Alumni & Friends

Welcome College of Liberal Arts alumni and friends. We have created this site especially for you so you can catch up with the latest news from the college, join the Alumni Association, make a gift to the college, and more.

Get Involved - COLA Alumni Chapter

Jessica Impallaria
A woman smiling.

Jessica Impallaria '08 M.Ed.

Associate Director of Development & Alumni Relations
Phone: 702-895-3078
Email: jessica.impallaria@unlv.edu

2020 College of Liberal Arts Alumna of the Year
Campbell Headshot

2020 College of Liberal Arts Alumna of the Year

Jill Campbell attributes her Sociology bachelor's as the foundation for her ascent to heights of corporate leadership.

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Class Notes

April 13, 2021

Regina Mitchell

Regina Mitchell, '18 BA Psychology, conducts a Zoom cooking class, teaching others with vision loss what she learned in her own kitchen in what she describes as “descriptive cooking." She was on the fast track in the culinary world as a classically trained chef who had worked with notable chefs, including Emeril Lagasse and Julia Child. Later she provided team-building culinary experiences for Fortune 500 companies as a corporate executive chef and eventually landed a top position in Las Vegas with MGM Properties, providing personalized-services to elite hotel guests. Her life took a detour when she was diagnosed with bilateral panuveitis, a condition which affects the lens, retina, and optic nerve. She paused to contend with the challenges of vision loss and to earn her UNLV degree, which had an emphasis on neuroscience. More recently, she returned to cooking. She serves as an advisor to Hadley, a Illinois-based nonprofit that serves those with vision loss by providing practical help at no cost. She participates in Hadley’s "What’s Cooking?" discussion group series and is helping with the creation of a new Braille series.   
March 30, 2021

Monica Marie Miller

Monica Marie Miller,  '96 BSBA Management and '96 BA Psychology, is a property appraiser for the Clark County assessor's office.
October 28, 2020

Ahiddibah Tsinnie

Ahiddibah Tsinnie, '00 BA English, is the author of the recently published book Yes, I Took My Meds, a raw, intimate dive into finding peace amongst the chaos. Dive into Tsinnie's world of family, culture, and motherhood while navigating her way through the ins and outs of bipolar disorder. Her story is one of courage and learning from mistakes. She lives in North Las Vegas.    
October 28, 2020

Rehan Hasan

Rehan Anwar Hasan, '95 BA History, is a business and tax attorney at Hasan, LLC, in Denver. He has been listed as “highly commended” by Chambers USA for the 2020 Diversity & Inclusion Lawyer of the Year award.
August 30, 2020

Matthew O'Brien

Matthew O'Brien, '15 MA English - Creative Writing, and former adjunct professor at UNLV (2012-16), has a book due out in October with Las Vegas-based Central Recovery Press. Dark Days, Bright Nights: Surviving the Las Vegas Storm Drains is an oral account from people who lived in the city’s underground flood channels and got out and turned around their lives. These redemption stories cast light on a rarely seen side of Las Vegas and offer a portrait of homelessness and recovery in America. (The book was edited by his classmate, Dan Hernandez, '15 MA English.) He also is the author of two other books, Beneath the Neon (Huntington Press 2007) and My Week at the Blue Angel (Huntington Press 2010). Additionally, he is the founder of Shine a Light, a program that provides housing, counseling, and other services to the people in the drains. Part of the proceeds from Dark Days, Bright Nights will benefit Shine a Light. From 2017 until this July he was a teacher and tutor with Escuela Americana. His hobbies include reading, working out, hiking, traveling, and urban exploring. He lives in San Salvador, El Salvador.  
August 28, 2020

Larry Lyon

Larry Lyon, '71 BA Psychology, has worked in various mental health positions for many years since earning his master's degree in experimental psychology and a doctoral degree in clinical psychology from Washington State University. For the past six years he has worked at the VA Southern Nevada Healthcare System. His previous jobs included 19 years in private practice in The Dalles, Oregon. He recently saw a long-held dream realized with the publication of a book, 1930: Manhattan to Managua, North America's First Transnational Automobile Trip, originally written by his uncle, Arthur Lyon, who with his younger brother; Joe Lyon, Jr., drove their 1930 Ford Model A Roadster from New York to Managua all under their own power. Larry Lyon wrote the introduction, while award-winning Nevada author Sally Denton wrote the conclusion. Denton compared it with travel writings by Charles Lindbergh, Jack Kerouac, and John Steinbeck. His main hobby is music. He lives in Boulder City.
March 10, 2020

Benjamin Montoya

Benjamin C. Montoya, '00 BA and '04 MA History, will publish a book, Risking Immeasurable Harm: The Diplomacy of Immigration Restriction in U.S.-Mexico Relations, 1924 to 1932, this spring with the University of Nebraska Press. He earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2015. He studies U.S.-Mexican relations. He also has published several articles and book reviews, and has served as a co-editor of and contributor to Beyond 1917: American Legacies of the Great War, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2017. He is an assistant professor of history at Schreiner University in Kerrville, Texas, where he lives with his wife and two children.
September 17, 2019

Anthony Guy Patricia

Anthony Guy Patricia, '04 BA, '08 MA, '14 PhD English, is an assistant professor of English at Concord University in Athens, West Virginia. His book, Queering the Shakespeare Film: Gender Trouble, Gay Spectatorship and Male Homoeroticism, was published in paperback in February after having appearing in hardcover from Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare in 2017.     
September 17, 2019

Reuben Wadsworth

Reuben Wadsworth, '09 MA History, is the author of the recently released book Red Rock Recollections, Volume 1: Fascinating Stories of Utah’s Dixie (Scrivera Press, 2019), which delves into the history of interesting places in Washington County. It is a compilation of stories he wrote as part of a series he did for the St. George News.  Subjects in the book include Confluence Park, the Hurricane Canal, Smith Mesa, Terry Ranch, the Brigham Young Winter Home, and the shuttle system at Zion National Park. The last was the subject of his master's thesis. A second volume, focusing on places in the region outside Washington County, is forthcoming. At UNLV, he worked closely with history professors Andy Kirk and the late Hal Rothman. He is a middle school English teacher and Dixie State University adjunct history instructor.  
September 16, 2019

Mariam Habashi

Mariam Habashi, '17 BA Political Science, '19 BA Psychology, is a registered behavior technician who works primarily with autistic children, a job she says she loves. When she was a sophomore she opened a vintage boutique that she ran until shortly before graduation. She plans to pursue a graduate degree in marriage and family counseling. Fashion, writing, and volunteering are among her hobbies. She lives in North Las Vegas.