Jesse Oakley III, '99 BS Civil Engineering, was elected to the Board of Directors of Toastmasters International, the world’s leading organization devoted to communication and leadership skills development. He has held a number of leadership positions since joining the organization in 2002 and has attained the Distinguished Toastmaster designation. Oakley is an associate engineer at the Nevada Department of Transportation, where he has worked for 22 years. He supervises associate engineers and engineering technicians, prioritizes daily workloads, delegates and directs activities to assigned staff, leads trainings, evaluates employees, and performs field inspections for all staff and employees. He was a part of the first graduating class of the State of Nevada Management Academy and received the Six-Sigma Green Belt Certification from the Management and Strategy Institute. He volunteers with the American Red Cross of Nevada.

Anthony Marinello, '11 Business Administration and Management, joined ABI Multifamily, the leading multifamily brokerage and advisory services firm in the Western U.S. Marinello brings three years of experience as a Nevada-licensed real estate agent. He grew up in the industry, with a grandfather who was a major contractor in the Santa Clara Valley, and a family who has acquired and sold a number of multifamily assets and mobile home parks in the region. “I joined ABI to expand my successes into the multifamily market and build on a family tradition I’m very proud of,” says Marinello.

Sara Ward, '16 BA Psychology and Spanish, '18 MA Early Childhood Education, received the 2021-2022 Nevada PTA Teacher of the Year Award. As a first grade teacher at Robert and Sandy Ellis Elementary School in Henderson, Ward's enthusiasm for literacy, communication with caregivers, and encouragement in the classroom helped students reach 100% participation in the PTA's school-wide Read-A-Thon.The fundraiser enabled the PTA to purchase a book vending machine for the school, with students able to earn tokens for a book from the machine that is theirs to keep. In addition, the community now has access to free books anytime in a Little Free Library placed outside the school, thanks to a grant Ward pursued.  

Wendy Wimmer Schuchart, '20 PhD English, has been awarded the 2022 fiction prize by Autumn House Press for her short story collection Entry Level: Stories. The prize was awarded by novelist Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. Wimmer’s debut short story collection contains a range of characters who are trying to find, assert, or salvage their identities. These 15 stories center around the experience of being underemployed — whether by circumstance, class, gender, race, or other prevailing factors — and the toll this takes on an individual. Wimmer pushes the boundaries of reality, creating stories that are funny, fantastic, and at times terrifying. Her characters undergo feats of endurance, heartbreak, and loneliness, all while trying to succeed in a world that so often undervalues them. From a young marine biologist suffering from imposter syndrome and a haunting to a bingo caller facing another brutal snowstorm and a creature that may or not be an angel, Wimmer’s characters are all confronting an oppressive universe that seemingly operates against them or is, at best, indifferent to them. These stories reflect on the difficulties of modern-day survival and remind us that piecing together a life demands both hope and resilience. At UNLV, she was a 2017-20 Black Mountain Institute PhD fellow. She also is the co-founder of UntitledTown Book and Author Festival as well as the president of The Art Garage, a nonprofit arts, performance, and literary organization. She lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Aaron S. Manfredi, ’05 BA Criminal Justice and ’14 MPA, has had a successful private and public-sector career in education, law enforcement, nonprofits, real estate, and gaming, including being a small business owner. He is a graduate of the City of Las Vegas Fire and Rescue/LVMPD Leadership Academy, president of the UNLV Veterans Alumni Club, and a candidate for Nevada Board of Regents-District 8. He is a Desert Storm veteran and earned a Southwest Asia Service Medal with a Bronze Star. His hobbies include mountain biking, pilates, and mentoring and helping other small business owners be successful.

Olivia Clare Friedman, ’16 PhD English, published her debut novel, Here Lies, with Grove Atlantic. The book, a visceral and portentous look at mourning, memory, and motherhood in an alternate Louisiana ravaged by climate change, has received positive reviews in The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Publishers Weekly, and many other publications. She is also the author of the short story collection Disasters in the First World and the poetry collection The 26-Hour Day. She teaches creative writing at the University of Southern Mississippi, where she holds the title of Nina Bell Suggs Endowed Professor. She lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.    

Jess Corrick, '93 BA Art, has been an entrepreneur, coach, and sales professional in the insurance, tax, and telehealth space for 30 years. He also is an art enthusiast who both collects and creates. He and his wife, Kristl A. Daley, '93 BSBA - Marketing, enjoy snow and water skiing, travelling, and discovering new places They live in Kirkland, Washington.

Christopher Dayley, '06 BS Social Work, '09 Master of Education, is an assistant professor and director of the master of arts in technical communication program at Texas State University. In 2019 he earned a Ph.D. in technical communication and rhetoric at Utah State University. He lives in New Braunfels.

Vedant Peris, '19 Master of Education, along with Marcus Howard, '15 Master of Education, developed a program that uses smart technology and virtual reality to offer Las Vegas students emotional support in school. A comprehensive social and emotional learning program, ALOE ROSA is intended to address growing mental health problems among students ages 10 to 24. It uses smart technology including virtual reality and a complex conversation and tracking system to address mental health in K-12 schools. The program launched in 2021 to help teachers identify students experiencing mental health challenges as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and is now expanding to monitor and track student emotions to prevent major incidents such as suicides, and to build better relationships between teachers and their students. Howard and Peris founded individual education technology startups, Aloe VR and ROSA, and came together to provide a comprehensive social and emotional learning service to Las Vegas schools. Peris is an English language arts (ELA) teacher at Mack Middle School.  

Jacob D. Montoya, '08 BSBA, has been promoted to environmental services manager at Desert Diamond Casinos - West Valley (Phoenix). Previously, he served as environmental services assistant manager. He lives in Peoria, Arizona.

Penelope LePome, '84 MS Educational Psychology, was selected for a three-week artist residency program in Orquevaux, France, in February of this year. Now retired, she enjoys gardening, painting, ceramics, quilting, reading, canoeing/kayaking, hiking, and volunteering. She lives in Ridgecrest, California.

Marcus Howard, '15 Master of Education, along with Vedant Peris, '19 Master of Education, developed a program that uses smart technology and virtual reality to offer Las Vegas students emotional support in school. A comprehensive social and emotional learning program, ALOE ROSA is intended to address growing mental health problems among students ages 10 to 24. It uses smart technology including virtual reality and a complex conversation and tracking system to address mental health in K-12 schools. The program launched in 2021 to help teachers identify students experiencing mental health challenges as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and is now expanding to monitor and track student emotions to prevent major incidents such as suicides, and to build better relationships between teachers and their students. Peris and Howard founded individual education technology startups, Aloe VR and ROSA, and came together to provide a comprehensive social and emotional learning service to Las Vegas schools. Howard is a former science teacher at 100 Academy of Excellence.