Alumni - Class of 1989

See what your former classmates and other Honors graduates are doing now. If you are a graduate of the Honors College and are not listed, please click here to add your information.

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Andrea Hewitt-Gibson (1989 - English)
received her M.A. in English/Creative Writing from USM in 1991. She is now Program Coordinator for the Faculty Senate at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee where she lives with her husband and children.
Last Updated: Apr 2008

Claire Gerald (now Brantley) (1989 - English)
works as an Acquisitions Editor with Harcourt Brace College Publishers. She received her M.A. in English from USM in 1993 and has worked as a Developmental Editor and Publisher's Representative at Harcourt Brace. She is married to USM graduate Tom Brantley, a professor of music at the University of South Florida; their son Carter was born on June 12, 1999.
Last Updated: Apr 2008

Edwin Alexander (1989 - Computer Science)
received his M.S. in Computer Science in 1991 from USM. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1997. He has been working at a control systems engineering firm in Lafayette, La., for the past two years and is now a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Louisiana Tech University.
Last Updated: Apr 2008

James Whorton (1989 - English)
received his M.A. in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins. Since receiving his Ph.D. in Creative Writing here at USM in 1995, Jim has been teaching English at Northeast State Technical Community College in Blountsville, Tennessee. He still drives the same car he had when he was in the Honors College.
Last Updated: Apr 2008

Jeff Olafsen (1989 - Physics and Mathematics)
received his M.S. in Physics from Duke University in 1991 and his Ph.D. in Physics from Duke in 1994. He held a lecturer position at the University of Massachussetts at Amherst from 1995 to 1997. He held a postdoctoral fellowship in Physics at Georgetown University, teaching and doing research in nonequilibrium dynamics from Fall, 1997 to 2000. Jeff is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Kansas. He married Linda Blue (1991, B.A. in Physics from Princeton; 1997, Ph.D. in Physics from Duke University) in December 1997. She is employed at Naval Research Lab in Washington, D. C., doing research on semiconductor lasers.
Last Updated: Apr 2008

Neil Rowe (1989 - Political Science)
After graduating from USM in 1989, I received my J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1992. I practiced law in the Chicagoland area for about 5 1/2 years and then in Montgomery, Alabama for 5 1/2 years. I then spent a year and a half in law enforcement followed by 3 years of teaching at Faulkner University's Jones School of Law in Montgomery. After 17 years away from Mississippi, I am now in Jackson working as a law clerk to fellow Virginia Law grad Judge Daniel P. Jordan, III of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. I plan to return to teaching and writing after my clerkship. I have published two articles: The Year-and-a-day Rule: A Common Law Vestige That Has Outlived Its Purpose, 8 T.G. Jones L. Rev. 1 (2004); and with Christopher L. Frost, Practicing Technical Proficiency in Legal Writing: Seven Ways to Avoid Embarrassing Yourself and Your Client, 67 Ala. Lawyer 287 (July 2006) (to be reprinted in N.C. Bar J. (forthcoming Fall 2006)). I am married to USM graduate Shannon Williams ('89, not the Shannon Williams who graduated in a later class from the Honors College). Shannon teaches first grade, and we have three incredible kids: Sam-7, Ben-6, and Ginny-4.
Last Updated: Apr 2008

Steven Spell (1989 - Radio, Television & Film)
received a master's in Telecommunications at Indiana University, where he taught classes in mass communications and video production. Since 1993 he has worked at Georgia Tech, where he is now Associate Director of the Georgia Center for Advanced Telecommunications Technology (GCATT), a public/private partnership working for research-driven economic development.
Last Updated: Apr 2008