Kudos! June 2024

June 3, 2024
By W&M Alumni Magazine

Congratulations to William & Mary alumni who are making moves in the world! This is where we celebrate awards, job changes, promotions, recognition and other career and civic engagement news we collected between March 1- May 30. For more updates from your classmates, check out the Class Notes at magazine.wm.edu/class-notes and in the print edition of the W&M Alumni Magazine!

If you would like to submit an item for Kudos, email the W&M Alumni Magazine staff at alumni.magazine@wm.edu. We will also share your news with your class’s reporter.

Awards and Recognition

Ishita Ahmed ’11 was selected by the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) as the 2024 recipient of the CMJ-NBME Dissertation Fellowship, a program designed to promote diversity and anti-racist assessment and measurement practices. She was chosen because of her strong commitment to creating a justice-focused assessment and measurement system.

Malinda Zehner Guerra ’01 won an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Picture Editing for Variety Programming” and was nominated for an ACE Eddie Award for editing the fourth season of HBO’s “A Black Lady Sketch Show.”

Michael F. Guzzano ’21 graduated with his J.D. from The George Washington University Law School. He is working with the law firm Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox, in its Biotechnology & Chemical Practice Group.

Katie Darragh Larsen ’93 was named the No. 9 advisor in Pennsylvania for Forbes’ “Top Women Wealth Advisors Best-In-State” list. She is the founder of The Larsen Group at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, where she has been dedicated to bringing high-net-worth clients a rare combination of personalized, yet disciplined planning-based wealth management strategies.

Job Changes and Promotions

Darby Chang Schoenfeld M.B.A. ’04 has been the senior vice president of investor relations at Pathward N.A., a national bank, for more than a year. In April 2024, her role expanded to include chief of staff while retaining her current responsibilities in investor relations.

Michael “Ryan” Feeney ’14 joined the New York law firm Herrick, Feinstein LLP in the litigation department, where he focuses on complex commercial litigation.

Laird A. Lile ’81 has been reinstated by Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz to the Florida Supreme Court’s Workgroup on Judicial Practices in the Trial Courts. Established within the Florida Supreme Court’s Judicial Management Council, the group is charged with reviewing best practices for the implementation of procedures and other instructions by judges within their individual courtrooms to determine whether instructions are sufficiently accessible, understandable and consistent with rules of court procedure and law.

Doug Schmidt ’84, M.A. ’89 was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to lead operational testing and evaluation for the Department of Defense. In this role, he serves as the senior advisor to the secretary of defense on operational and live fire test and evaluation of Department of Defense weapon systems. Previously, Doug served as the Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering in Computer Science, the associate chair of computer science, and a senior researcher at the Institute for Software Integrated Systems at Vanderbilt University.