Cheryl L. Lyons, '93 BA Sociology, earned her Doctor of Education in higher education and student affairs from Ohio State University (OSU) on May 8, 2022. Lyons discovered her passion for working with college students serving as a resident assistant at UNLV during her undergraduate career. She currently serves as the director of disability services at OSU. 

Eric Noone, '16 BA Criminal Justice, is in the U.S. Navy. He enjoys cooking in his spare time.

Matt Engle, ’91 BS Business Management, was recently named vice president of Insurance Office of America (IOA), voted in as a shareholder, and his Las Vegas’ branch was awarded the "Small Branch of the Year." IOA has 60 insurance offices across the U.S. and U.K.

Dennis Schebetta, '98 BA Theatre, is an assistant professor of acting and directing at Skidmore College and co-author (with John Basil) of Building a Performance: An Actor's Guide to Rehearsal, published by Rowman and Littlefield. He holds an MFA in theatre pedagogy from Virginia Commonwealth University and trained in the two-year Meisner program. He has directed productions off-off Broadway at Ensemble Studio Theatre, 29th Street Rep, and Brass Tacks Theatre. His plays have been produced off-off Broadway, regionally and internationally. The short romantic comedy screenplay MY DATE WITH ADAM won the Steeltown Entertainment Film Factory Competition and premiered at The Three Rivers Film Festival in November. The film won Best Comedy Short in the High Desert Film Festival and has been an official selection of New Filmmakers LA, New Filmmakers NYC, The Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival, The Phoenix International Film Festival, 4th Annual Robot Film Festival, Landlocked Film Festival, and the Sci-Fi London Film Festival. Recent stage acting credits include productions with Saratoga Shakespeare Co., Northeast Theater Ensemble, Pittsburgh Playhouse, and  Off the Wall Theater. Film credits include My Date with Adam, ​Mulligan, Before the 4th, Abduction, All-Sight, Monongahela, Black Kerchief, Roses are Red, and The Dark Knight Rises. He lives in Saratoga Springs with his wife, daughter, and two rescue dogs. He enjoys playing the harmonica and guitar, running, and golf.  

Alberto Pirozzini, '96 BA Hotel Administration, is managing director of Splendido, the legendary luxury hotel in Portofino, Italy. Pirozzini joins the Splendido team after three years as area general manager for Pellicano Hotels. He brings over 25 years' experience working in luxury hospitality. He started his career with Four Seasons and continued with The Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis Hotels, and Resorts and Salvatore Ferragamo Group. In addition, he's held many management positions working in the United States, the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, and Italy.

Tim Lafferty, '75 BS Hotel Administration, has had a long career, beginning in 1973 with Del Webb's Sahara Hotel and various positions with Summa Corp.'s Sands Hotel, Beverly Hills Hotel Corp., Flamingo Hilton, and The Showroom at the Venetian. More recently, he has been an industry consultant, joined the Baskow Talent Agency, and the Las Vegas Speakers Bureau as director of sales, based in Las Vegas. He has been married 48 years to Donna, a professional water media artist and signature artist with the Nevada Watercolor Society. Hobbies include fly fishing, which has taken him to Montana, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, and most recently tarpon fishing in Key West, Florida. He also enjoys archeological and historical travel and visiting national parks.

Jessica Cohen, '10 MS Accounting, is a Merrill Lynch Wealth Management Financial Advisor. She was recently recognized on the 2022 Forbes "Best-in-State Next-Generation Wealth Advisors" list, which recognizes the nation’s top 1,000 next-generation wealth managers. She joined The Cohen Group in 2014 and works alongside her father, Gary. She notes that the diversity in their age assists the firm in effectively communicating and building lasting relationships with clients from every generation. In addition to this recognition, she was also named to Forbes' “Best-In-State Wealth Advisors,” and "America’s Top Women Wealth Advisors Best-in-State” in 2022. 

Dawn Starrett, '80 BS Biology and '85 M.Ed. Counseling and Educational Foundations, was a college instructor at UNLV for 15 years and for Baker College Online for 25 years. She was also a scientist/manager in support of the NNSS for 35 years. She is a licensed board certified behavior analyst who has worked with autistic children and their families since 2021. She also has a Ph.D. in psychology from Alliant International University. Starrett is a widow with two children and has plans to retire at "70-ish." Her hobbies include swimming, gardening, quilting, baking, traveling, and hanging out in a family cabin at Mt. Charleston.

Jesse Oakley III, '99 BS Civil Engineering, was elected to the Board of Directors of Toastmasters International, the world’s leading organization devoted to communication and leadership skills development. He has held a number of leadership positions since joining the organization in 2002 and has attained the Distinguished Toastmaster designation. Oakley is an associate engineer at the Nevada Department of Transportation, where he has worked for 22 years. He supervises associate engineers and engineering technicians, prioritizes daily workloads, delegates and directs activities to assigned staff, leads trainings, evaluates employees, and performs field inspections for all staff and employees. He was a part of the first graduating class of the State of Nevada Management Academy and received the Six-Sigma Green Belt Certification from the Management and Strategy Institute. He volunteers with the American Red Cross of Nevada.

Anthony Marinello, '11 Business Administration and Management, joined ABI Multifamily, the leading multifamily brokerage and advisory services firm in the Western U.S. Marinello brings three years of experience as a Nevada-licensed real estate agent. He grew up in the industry, with a grandfather who was a major contractor in the Santa Clara Valley, and a family who has acquired and sold a number of multifamily assets and mobile home parks in the region. “I joined ABI to expand my successes into the multifamily market and build on a family tradition I’m very proud of,” says Marinello.

Sara Ward, '16 BA Psychology and Spanish, '18 MA Early Childhood Education, received the 2021-2022 Nevada PTA Teacher of the Year Award. As a first grade teacher at Robert and Sandy Ellis Elementary School in Henderson, Ward's enthusiasm for literacy, communication with caregivers, and encouragement in the classroom helped students reach 100% participation in the PTA's school-wide Read-A-Thon.The fundraiser enabled the PTA to purchase a book vending machine for the school, with students able to earn tokens for a book from the machine that is theirs to keep. In addition, the community now has access to free books anytime in a Little Free Library placed outside the school, thanks to a grant Ward pursued.  

Wendy Wimmer Schuchart, '20 PhD English, has been awarded the 2022 fiction prize by Autumn House Press for her short story collection Entry Level: Stories. The prize was awarded by novelist Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. Wimmer’s debut short story collection contains a range of characters who are trying to find, assert, or salvage their identities. These 15 stories center around the experience of being underemployed — whether by circumstance, class, gender, race, or other prevailing factors — and the toll this takes on an individual. Wimmer pushes the boundaries of reality, creating stories that are funny, fantastic, and at times terrifying. Her characters undergo feats of endurance, heartbreak, and loneliness, all while trying to succeed in a world that so often undervalues them. From a young marine biologist suffering from imposter syndrome and a haunting to a bingo caller facing another brutal snowstorm and a creature that may or not be an angel, Wimmer’s characters are all confronting an oppressive universe that seemingly operates against them or is, at best, indifferent to them. These stories reflect on the difficulties of modern-day survival and remind us that piecing together a life demands both hope and resilience. At UNLV, she was a 2017-20 Black Mountain Institute PhD fellow. She also is the co-founder of UntitledTown Book and Author Festival as well as the president of The Art Garage, a nonprofit arts, performance, and literary organization. She lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin.