The College of Arts and Sciences’ roots stretch back nearly 200 years, but the skills, insights, and values of our liberal arts education have never been more relevant.
Our alumni are entrepreneurs. Scientists. Authors. Attorneys. Actors. Innovators. Game changers. They’re lifelong learners who strive to make the world a better place, and we’re pretty proud of them.
The College of Arts and Sciences is thrilled to present our 2023 list of amazing young alumni.
Entrepreneur and tech founder
Martina Jackson (B.A. '09, Biology) is an entrepreneur and the founder of Drea & Co., a photography and digital marketing company. She spent her early career in the biomedical and pharmaceutical industry as a regulatory affairs lead at companies including Eli Lilly, Cook Medical, and Exelead Biopharmaceuticals. After ten years of work in the regulatory field, Jackson transitioned into more creative endeavors, becoming a published photographer with a focus on creative visuals and content creation for a variety of commercial clients. Most recently, she was named the grand prize recipient of the BeNimble Black Innovation Pitch Competition for her innovative mobile photography app, Capture Noire—a photography editing suite that allows users to capture and edit portraits with a focus on tech that is optimized for a diverse variety of skin tones.
Learn more about Drea & Co.
Historian and professor
Eric Gonzaba (B.A. '12, History, Political Science) is a historian of American sexuality and an assistant professor of American studies at California State University, Fullerton. He is the founder and co-creator of several award-winning digital projects that attempt to illuminate the often-overlooked history of LGBTQ people. These include Wearing Gay History, a digital archive of historical LGBTQ t-shirts, and Mapping the Gay Guides, a digital mapping project using listings from historical gay travel guides since the 1960s. His work has been supported by grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Point Foundation, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
Read more about Gonzaba
Folklorist and professor
Langston Collin Wilkins, Ph.D. (M.A. ’10, African American and African Diaspora Studies, Folklore and Ethnomusicology, Ph.D. ’16, Folklore and Ethnomusicology) is an assistant professor of folklore and Afro-American studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. From 2019-2022, Wilkins served as the state folklorist of Washington and is currently an executive board member of the American Folklore Society. He is the author of Welcome to Houston: Hip Hop Heritage in Hustle Town, which will be released through the University of Illinois Press in 2023. Wilkins is a native of Houston.
Film producer
Austin Francalancia (B.A. ’09, Communication and Culture) is an award-winning producer and film executive, and has produced or overseen the production of films such as Chef, Nightcrawler, The Mars Generation, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, and Academy Award-winner Spotlight. Francalancia is currently producing a limited series on Ethel Rosenberg, a limited series on Belle Gunness, a feature film based on a true story of two Marines who fell in love during the time of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” and a feature on the life and death of Ernie Pyle.
Entrepreneur
Dolly Meckler (B.A. ’14, Telecommunications) is a New York-based entrepreneur, content creator, and social media consultant. She is the founder of Challah Dolly, co-founder of Snaplistings, managed social media for HBO’s Game of Thrones and Westworld, and ran brand social for YouTube. Meckler started her web series-turned-podcast Hello Dolly during her time at IU and recently produced a series called You Have Such a Pretty Face, exploring fat-phobia and body image through video interviews. In 2019, she launched her own social media consultancy, working with brands in the entertainment, tech, fashion, and lifestyle space. In 2020, she started baking challah bread out of her apartment as a pandemic side project called Challah Dolly, and within one year she turned it into a nationwide business. Meckler’s career achievements have been profiled in Forbes, Adweek, and The New Yorker. Follow her on Instagram or order Challah Dolly.
Visit Meckler's website
Designer and textiles artist
Sierra Naomi (B.A. '18, Fashion Design) is a designer and textiles artist committed to working at the intersection of design and social impact. Combining two years of service in AmeriCorps with fashion design experience at a corporate retail and specialized brands level has led them to amass a broad and versatile skillset in product development. Sierra has directed Craft With a Cause, a local program in Salt Lake City that turns reclaimed textile waste into products that benefit community members in need, displayed their weaving and contemporary fashion designs at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, and now leads design and product development for a local fashion company in Salt Lake City. This fall, Sierra intends to further research the intersection of design and social impact as an applied community and economic development graduate fellow at Illinois State University.
Connect with Sierra on LinkedIn
Philosopher and professor
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò (B.A. ’12, Philosophy, Political Science) is an associate professor of philosophy at Georgetown University. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of California Los Angeles. Táíwò has published in academic journals ranging from Public Affairs Quarterly, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, One Earth, Philosophical Papers, and the American Philosophical Association newsletter Philosophy and the Black Experience. His public philosophy, including articles exploring intersections of climate justice and colonialism, has been featured in The New Yorker, The Nation, Boston Review, Dissent, The Appeal, Slate, Al Jazeera, The New Republic, Aeon, and Foreign Policy. He is the author of Elite Capture (Haymarket Books, 2022) and Reconsidering Reparations (Oxford University Press, 2022).
Cognitive psychologist and professor
Althea Need Kaminske (B.S. '08, Psychology, B.A. '08, Linguistics) is an associate professor, chair of psychology, and director of behavioral neuroscience at St. Bonaventure University. She co-founded the Center for Attention, Learning, and Memory at St. Bonaventure, which offers professional development workshops highlighting evidence-based practices in education. Althea is part of The Learning Scientists, a blog and podcast dedicated to making the science of learning more accessible to students, teachers, and educators. She co-wrote Five Teaching and Learning Myths Debunked (2018) and her upcoming book, Ace That Test: A Student’s Guide to Learning Better, will be published in July 2023.
Learn more about The Learning Scientists
Scientist
Samuel V. Scarpino, Ph.D. (B.S. ’07, Biology), is the director of AI + life sciences at Northeastern University and a professor of the practice in health and computer sciences. Prior to Northeastern, he was a vice president at The Rockefeller Foundation, chief strategy officer at Dharma Platform, and co-founder of Global.health. Scarpino earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and has given more than 500 interviews to outlets including Good Morning America, The Wall Street Journal, Vice News, and NPR. He's authored more than 100 academic publications, which have been cited nearly 10,000 times. In recognition for his contributions, Scarpino was named an ISI Foundation fellow and an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Follow him on Twitter or connect with him on LinkedIn.
Visit Scarpino's website
Attorney
Jaclyn Dennis (B.A. '15, Criminal Justice, Psychology) is an attorney at the U.S. Department of Labor's Solicitor's Office. As an honors attorney, Dennis has supported research and enforcement efforts across the department, including efforts to eradicate international child labor, enforce mine safety and health standards, and protect retirees' pensions from mismanagement. Dennis graduated first in her class from American University's Washington College of Law, where she represented asylum seekers through the International Human Rights Law Clinic and provided technical assistance to the U.N. Committee Against Torture. Prior to law school, Dennis advocated for domestic violence survivors as the paralegal at the DC Volunteer Lawyers Project.
Connect with Dennis on LinkedIn
Sociologist and professor
Landon Schnabel (M.A. ’14, Ph.D. ’19, Sociology) is the Rosenthal Assistant Professor of Sociology at Cornell University. His nationally and internationally recognized research agenda examines religion, gender, politics, and social change. Schnabel’s research has received dozens of awards, including the Cheryl Allyn Miller Award from Sociologists for Women in Society for an outstanding contribution to the field of women and work. Beyond publishing in academic journals, he writes for outlets such as The Washington Post and Scientific American, delivers public talks including a recent TEDx talk on inequality and religion, and is writing a book on gender and religion.
Visit Schnabel's website
Music publisher
Katie Fagan (B.A. ’10, Individualized Major Program) is the head of A&R for Prescription Songs, a music publishing company in Nashville, Tenn. She has signed and serviced a number of hit songwriters over the years, including Joy Oladokun, Malibu Babie, Soaky Siren, and FRENSHIP. Most recently, an early signing of Fagan’s, Malibu Babie, had a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 debut for her co-production on “Super Freaky Girl” by Nicki Minaj. This success, along with her co-production on Megan Thee Stallion’s single “Her,” dubbed Malibu Babie as the first and only female producer to debut at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Chart.
Follow Fagan on Instagram
Author
Leah Johnson (B.A.J. ’16, Journalism, African American and African Diaspora Studies) is an eternal Midwesterner and author of award-winning books for children and young adults. Her bestselling debut YA novel, You Should See Me in a Crown, was a Stonewall Honor Book, the inaugural Reese's Book Club YA pick, and named by TIME as one of the 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time. In 2022, Johnson was selected for the NBC OUT Pride 30 list, honoring “a new generation of LGBTQ leaders, creators, and newsmakers.” Johnson is a Lambda Literary Emerging Writers fellow whose work has been published or is forthcoming in Cosmopolitan, Teen Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar, among others. Her debut middle-grade series, Ellie Engle Saves Herself, was sold in an eleven-house, seven-figure auction to Disney-Hyperion, and is forthcoming in May 2023.
Visit Johnson's website
Nonprofit CEO
Britt Sutton (B.A. ’12, Art History) is the CEO of ArtMix, a nonprofit organization that provides accessible art classes, vocational training, and artistic employment to individuals with disabilities. Sutton is a lifelong disability rights advocate and proud person with a disability. Prior to her role at ArtMix, she served as the director of policy for the Indiana Bureau of Developmental Disabilities Services, where she specialized in administrative law and policy composition for home and community based services waiver programs. Sutton was the associate director of the Hall Center for Law and Health at the Indiana University McKinney School of Law, where she also served as an adjunct professor for the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities Legal Fellows program. She currently serves as adjunct faculty for the Butler University Arts Administration program, teaching the next generation of disability rights advocates and arts administrators.
Learn more about ArtMix
Actor and professor
Jaysen Wright (M.F.A. ’12, Acting) is a D.C.-based, classically trained actor and adjunct professor at The George Washington University. His credits include Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Twelfth Night and The Three Musketeers, Mosaic Theatre Company’s EmmettTill Trilogy, 5th Avenue Theatre’s Beauty and the Beast as Gaston, Arena Stage’s Smart People, the Olney Theatre/1st Stage co-production of The Royale, and Studio Theatre's Wig Out!. Wright's career has been shaped by a belief in the power of the arts to affect social change. His work is centered on the fight for racial and social justice and queer representation. Follow him on Instagram.
Visit Wright's website
High-performance specialist
Danny O’Rourke (B.L.S. ’17, Liberal Studies) is currently a high-performance specialist at the University of South Carolina, after serving for five years as an assistant coach for the IU soccer team. At South Carolina, he oversees the physical, psychological, and data-driven aspects of both the men’s soccer and men’s golf programs. Following a collegiate career at IU, which included two national championships and the Hermann Trophy, O’Rourke played eleven years professionally in the MLS. He lives in Columbia, S.C., with his wife Dena, two-month-old daughter Dylan, and their dog Emma.
Consumer psychologist and professor
Esther Uduehi (B.A. ’11, Chemistry, Mathematics) is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Washington-Seattle Foster School of Business. Her research focuses on identity and diversity, such as when using minority ownership labels impacts consumer behavior and the role of multicultural diversity in the marketplace. Uduehi was recently named to Poets&Quants’ Top 50 Undergraduate Professors and received the Emerging Leader Award at UW. Uduehi earned her Ph.D. from the Wharton School and her master’s degree from Oxford University. At IU, she was named a Rhodes Scholar, Wells Scholar, McNair Scholar of the Year, and served as IU presidential intern and vice-president of the Board of Aeons. Currently, Uduehi is the co-founder of the Tenure Project, which focuses on issues impacting minority faculty obtaining tenure in business schools with 18 partnering institutions including Wharton, Stanford, and Harvard.
Visit Uduehi's website
Entrepreneur
Erica Anderson (B.A.J. ’06, Journalism) is the co-founder and CEO of The New Savant (TNS), a modern scent studio based in Brooklyn, N.Y. Born in the midst of the pandemic, TNS develops original olfactory experiences that encourage people to smell something new. In their first two years of business, TNS has sold more than 20,000 candles with zero ad spend. They were recently welcomed into the prestigious Fragrance Foundation for their groundbreaking scents in Mixed Feelings, California Christmas, and Witching Hour. Previously, Anderson spent 15 years on the forefront of technology’s impact on media. Her catapulting moment came when she worked at the CBS Evening News and introduced Katie Couric to Twitter (2009), which led her to five years inside Twitter in San Francisco, followed by a venture with Google in New York, where she championed cross-functional, global efforts to fight mis- and disinformation. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
Visit Anderson's website
Artist and professor
Rebecca Drolen (B.A.J. ’05, Journalism, M.F.A. ’09, Studio Art) is an artist, the program director of studio art, and an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas. Her work playfully explores the expansive nature of photography in contemporary art as it incorporates built spaces, assemblage, and performance. Drolen was the recipient of a 2022 Innovate Grant, and her work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions within noteworthy venues such as The Huffington Post, Oxford American, the Springfield Art Museum, the Oklahoma State Museum of Art, the CICA Museum, and Filter Photo in Chicago. Follow her on Instagram.
Visit Drolen's website
Psychiatrist
Morgan McCormick (B.S. ’09, Psychology, B.A. ’09, Criminal Justice) is a psychiatrist in Indianapolis. She is co-owner of Neighborhood Psychiatry, a private practice in Meridian Kessler. She has a focus on perinatal mood disorders, but she also treats the spectrum of mental health issues through medication management and therapy. She additionally tends to veterans at the Roudebush Veterans Hospital and provides consultation with several other hospitals in the state. She is a volunteer faculty member with the psychiatry residency at IU and enjoys providing education and mentorship to rising psychiatrists.
Visit McCormick's website