eo art lab is a renown contemporary art gallery in Chester, Connecticut owned by John R. Schroeder, B.S. Arch, ’87. The gallery features amazing, mostly abstract work from emerging and established artists from around the country.

The gallery also features independent films during their cold weather film series on thursday nights in January, February, and March.

John would be happy to extend a discount to Michigan Alum. Come pay us a visit in person or on line! www.eoartlab.com.

A principle planner in the Transportation Planning Division of the Atlanta Regional Commission, Laura Keyes (nee Cruce) was recently elected Vice President of Chapter Services of the Georgia Chapter of the American Planning Association. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan with a BS from the School of Natural Resources and Environment. Laura lives in Decatur, GA, with her husband Kevin and three children.

has transitioned from an engineering career to a comedy writing career. Her episode of “Everybody Hates Chris” with Chris Rock premieres on Sunday, April 6, 2008, at 8/7 Central on The CW, with a repeat presentation on April 13th. The episode, entitled “Everybody Hates the BFD” involves the adventures of a young Chris Rock, who gets embroiled in a funeral director’s scholarship in order to buy Run-DMC tickets.

She has also written The 2007 World Music Awards, filmed in Monte Carlo, and Nickelodeon’s animated comedy, “The X’s.” You can read more about Alessia’s experiences in her “Letter Home” essay, published in the Mar/Apr issue of Ambassador magazine. She is a frequent blog contributor for the University of Michigan Entertainment Coalition at www.um-ec.org.

Jeffrey L. Williams (B.A. 1982) became the Chief Financial Officer of Concordia University (Ann Arbor) in March 2008. In addition, he is the award-winning author of “The Cheek Family Chronicles”. Jeff is also a Eastern Michigan University graduate (M.P.A., 1992) and of Huron High School in Ann Arbor (1978).

Leslie Anderson, PhD in political science, 1987, has been awarded a titled professorship at the University of Florida. She is now a University of Florida Research Foundation Professor of Political Science. Anderson is currently serving as a Fulbright Scholar (spring, 08) at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

March Madness Against Blindness is an annual fundraiser organized by Myron Hepner to increase awareness of current research designed to prevent and cure blindness, and to raise money to support specific research programs at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

March Madness Against Blindness 2008 will be held at Damon’s Grill in Ann Arbor on March 20 & 21. Damon’s also will donate 20 percent of all checks on those days to March Madness Against Blindness.

All donations over $75 will be automatically entered into a raffle for a basketball signed by men’s hoops coach John Beilein.

(BA-High Honors, 1996) has been awarded a 2008 Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress. Two Bynner Fellowships, valued at $10,000 each, are awarded each year to support and encourage the work of promising younger poets. He was chosen for the fellowship by U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic.

Thorburn will be honored on March 6, 2008, at the Library of Congress, where he will read from his work. He is the author of a book of poems, Subject to Change, published in 2004 by New Issues Poetry & Prose.

Fellow Wolverines, my company, Span Corporation, providing health care management services from our offices in Ann Arbor since 1988, has launched a new service for Courts, Judges, Lawyers and their Clients. Known as “Court-centric forensic drug and alcohol abuse screening” the programs provide sound clinical services with sensitivity to the special needs of the legal community. So, you U-M Law grads who are practicing in Family Law, Criminal Defense Law (especially DUI), or Civil Law – or those who have evolved to enjoy the appellation of “The Honorable,” stop by our web site to learn how we can help. Go blue!

Dr. Michael van Lent will join SoarTech in March 2008 as the company’s Chief Scientist. Dr. van Lent will be relocating to Ann Arbor and leaving his current post as Associate Director for Games Research at the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) at the University of Southern California.

After earning a BA in Computer Science at Williams College, Dr. van Lent received a Masters in Computer Science at the University of Tennessee and PhD at the University of Michigan in 2000. Prior to receiving his PhD, he worked at the Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence (NCARAI) at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. He joined ICT in 2001, where he became a Project Leader and a Research Associate Professor in the Computer Science department at USC.
He specialized in research and development of game technology for Army applications in immersive training, social simulation, and education. Dr. van Lent will lead SoarTech’s research and development of artificial intelligence for training and serious games, transitioning research into engineered solutions.