though they last only a short time.
The last time Kerry saw an eclipse was when the 2017 eclipse cut across 12 states. He had to travel to Tennessee to see it. “It was so cool,” he said. “The short drive south was normal, but getting back to the Dayton area afterward was a challenge because of the large crowds. It took us 16 hours to get back.”
Kerry said the excitement around the 2017 eclipse helped drive interest in this year’s event. Social media fueled a lot of that attention, and people were excited because another was coming just a few years later.
Kerry has been interested in astronomy as long as he can remember. “I would sneak out when I was young to go look at stars,” he said. “I’d point up as a 2-year-old and be like, ‘star!’”
When Kerry became a teenager, he became quite interested in astronomy. “That’s when I started learning constellations.”
What is the Astronomical Collaboration?
Kerry, who has a master’s degree in economics, has been with the collaboration for three years. He’s a mathematics student and adjunct faculty member in Wright State’s economics department.
The Astronomical Collaboration is a collaborative effort with the
university’s astronomy club and outside sources, according to Kerry.
“We try to make astronomy accessible to everyone, regardless of skill level,” he said.
The organization works with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to host star-gazing events. They also conduct comet hunting and work with other observatories in the area.
“We’re also trying to develop an AI-driven Mars rover that we’re going to geo-fence around campus and let it interact with students,” Kerry said. The plan is to work with engineering students on the project.
Eclipse Types and Misconceptions
Ajani Ross, Ph.D., a lecturer in the physics department and the faculty advisor of the collaboration, says eclipses happen more often than people think but are rarely visible at the same location more than once.
“Eclipses are actually not that rare; they are actually pretty common,”
Ross said. “An eclipse happens somewhere on Earth an average of about once every 18 months.”
Ross said people who are not astronomers are fascinated by eclipses because “events like this only occur every so often and a lot of times, they only occur in certain places in the lifespan of an average human.”
According to NASA, there will be more than 220 eclipses visible from Earth in the 21st century, but the next total eclipse that will be visible from Ohio will be almost at the end of the century, in 2099. So, you’ll have to travel if you want to see one any time soon.
“If you don’t get to see one in your local area you either have to travel to a place where there’s going to be one, or you may never see one,” he said.
The April eclipse was a total eclipse where the sun, moon, and Earth are in a direct line, causing the moon to look like it totally obscures the sun. This causes the sky to become dark as the moon’s shadow hits Earth.
Later this year, there will be an annular eclipse. This happens when the moon is farther away from the Earth. This makes the moon look like it has a ring around it from the sunlight. However, the only place in the U.S. you’ll see the Oct. 2 eclipse is in Hawaii.
Ross has taught an introductory astronomy course at Wright State every summer and fall since coming back to Ohio in 2015. He graduated from Wright State in 2007, then moved to Dallas to earn a master’s degree and Ph.D. at the University of Texas.
He says that in the future, people may never see an eclipse.
“The orbital path of the moon will eventually be in a position to where, even though eclipses will still occur, they won’t be these large shadows that are cast that we can see on Earth like they are now.”
But that will be hundreds of millions of years from now.
Kerry said a lot of people have misconceptions about eclipses, and the Collaboration likes to correct them. “Some people think that it’s going to be like a full day of darkness. That the sun is always going to be blocked,” he said.
Of course, special glasses need to be worn when viewing an eclipse, but Kerry said some people think they can just use other glasses such as welding goggles. “That’s a big no-no,” he said.
The total eclipse in April happened because the moon lined up between the Earth and the sun. He said some people actually think the opposite happens and the sun moves between the Earth and the moon.
“That would be the apocalypse, because we’d all burn to death,” Kerry said.
For more information about the Wright State Astronomical Collaboration, go to wright.campuslabs.com/engage/organization/ astronomyclub. The group has weekly meetings where they stargaze and discuss space and other topics.
ENGINEERING FOR THE GREATER GOOD
BY MICAH KARR ’19
Running water and sanitary washrooms are important for the health of a community, particularly a school. But St. Bakhita’s Secondary School in Uganda has no such luxury, so Wright State University’s Engineers Without Borders chapter stepped in to help.
In 2022, engineering students evaluated the school’s needs and came up with a plan to bring the students of St. Bakhita’s a cleaner, healthier environment.
Diana Johnson, an industrial engineering major and the president of Wright State’s Engineers Without Borders (EWB) chapter, shared that Wright State has been working with the Cincinnati Professional chapter of EWB since 2019. She said the group has been collaborating on a project working to provide clean water to Kabingo, a small village in Uganda. The project’s goal is to assess and address sanitation needs at St. Bakhita’s.
Wright State’s EWB students began traveling to Kabingo in 2019 to assess
constructed hand-washing stations for the school. Due to COVID-19, students had to put the trips on hiatus for two years.
In May 2022, Wright State’s EWB chapter traveled to Kabingo, where the students evaluated sanitation and interviewed community members to learn about the issues the school was facing. The students identified issues they worked to fix during their trip from December 2023 to January 2024.
The boys’ washroom and latrine had strong odors due to a lack of ventilation. Students also noticed that the girls’ washroom did not drain properly, which resulted in standing water. The water can draw mosquitoes, which carry malaria, a major problem in Kabingo.
In January, the students added ceramic squat plates, toilet paper holders, and handrails to the stalls of the co-ed latrines. They also re-sloped the girl’s washroom floor and installed pipes, which improved drainage. In the boys’ washroom, they added a urinal.
The trip to Uganda in 2023–24 was not the first for mechanical engineering major Taylor Jacobs. In 2015, Jacobs participated in the World Race, an 11-month mission trip where participants spent one month in a different country. She traveled with her church to
Lukodi, Uganda, where she worked with ChildVoice, an organization that provides therapy to Ugandans affected by a war in the country’s northern region. ChildVoice gave them a place to recover from trauma and receive education and vocational training.
Jacobs said that, on her first day with EWB in Uganda, she learned about a well drilled by Engineers Without Borders from New Hampshire. The well, Jacobs said, kept the community safe because it gave them a steady flow of clean drinking water.
In 2020, Jacobs decided to pursue engineering. Joining Engineers Without Borders was an obvious decision.
“When I was getting ready to transfer to Wright State University, I knew I had to join,” Jacobs said. “I saw the impact the organization had on communities locally and internationally. I wanted to find a way to give back to the community in my new career field. The most rewarding aspect was using what I have learned in my internship and studies to give back to international communities.”
RAIDER OPEN HOUSE
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19
We know Wright State University means a lot to you. It’s the years you spent making lifelong friends, starting college traditions, and setting the stage for where you are now. We’re proud that our alumni are the strongest legacy of Wright State.
You can help high school students who are just like you were before coming to Wright State. Do you know a high school student looking at universities? Tell them they’re invited to the Wright State Raider Open House.
GET A GLIMPSE OF WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE A RAIDER!
During Raider Open House students can:
Explore how our nationally ranked academic degree programs can fuel your passion for learning.
Engage with our world-class faculty, staff, and students who can mentor and support you on your journey.
Experience the social, academic, and hands-on activities that can help you make your mark on the world.
LEADING THE WAY
From the Apple iPhone to Meta Quest
Pro, Srinivas Mellacheruvu ’06 develops cutting-edge products for consumers
Like any international student who first arrives at Wright State University, Srinivas Mellacheruvu had to adjust to a new culture, learning environment, and teaching styles. As a native of India, he also had to get acclimated to a completely different climate with Ohio’s winters.
As he began navigating his new life at an American university, Mellacheruvu received support from faculty members in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. Henry Young, an associate professor, and Raghavan Srinivasan, the department chair, were especially helpful to him.
Young hired Mellacheruvu as a research assistant and later as a teaching assistant. He also sponsored Mellacheruvu’s master’s degree thesis and provided valuable mentoring and guidance throughout the process.
When Mellacheruvu encountered some challenges defending his thesis, Srinivasan came to his aid.
“He helped bring the thesis defense back into the intended scope of the project, and he provided the breathing room that I needed to have some offline discussions and wrap it up,” Mellacheruvu recalled.
Mellacheruvu credits Wright State with preparing him for the successful career he has today. He is especially grateful he was able to learn about product design as a student and gain valuable training on NASTRAN, a finite element analysis program.
“The software programs that I learned at Wright State were the cornerstones of my past few roles in the industry,” said Mellacheruvu.
Shortly after graduating in 2006 with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, Mellacheruvu landed his first job at Leggett & Platt, a leading manufacturer of box springs for mattresses. The company had recently opened a plastics division, and Mellacheruvu was the fourth person hired. As a mechanical design engineer, he worked on everything from chair bases and gymnasium seats to plastic components for automotive shops and lawn mowers.
In 2008, he moved to Chicago to work on product development for Motorola mobile devices. As Motorola’s mobile device business began to decline, Mellacheruvu became concerned about the looming possibility of layoffs and started job hunting.
When he received an offer from Apple to join their iPhone operations group, he relocated to California, where he resides today.
“Apple was pretty fast paced and intense, a lot of international travel. The treadmill started running faster,” recalled Mellacheruvu. “There were a lot of strong, type A people to work with in general. It’s a very competitive environment.”
While he enjoyed working on the cutting edge of technology, Mellacheruvu realized that having a long-term career at Apple was not the best decision for himself, his wife, and their young family.
But his achievements at Apple are definitely among the highlights of his career thus far.
“The iPhone will always be one of my favorite products that I ever worked on,” he said. “It’s a landmark product and a really successful product line that I got to work on very early on.”
After three years at Apple, Mellacheruvu moved on to Google, where he worked as a manufacturing process engineer on some of the company’s artificial reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) products.
With a different-paced environment than Apple, Google ended up being too slow for him.
“Both are very successful companies. Both have their own unique way of doing things,” he explained. “I learned a lot by working at so many different companies. Those experiences helped shape my personality and my way of life. Work is a big part of our lives, so I made the best out of all of those experiences.”
After four jobs, Mellacheruvu was still looking for a role that would challenge him enough—and a place where he could grow as a leader and do more for others.
In that pursuit, he joined Meta Platforms in 2017, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
As director of manufacturing operations and test
SRINIVAS MELLACHERUVU 06
engineering, Mellacheruvu manages a diverse team of 140 mechanical, electrical, automation, and software engineers who develop hardware for the company’s AR and VR product lines including Meta Quest—a VR headset for gaming and educational purposes—and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
“It’s pretty cutting edge,” he said. “AR/VR is one of the biggest computing platforms for the future. We expect the technology to evolve beyond what it is today.”
Mellacheruvu says he feels fortunate to have found a position that provides a good intersection of what he was looking for— from expanding his leadership skills to developing exciting new technology that will change people’s lives in meaningful ways.
“This role keeps me on my toes. It challenges me in all ways,” he said. “Meta, itself, is a great culture. We are an extremely fastmoving company.”
Looking ahead, Mellacheruvu hopes to grow into more advanced leadership roles while still balancing work and family life.
“Self-development is a big part of who I am, and that has been a cornerstone of my success,” he explained.
His advice to current engineering students is to be bold, think big, and don’t take no for an answer.
“There are always ways around hurdles,” he said. “What might look like roadblocks now could be the biggest opportunities ahead.”
Managing energy for sustained performance, taking life one day at a time, and being patient and willing to adapt to changing times and situations are among Mellacheruvu’s core beliefs.
“It doesn’t matter what you do, but be the best at what you do,” he said. “If you’re not happy, move on and find something else.”
Over the years, Mellacheruvu has returned to Wright State to visit. He also gave back to his alma mater with a gift to the Mechanical and Materials Engineering Program Fund in honor of his mentors, Young and Srinivasan.
“The real beauty of life is when you donate your time and your money to serve others,” he said. “As long as your needs are met, then help humanity and the next generation of students at the university where we came from. Don’t forget the footsteps that we took to get to where we are today.”
“ There are always ways around hurdles. What might look like roadblocks now could be the biggest opportunities ahead.”
SRINIVAS MELLACHERUVU ’06
The science and humanity behind giving the gift of life
BY DENNIS BOVA
As sciences go, organ transplants are relatively new. The first kidney transplant was in 1954; the first liver, 1963; the first heart, 1967.
“It’s not an old science,” Matthew Wadsworth said in reflection.
Organ transplantation is Wadsworth’s profession—not as a doctor, but in a wider sense. The 2007 Wright State University biology graduate is chief executive officer of Life Connection of Ohio, a nonprofit based in Kettering that is the Organ Procurement Organization (OPO) for the northwest and west-central parts of the state.
Life Connection promotes organdonor registration, medically manages organ donors in hospitals’ intensive care units, and approaches families of those who aren’t registered but, because of their condition, are potential immediate donors. It began in 1989 with the merger of two other nonprofits that focused on kidney transplants.
Since then, Life Connection—and transplantation in general—has widened its scope to include, as Wadsworth said, “lungs, pancreas, intestines, tissue, heart valves, bones, tendons.”
He said when he arrived in 2020 that Life Connection was ranked 48th among the 57 ODOs nationwide in donation and transplant rates. The most recent figures show that Life Connection is now No. 1.
The rise in transplants is possible because of advances in immunosuppressants, anti-rejection drugs—that prevent the body’s immune system from fighting off
the new organ. “I would add that growth has occurred not only due to immunosuppression, but also adoption of pump technology and expansion of the organ donor pool into older patients,” Wadsworth said. Attesting to that change is Liz Cridlin, Life Connection’s development specialist and a 2013 Wright State graduate in biological sciences. Early in her time with the nonprofit, she was its procurement transplant coordinator. At that time, “we weren’t recovering livers from people with hepatitis C,” she said. “Now, that’s really common because we have come so far in medicine.” Cridlin explained that a donor can be treated for the disease, or the recipient can be treated before receiving the liver and doesn’t get the disease.
“We’re able to recover more organs from a population we weren’t before,” she said. “So, there’s a bigger pool of people who are able to donate.”
The human factor
“People” is a key word, because, while transplanting organs is very much a science, the human factor is paramount.
Life Connection cares for and supports the family of a donor, Wadsworth said. Registering as an organ donor “takes stress off the
family to make a decision,” he said. Or a family may not know that their loved one who has died or is on ventilator or mechanical support is a donor.
“Organ donation can help a family heal,” he said, “knowing that a loved one saved a life, or many lives. This gives them comfort in such a terrible situation.”
“One person has the power to save eight lives through organ donation and heal 125 more through tissue donation,” said Stephanie Burianek, Life Connection’s community outreach coordinator and a 2008 Wright State graduate in mass communication.
She said nearly 110,000 people nationwide await organs; 3,000 of them in Ohio.
LIZ CRIDLIN ’13
“Every 10 minutes, another person is added to the national transplant waiting list,” she said. Nationally, 20 people die each day waiting for an organ, she said.
Cridlin develops and helps train Life Connection’s staff of more than 100 to make the donor procedure go properly and smoothly. They’re assembled into three groups, as she explained:
Hospital development specialists, “the bridge between Life Connection and the hospitals,” she said.
These specialists educate the hospital staff and follow the hospital’s policy and regulations regarding potential donor patients.
Organ recovery coordinators, responsible for the medical management of a patient, matching the donor with the recipient, and ensuring the organs are recovered and transported appropriately.
Debunking myths
Apart from the science, myths surround organ transplants. Burianek debunks them.
“Number one, people ask, ‘will doctors save my life?’
They’re worried that if a doctor knows they’re a donor, a doctor won’t do everything to help.” Burianek said unequivocally, “Absolutely they will do everything to save you.” She added that only after all life-saving options are exhausted will Life Connection enter the situation.
“Number two, people are worried about the cost; will they get billed?”
She emphasized, “There’s no cost to the donor family. All costs associated with donation are the responsibility of the organ and tissue organizations.” The hospital’s charge ends after death is declared.
“Number three, people ask if they’re too old or too sick to donate.
We say, don’t judge a book by its cover; let us be the ones to judge. People with a history of diabetes, cancer, or other conditions can still give the gift of life, such as tissue or corneas.” She added that the oldest organ donor on record was 95.
“Number four is religion—people wonder whether their religion is against organ donation.”
She said most religions encourage donations “as the last act of charity, to give the gift of life, and leave it up to the individual.”
Family service coordinators, who speak with families at the time of their loved one’s death to give support and ensure they have all the information and appropriate paperwork.
Cridlin added that she also trains the nonprofit’s clinical staff, “so they have a well-rounded overview of the science of organ transplants.”
Glimpse of the future
Transplant science is evolving. Wadsworth said, in the past year, progress has been made in genetically modifying pigs to use their kidneys in humans. Also being developed is cryopreservation—the rapid freezing and reheating of an organ, leaving it undamaged.
The thought is to grow genetically modified kidneys in pigs, cryopreserve them, then reheat them when needed to transplant into a person. “That’s the direction we’re going,” he said.
STEPHANIE BURIANEK ’ 08
A direction that’s current yet advancing is organ preservation technology, which keeps a removed organ viable longer than otherwise possible.
“We’re able to recover and keep organs outside the body longer for recipients farther away,” Cridlin said.
One such device is in the works thanks to an entrepreneur with a Wright State connection. Klaus Weiswurm enrolled in the university’s systems engineering program in 1969,
attended classes part time, and in 1976 moved to Texas, where he completed his education.
The device he and his associates are championing is called ENCORE. It keeps a donor heart secure and filled with a liquid to keep the cells oxygenated and uses a diaphragm pump to put pressure on the organ, making it viable longer, Weiswurm explained. “It mimics the function of the organ in the human body.”
He said it passed trials in animals
Having the talk
“Overall, society has a pretty positive opinion of organ donation,” Cridlin said. She’s found that many people are willing to be a donor because, “they say, ‘I’ll be gone, so if I can help someone else, that’s great.’ What we lack is talking about organ donation with our family members or legal next of kin. We don’t talk about death.”
Life Connection “encourages people to share their decision of being an organ donor with their families,” she said.
“It is a little scary to discuss,” Burianek said, “but crucial. It’s always
in 2023 and is expected to go into human trials this year, possibly securing Federal Food and Drug Administration approval in 2025. He said what sets ENCORE apart from other such devices is it’s less expensive, constantly providing fresh oxygen to the organ, and is comparatively small. “It can fit into a suitcase and go into an overhead bin on an airplane,” which means it can be transported on a commercial airline to get it to anywhere in the world.
good to have those uncomfortable conversations early on to make that decision.”
Burianek said Life Connection stands ready “so people get the right information, not hearsay—to get the facts about organ donation so they can make an educated decision.”
Cridlin said the donation process is, “the silver lining in what is always a tragic situation. These families have gone through a tragic event. A lot of the time, they find comfort that their loved ones were organ donors.
“I’ve worked with a lot of families
in this situation,” Cridlin concluded, “and every family in my 10 years was thankful they went through the process for donation. It’s hard to put into words, but it provides such a comfort to them when their loved one is able to save somebody else’s life.”
DONOR HERO HOMAGE ART PIECES HANGING IN THE HALLWAYS OF LIFE CONNECTION OF OHIO. THIS DISPLAY WAS CREATED USING PERSONAL OBJECTS FROM VARIOUS ORGAN DONORS.
FUN FOR ALL AGES
Whether you are a recent graduate, a part of our GradX Alumni Society, or a seasoned Alumni Achievement Award winner, the Wright State Alumni Association has something for everyone. Not only do we put the “fun” in “fundraising” with our Legacy Golf Outing, but we volunteer for local community organizations and get together to have a little fun in the rain or at the game! Have you visited our events calendar lately?
SEE YOU AT OUR NEXT EVENT Visit wrightstatealumni.com/events for more information on how you can join the fun.
ALUMNI BEER TASTING
LEGACY SCHOLARSHIP GOLF OUTING
ALUMNI BEER TASTING
ALUMNI SERVICE AT THE DAYTON METRO LIBRARY
NURSING 50TH
RAIDER ROMANCE
ROWDY NIGHT AT THE RACES
ALUMNI NIGHT AT HOMECOMING MEN’S BASKETBALL GAME
KIDS OF ALUMNI AT MEN’S BASKETBALL GAME
LEGACY SCHOLARSHIP GOLF OUTING
PRESIDENT SUSAN EDWARDS, P h .D., AND ROWDY
2024 ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT WINNERS
2024 ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT WINNERS
RAIDERS ROUND THE WORLD TRAVEL PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS
ROWDY NIGHT AT THE RACES
ALUMNI SERVICE DAY WITH MIAMI VALLEY MEALS
HOMECOMING PAINT & SIP
ALUMNI FAMILY AT HOMECOMING MEN’S BASKETBALL GAME
ALUMNI BEER TASTING
FAREWELLS
2010s
Nicholas Bundy ’10
Gregory Felix ’12
Melvin Freeman ’19
Andrew Gregorovic ’12
Kyle Puckett ’13
2000s
Ellen Birchwell ’05
Vicky Burden ’03
Cynthia Jones ’05
David Marsh ’03
Nick Maxwell ’03
Scott Naill ’02
Aaron Powell ’03
Jeffrey Russell ’04
Michael Sennett ’07
Jennifer Whited ’04
1990s
Brenda Barlage ’91
Thomas Drerup ’90
Jay Eastman ’92
Jane Fisher ’94
Tina Gillespie ’90
Alvin Hall ’90
Vanna Heath ’97
Floyd Hensley ’96
William Herrnstein ’90
Kirsten Johnson ’96
Michael Jolin ’98
James Kearns ’99
Regina Kramer ’90
Kenneth Loper ’94
Barbara Lujan ’90
Brian Marler ’94
Sharon McKee ’96
Timothy Moorman ’97
Ramona Newton ’92
Elizabeth Noriega ’91
Donna Penn ’92
Todd Prenger ’96
Lynell Root ’91
Brent Tumblison ’93
Thomas Villani ’98
Carol Vogt ’97
Anna Williams ’94
1980s
Marjorie Beam ’84
Kathleen Bennett ’82
Philip Benninger ’84
Walter Boley ’84
Rae Brooks ’87
Robert Brooks ’87
Jeffrey Christian ’85
Fred Dickenson ’83
Elaine Dunkle ’80
Gregory Edington ’83
Myra Evans ’82
Edward Finke ’89
Nancy Fortman ’88
Kevin Fred ’89
Alfred Gorczynski ’81
Sonia Grant ’87
Dianne Green ’82
Daclynn Johnson ’83
Marcia Jones ’82
Mary Kilpatrick ’80
Sandra LeBoeuf ’87
Bonnie Lowe ’83
Diane Mallstrom ’89
Peggy Massie ’82
Patrick McElhany ’82
Donald Pennell ’81
Kim Rea ’81
Salvador Riggi ’83
Alan Sconzert ’86
Daniel Shoup ’88
Bruce Smith ’82
Mark Steiner ’87
Billie Sweet ’89
Jane Wiant-Toops ’83
Joseph Wicker ’84
Linda Wilker ’83
1970s
Doris Alexander ’72
Kent Anderson ’70
Susan Armstrong ’72
Argie Bennett ’70
Terry Boblitt ’77
Robert Bollinger ’79
Pauline Brown ’77
Sandra Cail ’77
Victoria Caldwell ’71
Edward Collins ’72
Steve Cox ’76
Edward Doria ’78
Charles Downard ’73
Marilyn Durrum ’70
Esther Feldman ’76
Jon Foster ’75
Gerald Francis ’71
Eileen Froehlich ’76
Garrett T. Gall ’74
Susan Gaertner ’79
Marjorie Gehring ’72
Wilda Gilbert ’79
Lucy Godbey ’77
Michael Goliver ’72
Beverly Goodenough ’79
Nancy Gretzinger ’77
David Griffith ’74
Dolores Harshman ’71
Herbert Hartman ’72
Judith Havens ’79
Vernon Henkener ’70
Roger Hixson ’70
Ruth Hoover ’71
Kathy Kingston ’77
Guilda Kissell ’73
David Laughead ’72
Mary Lee ’73
Janet Lehman ’79
William Linklater ’73
Leda Lucas ’72
James Mack ’70
Cynthia Malone ’76
James McCartan ’74
Suzanne Miller ’72
Thomas Murley ’72
Henry Nemeth ’73
Roy Newman ’79
Kent Robinson ’77
Richard Saurber ’75
Lynn Schierling ’70
Patricia Schlaerth ’75
Carol Schwartz ’75
Richard Scott ’71
Ronald Sohn ’75
Laura Stewart ’73
Minnie Sturgeon ’71
Jack Taylor ’71
Donald Van Zant ’71
James Voisard ’78
Beverly Williams ’75
Rita Wilson ’71
1960s
Keith Humphreys ’68
Edward Keeler ’69
Carl Lowe ’68
Cynthia Markowski ’68
Robert Norman ’68
Michael O’Keeffe ’68
Richard Robinson ’67
Reta Rose ’69
Mary Searles ’68
Anna Trudell ’69
Mary Will ’69
FACULTY AND STAFF
Tony Alexander ’88
Todd Ashbaugh ’97
Carolyn Ann Baker
Clyde D. Barbour
Gary Barlow
Detrice Green Barry
Lowell Oscar Batten
Kenneth Berta ’90
John Preston Blair
George Brack ’70
Adrienne Cassel ’91
Phillip R. Combs
Phillip Boyd Conway
Jeanne E. Cornor
Stephen C. Drake
Kevin Patrick Duffy
Mildred D. (Bayless) Farmer
Ronald Royce Geibert
Paul W. Grenzebach
Jacquelyn Hittle ’89
Angela Imel ’06
Judith Lynne “Judy” Janicki ’79
Deborah Jennings-Ryan
Michael Lhamon ’76
Kay P. Lillich
Clifford Thomas McPeak
Loretta Sophia Metzler
Laurel Paster
Raymond Payne ’00
Richard K. “Dick” Rathbun J. Robert Suriano
Thomas James von der Embse
Henry Arnold Wilson
Ronald Wukeson ’78
We rely on family and newspaper obituaries to inform us of the passing of Wright State alumni, faculty, staff, and retirees. This list was compiled between February and June 2024.
Please send all death notices to alumni_news@wright.edu
Tony Alexander ’88
Longtime volunteer Tony Alexander passed away on August 9, 2023. Tony graduated from Wright State in 1988 with a degree in geography and went on to the Ohio State University to earn his law degree. Tony was always figuratively a cheerleader for Wright State but he was also quite literally a Wright State cheerleader. As a member of the spirit unit, he cheered the Raiders on from the sidelines at many basketball games as a student.
As an alumnus, Tony carried on that cheerleader legacy by becoming one of Wright State’s most vocal and impactful supporters. He dedicated his time, talent, and treasure to make Wright State a better place.
You could often find Tony volunteering in some way for the university. He handed out t-shirts and lapel pins at graduation, served beer at the Alumni Association’s annual beer tasting, played in and sponsored the alumni Legacy Scholarship Golf Outing, and wrote postcards encouraging admitted students to attend Wright State.
As an Alumni Association Board member, he helped shape the association’s mission, vision, and goals. He was an advocate for eliminating membership dues to the association and including all alumni as automatic members, a model adopted in 2014.
Tony also developed the idea for Alumni Grove, a green space around Alumni Tower, and became the first donor to purchase a tree in the grove. Now the grove serves as an important point of pride for our campus. Alumni continue to plant, mulch, and weed to keep the spot looking beautiful, and seniors use it as a graduation photo spot.
Tony eventually became president of the Alumni Association board in 2018. His service to Wright
Cynthia Jones ’05 FAREWELLS
Dedicated volunteer Cynthia Jones passed away October 20, 2023. Cynthia was a recipient of the Wright State Alumni Achievement Volunteer Service Award in 2019, having graduated in 2005 with a master’s degree in middle childhood education. After serving in the U.S. Air Force for 14 years, Jones came to Wright State to pursue a degree and eventual career that would reflect her appreciation for education, something she passed on to her own children and the students she taught in the Dayton Public Schools system.
After graduating, Jones continued to give back to the Wright State community. She was an outstanding volunteer with the Alumni Association and served as president of the African American Alumni Society (AAAS). She continuously volunteered in various capacities whenever the Alumni Association needed her.
Cynthia will be remembered for her contagious smile, warm hugs, laughter, and constant desire to help others. She was always dancing, smiling, and encouraging others to do the same. She was the epitome of what an alumni volunteer is, and her bright light is sorely missed.
State did not end when his Alumni Association board presidency did. Tony then went on to serve on the ArtsGala host committee; along with his wife Kathy, endowed a scholarship to help support students in the fine and performing arts; and was appointed to the Wright State Foundation board as a trustee in July 2022.
Tony was a kind, caring, opinionated, and funny man who had a huge heart for Wright State students and alumni. He made a permanent mark on this campus and bettered the lives of our community, leaving a legacy that will live on here for decades.
VMAS Golf Outing
VMAS exists to support the personal and professional success of our members and the community while also supporting the Alumni Association and the Veteran and Military Center. The VMAS Golf Outing is our biggest fundraising event and helps us achieve that mission. Fun, food, golf, and raffles.
Wright Day to Give
Join us to honor our Founder’s Day, October 1-2, as we celebrate our eighth annual giving challenge with alumni and friends. Support student scholarships and programs that are important to you.
RAIDER EVENTS
MPH 20th Anniversary
Join us in celebrating 20 years of public health at Wright State University at the Master of Public Health Program! This year-long celebration includes activities, networking, and collaboration events with public health professionals. Our theme, “Reflecting on Our Past—Innovating for Our Future,” highlights the evolution of public health in addressing issues from global to local.
Amigos Latinos Gala
The Amigos Latinos Gala helps support the mission and work of the Latino Center at Wright State University.
Alumni Legacy Golf Outing
Sapphire Jubilee
The African American Alumni Society is proud to present the Sapphire Jubilee to recognize the contributions of Black alumni, students, faculty, and staff.
Fall Alumni Service Day
Alumni Service Day is an opportunity for our alumni, friends, and family to give back to the community and further Wright State’s longstanding tradition of community service.
We also will have travel tours, virtual events, and much more. Be sure to check out wrightstatealumni.com/events regularly for updated information and ways you can attend.
’69
RACHEL WILLIAMS (M.E d .) is an award-winning table tennis player in her age group at the National Senior Games in Pittsburgh, PA.
’76
DEBORAH LOEWER (B.S.) has been awarded Veteran of the Day by the Veteran Administration for her 31 years of Navy service.
’77
EDWARD GIBBONS (M.E d .) has been inducted into Fairborn City Schools Hall of Honor for his 44 years of leadership in the system.
’81
BETH MILLER (B.S.) has been rated as one of the best immunologists in Lexington-Fayette County, KY.
’83
MICHAEL ALBERT (M.D.) has been nominated as a Dayton Daily News Community Gem for his work at Children’s Hospital in Pediatric Orthopedics.
’84
PHYLLIS BRZOZOWSKA (B.A.) is the new executive director of the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company.
’86
DWIGHT BURGESS (B.A.) received the College Team Academic Award for exemplary performance in the classroom during the 2022-23 academic year. He is at Wittenberg University, Springfield, OH. GARY GILES (B.A.) has retired after 27 years as public information officer for the City of Miamisburg, OH. BARB SILER (B.M.) celebrated 35 years with Bellbrook High School’s Music department.
’87
MARY ELLEN SMITH (M.B.A.) has been awarded the Certificate in Cyber Risk Governance by the DCRO Institute. She is a corporate vice president at Microsoft.
’88
SHERRI LUTHER (B.S.B.) has been awarded a Silver Globe for excellence in Women of the Year in Accounting or Finance at Lattice Semiconductor in Hillsboro, OR. DETTLEFF OLSON (B.S.) has been appointed primary and specialty medicine director of the St. Cloud VA Health Care System, St. Cloud, MN.
’89
DAWN BARHORST (M.B.A.) of Graceworks Lutheran Services has been named by the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce to its Leadership Class of 2024. JAMES OLIVER (M.E d .) is the band director at Alabama State University in Montgomery, AL. DAVID PHILLIPS (M.D.) is a speaker on “Explore the Connection between Lifestyle and Disease” and has a video, “One Simple Change.” TAMERA SCHNEIDER (B.S.) has been named the new chair of Arizona State University’s Department of Psychology, Tempe, AZ.
’90
FRED BOEHLER (B.S.B.) has been named CEO of Save-A-Lot, St. Ann, MO. STEPHEN LINDEMAN (B.S.) has been appointed COO at ClassWallet. He has more than
CLASS NOTES
35 years of experience in technology and enterprise software experience.
’91
MICHAEL BARRATT (M.S.) joined the Expedition 71 crew aboard the International Space Station in April 2024 and will remain there until September 2024. LAWRENCE FEIST (B.S.) is the Program Chair of the RAPIDS program at Cincinnati State, Cincinnati, OH. BRADLEY NEWCOMER (M.S.) is the executive director and CEO of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi.
’92
RANDELL GILLESPIE (B.A.) is one of the honorees of the 9th annual HousingWire Vanguards award in housing economy. He is executive vice president and national sales director of Thrive Mortgage. FRANCES WEBB-SMITH (M.D.) has been appointed to the Painesville City School Board, Painesville, OH.
’94
ROBERT “BO” CHILTON (B.A.) has been awarded CEO of the Year 2023 for the nonprofit IMPACT Community Action in Columbus, OH.
’95
’97
MARK FRAKENFELD (B.A.) is commissioner and president of the North American Hockey League.
MARIE BASHAW (M.S.) has achieved tenure at Wittenberg University, Springfield, OH. AMY NOVAK (M.S.) has been elected chair of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics’ Council of Presidents. She is president of St. Ambrose University, Davenport, IA.
’98
RYAN KUTTER (M.B.A.) has been appointed chief operating officer of Henny Penny, Eaton, OH. EMILY NEU (B.S.B.) has been awarded the Volunteer of the Year APEX Award for Shelby County. She is also co-chair of the Nonprofit Division of 2023’s United Way Campaign, Shelby County, Sidney, OH.
’00
JACK KUNTZ (B.S.) has been voted Brookville’s assistant city manager, Brookville, OH.
’01
MICHAEL CARTER (M.E d .) has received Wittenberg University’s Professional Achievement award for outstanding distinction as chief diversity officer and senior advisor to the president at Sinclair Community College in Dayton. AMY KOPP (B.S.B.) of Crayons to Classrooms was part of the 2024 Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce Leadership conference to present and instruct on involvement to the Dayton community.
’03
SELENA BURKS-RENTSCHLER (B.F.A.) has won an Ohio Valley Regional Emmy for her documentary Redlining: Mapping Inequity in Dayton and Springfield for ThinkTV. MIKE GEBHART (B.A.) has been promoted to city manager of Fairborn, OH. REBECCA RAMIREZ (M.D.) has been appointed chief physician executive for the University of Toledo, Toledo, OH.
’04
SCOTT MANN (B.A.) is the superintendent of Riverside Local Schools, DeGraff, OH.
’06
DENISHA PORTER (M.P.H.) is executive director of All-In-Cincinnati–Greater Cincinnati Foundation and has been named as one of the Top 50 Women Leaders of Ohio for 2023. CHRISTINA RYAN (B.S.) has received the Supply & Demand Chain Executive’s Women in Supply Chain award. She is executive vice president of managed services with Redwood Logistics in Chicago.
’07
COURTNEY DITMER (B.A.) of LexisNexis has been named to the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce Leadership Class of 2024. LAURA (CALES) MATALKA (B.A.) is the associate director of programs for The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, Portland, OR.
’08 BYRON BRANCH (B.A.) has qualified to represent the United States at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris in fencing.
’09
JUSTINE (KETTERING) BLEDSOE (B.F.A.) has been awarded the Troy Area Chamber of Commerce’s Outstanding Educator of the Year. She teaches at Concord Elementary School. KENNETH BRYANT (B.A.) has been awarded a 2023 UT System Regents Outstanding Teaching Award at The University of Texas at Tyler. ERIC MACK (B.S.) has been appointed director of municipal services and engineering in Tipp City, OH. NAN WHALEY (M.A.) has received the President’s Award of Freedom from the Dayton Unit of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
’11
JOHNATHAN MOORE (B.A.) has been appointed as a Kentucky Colonel by Gov. Andy Beshear for outstanding military and civic contributions to the community.
’15
TRACY BOZUNG (M.P.H.) is the new commander of the 55th Medical Group at Offutt Air Force Base, Omaha, NE. JEREMY TURNER (B.S.) was named Entrepreneur of the Year by the Dayton Chamber of Commerce in 2022 and awarded the Better Business Bureau Spare Award for Ethics. He owns and operates Apply Pressure in Dayton.
’18
ZACKARY BRYNER (B.S.) has been awarded as one of the 20 Under 40 winners of The Advocate’s new generation of leaders in the Newark, OH area.
’20 ADAM BEAM (B.S.) is the newest assistant basketball coach for Wittenberg University, Springfield, OH.
Share your success with fellow alumni. Submit your class notes and updates at wrightstatealumni.com/classnotes
BEVIN DUCKETT ’14
STEM has a different meaning when applied to Bevin Duckett. Not Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, but Space, Then Europa, and Mars.
There are two other sets of uppercase letters that apply to Duckett: NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.). She works for the former and at the latter, part of NASA.
And while she’s not going to Europa, a moon of Jupiter, the fruits of her labor are: Mars? Been there, done that, going to do that again.
Duckett, who earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering with a minor in computer science from Wright State in 2014, is a flight software engineer for the Europa Clipper. Like clipper ships of old that sailed the seas, this clipper spacecraft will sail through space on a voyage that will take more than five years, arriving in 2030. The launch window opens in October 2024.
The software for the onboard computers is “the brains of the spacecraft,” she said from her home near Middletown, where she works remotely with the rest of her team, going to Pasadena on occasion.
“It coordinates everything the spacecraft is going to do: It controls spacecraft navigation; monitors the power and thermal sensors to maintain spacecraft health and safety; turns the instruments on when the time comes to collect data; orchestrates saving the data to memory; and downlinks it to Earth when we are ready to retrieve it.
“We’re flinging this relatively small robot into space,” she says with a
touch of awe in her voice. “We’ve been carefully working on it, designing it. It’s going to go far away from all of us and will have to succeed on its own, except for the operations team that will follow it from here.”
As the Europa Clipper sails to Jupiter, Duckett will be working on another project, likely one bound for a closer planet. She could be a software engineer on the Sample Return Lander spacecraft, which will sail to Mars, land, retrieve soil samples from a rover, and rocket the soil back to Earth. That mission is to launch later this decade.
As an undergraduate, Duckett interned at JPL, where she was on a team planning daily activities for the Mars Exploration Rover that was on the Red Planet. “There was the thrill of seeing images from an alien world that had been brought to Earth in a process I had been a part of,” she said. She was hired full time after she graduated.
Asked if this is her dream job, she said, “This wasn’t a job I even knew to dream about. It was unexpected, and I fell in love with it.”
As for the university’s role, “Wright State’s smaller class sizes and the dedication of the professors helped build a good foundation of education and problem-solving skills I apply every day in my job.”
MIKE TROMBLEY ’15, ’17
Often an engineer is more than an engineer. Take Mike Trombley, for instance. He’s also a musician. And a Native American who is proud of his heritage and culture.
Trombley combined all of those roles when he started a company that designed, built, and sold effects pedals for electric guitars. His love of music—he played guitar in the Troy area—got him connected with local performers. His bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering—2015 and 2017, respectively—from Wright State helped provide the engineering know-how.
He started a company named Red House Electronics, but in 2018 rebranded it as NativeAudio to emphasize the connection with his roots.
Trombley was born and raised on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana. He and his family left when he was in grade school and eventually settled in the Dayton area.
As he progressed through high school, he realized he was good at figuring out how things work. “I didn’t realize until later that that was an occupation,” Trombley said. “Weirdos like me become engineers.” He enrolled at Wright State because of its good reputation for engineering and its proximity.
As his business developed, he championed his heritage. “I didn’t necessarily see myself as an electronics company building stuff for the fun of it,” he said. “I was able to share my culture through sound.”
His most recent product is a new, larger effects pedal called War Pony, referring to Native American warriors’ horses, which, when going
into battle, would be painted to reflect the history of their riders, Trombley said. The name also is a derivation of a war party, where members of a tribe would bond in a selfless attitude, he said.
Aside from his business, Trombley has taken a step in a slightly different direction. “I’m an engineer, so I like to learn, to exercise my brain,” he said.
He took on a freelance engineering project “which allows me to get outside the scope of music electronics and express myself in a different realm.”
One such project was to connect with the developer of a medical device that can detect whether a wire from a catheter remains in a patient. The developer “came up with the idea but couldn’t bring it to reality. I drew up the design that they’ll take to medical companies. It’s a really cool concept.”
Aside from his heritage, Trombley recognizes his academic background. “Wright State had an endless amount of resources for me to get a proper education while also applying a lot of practicality. Wright State engages engineers in practical experience.”
Unlocking Tomorrow’s Potential
Celebrate the wonders of science and the future with a planned gift that supports STEM education. Just as the recent solar eclipse revealed the beauty of the universe, your legacy gift can illuminate the path for future generations. Join us in shaping a brighter tomorrow through the power of education. Contact us to learn more about how you can leave a lasting impact on the world.
FROM THE STACKS
Innovation in inclusiveness
Women engineer the opening of a chapter at Wright State...
BY JANE WILDERMUTH, HEAD OF UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES
Dayton is renowned for its innovation and leadership in the STEM fields. Daytonians like the Wright brothers, Charles Kettering, Edward Deeds, and John Patterson pushed Dayton and Ohio to the STEM forefront.
In 1914, Charles Kettering and Edward Deeds established The Engineers Club of Dayton for the betterment of engineers in the Miami Valley. This group held member meetings, social events, and educational lectures. It promoted engineering collaborations and continues to do so.
Historically, engineering had been a male-dominated field. Even so, the club admitted its first female full member in 1936. Maude Elsa Gardner was one of only a few female aeronautical engineers in the United States at that time.
Based at Wright Field, she served as editor of Technical Data Digest and helped write an instruction manual for the Wright cyclone engine. Gardner was also the first woman to be a member of the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences (IAS). This exclusive group even refused membership to Amelia Earhart.
In the fall of 1988, Rosemary Speers and other students established Wright State University’s chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), which advocates for women in engineering and technology. Speers, who earned a degree in biomedical engineering in 1991, was elected the chapter’s president in early 1989.
She and her female engineering classmates wanted a group that would give them opportunities to network, collaborate, and support one another. It also gave them access to professional development and conference opportunities through the larger SWE organization.
Speers became a student member of the Engineers Club of Dayton after she won the club’s 1989 student paper competition.
This allowed her to present her paper to club members working in the field. She was inspired to continue working in engineering research after completing her undergraduate degree.
Speers said her classes and labs prepared her well for graduate school at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan, where she earned her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering. She currently works as the chief scientist at Avail Solutions, supporting the U.S. government on science and policy for national security.
Wright State University Special Collections and Archives is home to records of many different types of clubs in the Miami Valley, including social and professional clubs like the Engineers Club of Dayton, Garden Club of Dayton, Women’s Literary Club, and Dayton Philharmonic Volunteer Association. The historical records of these clubs include newsletters, photographs, minutes, histories, biographies of members, and more.
To learn more about holdings, visit the collections guides webpage at wright.libraryhost.com.
The WRIGHT STATE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION would like to extend a very special thank you to the following sponsors and individuals who offered their support for this year’s event!
Thank You!
Breakfast Sponsor
Lunch Sponsor
Hole In One Sponsor
Player Gift Sponsor
Tee Sponsor
Driving Range Sponsor
Hole Sponsors
Par Sponsors
John & Anna Monnett
Marque Engineering Marsh McLennan Agency Brady Ware Adams Robinson Enterprise Think Patented
Beverage Sponsor
