Class Notes

Parasuram Balasubramanian, PhD ’21, was appointed an academic senior fellow at the Mack Institute for Innovation Management at The Wharton School for the academic year 2025-26.

Cole Reyes, AB ’20, was one of six recipients of the 73rd annual BMI Composer Awards. The awards, which celebrate excellence in composition, were presented by the BMI Foundation president in May 2025. Reyes is a composer, educator and arts administrator whose creative exploration delves into the intersection of individual human experiences and the broader world. He is pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Michigan. 

Alissa Barber, MSW ’20, married Sardor Abdugani on April 11, 2025.

Pablo Zavala, PhD ’19, wrote Forging a Mexican People: Collective Subjectivities in Postrevolutionary Print Culture, 1917-1968 (University of Arizona Press, March 2026). The book details how illustrated print culture forged different versions of “a people” in the context of postrevolutionary Mexico.

Nicholas Jarjour, PhD ’19, is an associate investigator at Versiti Blood Research Institute. His laboratory studies tissue-resident immunity in health and disease.

Ashley (Shook) Shaw, BS ’18, and Ilana Spindel, BS ’18, recently formed a new company called Tilt Architecture and Design. The duo has extensive experience in the residential space, having previously worked at Seattle- and Los Angeles-based firms focused on design challenges including luxury homes, celebrity estates, single-family developments, townhomes, passive house design and even historic preservation and commercial design.

Kahlil Robert Irving, MFA ’17, had his show “EF3+E40” on display September–October 2025 at CANADA gallery in New York City. The pieces in the show blur the line between the natural world, built environments and the digital landscape. The work featured contorted handmade replicas of everyday objects along with photographic depictions of rocks, gravel, bark and the flowers that he encounters near his studio.

Jue Jue Min Thu, MSW ’16, started Jue Jue’s Safe Space, a mental health organization providing culturally appropriate mental health resources for refugees and displaced people from Burma/Myanmar. Her journey at WashU was shaped by a commitment to community empowerment and mental health advocacy. She currently works at Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu and teaches as a lecturer at the University of Hawaii’s Thompson School of Social Work & Public Health.

Emma Tyler, AB ’15, and Katie Stillman, AB ’14, married March 22, 2025, in New Orleans. They met at WashU and celebrated alongside 20-plus fellow WashU graduates, including their brothers and best men, Crawford Tyler, AB ’22, DPT ’26, and Alex Stillman, BSBA ’19.

Sarah L. Nirenberg, JD ’13, an attorney with the firm Butzel, was named to DBusiness Magazine’s “30 in Their Thirties.” The list celebrates metro Detroit’s rising business professionals in their 30s who have made significant achievements in their respective fields, demonstrating leadership, innovation and success. Nirenberg was profiled in the publication’s May/June 2025 edition.