Mickey Ibarra MEd’80 co-edited Latino Leaders Speak: Personal Stories of Struggle & Triumph, Vol II, which includes highlights of his life story from growing up in Utah foster care to serving as a White House official. Ibarra is founder and chairman of the Latino Leaders Network and president of the Ibarra Strategy Group.
Kimberly Richardson BFA’00 returned to Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis for the bilingual musical Go, Dog. Go! • Ve Perro ¡Ve!, playing MC Dog. In her 25-year career, Richardson has worked as a dancer, choreographer, actor, teaching artist, and theater-maker with companies including Upstream Arts, Ten Thousand Things, Guthrie Theater, and Sod House Theater.
Kathryn Cowles BA’01 BA’01 MA’03 PhD’09 recently published The Strange Wondrous Works of Eleanor Eleanor, which won the 2025 Fence Books Modern Poets Prize and the Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award for a Manuscript in Progress. The book features several “monstrous women” collages alongside ekphrastic poems about art pieces by the titular hero.
Stephen Tuttle MFA’02 PhD’06 has published the short story collection We Should Be Somewhere by Now, exploring “what it means to be a stranger in familiar places and among familiar people.” A writer of fiction and poetry, Tuttle’s work has appeared in The Nation, The Southern Review, Ploughshares, and other venues. He teaches at Brigham Young University.
Julie Ewing JD’03 has been appointed director of Utah Medicaid at the Department of Health and Human Services. Previously, Ewing worked as director of compliance at the U and as director of the Bureau of Managed Health Care at Utah Medicaid. She was Utah’s assistant attorney general for a decade.
Geoffrey Babbitt MFA’05 PhD’10 has published his second book, A Grain of Sand in Lambeth, winner of the 2023 Betsy Joiner Flanagan Award for Poetry. The collection is a poetic and philosophical engagement with William Blake—his visionary life, radical beliefs, and utterly original art. Babbitt’s poems and essays have previously appeared in North American Review, Pleiades, Colorado Review, LIT, and elsewhere.
Lindsey Blake JD’07 returned to her hometown of St. Anthony, Idaho, to accept a position as Fremont County’s prosecutor—in particular, to lead what became the infamous Vallow-Daybell multiple murder case. Blake had most recently worked in the Major Crimes Unit at the Salt Lake District Attorney’s Office and has previous experience in Idaho, including as a deputy public defender, and in Wyoming as a prosecutor.
Spencer Ricks BS’08 JD’13 is an attorney at Carr Woodall, based in South Jordan, Utah. He specializes in family law cases and emphasizes child advocacy throughout the process. Having gone through extensive training, Ricks is a court-certified and approved Guardian ad Litem, which is an attorney who represents children. As court can be costly, sometimes the most effective approach to helping a family through their case is in mediation, and Ricks is often appointed by the Court to represent the best interests of children.
Finau Rabuka-Conklin MSW’08, a third-year doctoral student in the U’s College of Social Work, received the 2025 Partners in Advancing International Education Student Award from the Council on Social Work Education. With more than a decade teaching Indigenous Fijian language and social work in higher education, she has held both direct practice and leadership roles, including mentoring undergraduates and serving as director of Early Head Start.
Anna Edelman BA’13 MPA’15 was deeply shaped by her experiences with the U’s Hinckley Institute of Politics, including a local internship supporting international students on campus and a global internship in Cajamarca, Peru. The work helped her discover a deep love for nonprofit organizations, and today, she works as the associate director of Annual Giving and Stewardship at the U.
Adison Rice BA’15 and his team will compete in the World's Toughest Row Pacific Race in June 2027, rowing 2,800 miles unassisted from Monterey, California, to Kauai, Hawaii, with a goal to uplift new and existing marine stewards. Team Rising Tide aims to raise $500,000 to support the race and donate to its partners working to preserve and protect our oceans. Rice first scuba dived as an exchange student in Japan, then set out for Hawaii to be a scuba instructor, meeting his future wife while diving. Rice later moved across the world to be with her in Finland and worked with sled dogs in the Santa Claus Village while she pursued her doctorate. Now, they live in northern Norway, three degrees above the Arctic Circle, where the mountains meet the ocean.
Michael Bandru BS’22 published The Queen in Time, a science fiction novel about an ancient being, reborn and made immortal, on her quest to stop the slow decay of entropy by remaking the universe in her own image. Bandru studied game design and development at the U but was able to use literature to tell the story he’d been creating in his head for a decade.
Jaren Kump BS’23, a second-year master’s student in health and kinesiology and team captain for the U football team, was named a semifinalist for the William V. Campbell Trophy, honoring the nation’s top football scholar-athlete, and earned a spot on the Rimington Trophy Watchlist. Kump is completing a thesis on why former athletes experience higher rates of obesity and depression, with the aim of improving physical and mental health support for athletes after retirement.
Kellie St. Pierre MFA’23 won the Grand Prize Award at the Palm Desert Choreography Festival in November 2025 for her work The Rate We Change, a piece she describes as inspired by the effect of ongoingness within a changing world. St. Pierre is an adjunct assistant professor at the U, as well as a choreographer, performer, and filmmaker.
Kay Jimenez BS’25 is the medication assistance program coordinator at Maliheh Free Clinic, where she connects patients with medication support and advocates for equitable access to care, and is a master’s level intern therapist at Odyssey House of Utah. A first-generation Latina graduate student in social work, Jimenez is passionate about empowering underserved communities through culturally responsive advocacy and community-based services.
Suraksha Bhandari MCP’25 is the new professional planner for the Office of Planning and Economic Development in Springfield, Illinois. While completing her master’s in city and metropolitan planning at the U, she led research on land use, resilience, and housing strategies. Before this role, Bhandari aided in urban planning projects elsewhere in the United States and in Nepal.
Jessica Lopez Lugo BS’25 is an associate mechanical engineer at Northrop Grumman. Lopez first interned at the company as a student. She is a first-generation Latina graduate from the U, where she was a mentor in the First-Generation Scholars program and was involved with the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.
Tracie Yellowman Tséyíníítso (Tso for short) BS’25 currently works in social media marketing for the Utah Division of Indian Affairs and is running for political office in her southern Utah House district. Tso, who is Diné (Navajo), was the 2025 student speaker at the U, likely the first Native speaker at U graduation. A longtime pipe welder and mother of three, Tso graduated with a degree in community health education and promotion and is working on ways to unite and strengthen rural Utah communities.
Claire Wulfman MPH’25 is the first student from the U’s Division of Public Health to receive the prestigious Fulbright Award. The globally recognized program supports international education and cultural exchange, enabling recipients to study, teach, or conduct research. Wulfman is doing research in India in partnership with DY Patil University in Mumbai and five local NGOs.
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