Laura Baker, a shareholder at the Law Offices of John Day, has been named 2020 president of the Nashville Bar Association.

She has spent more than 12 years representing clients in personal injury, wrongful death and tort litigation across the state, and has successfully represented clients in hundreds of injury cases including motor vehicle, wrongful death, and slip and fall accidents, as well as medical negligence and products liability cases.

She has served on the NBA’s board since 2016, was awarded the NBA President’s Award in 2017 and was an inaugural member of the Nashville Bar Foundation’s Leadership Forum in 2014. Baker also is a fellow of the Nashville Bar Foundation.

Additional officers are:

• W. Brantley Phillips Jr., first vice president

• Tracy Kane, second vice president

• Michael G. Abelow, president-elect

• Lynne T. Ingram, first vice president-elect

• Daniel P. Berexa, second vice president-elect

• J. Bart Pickett, secretary

• Jeffrey L. Allen, treasurer

• D. Gil Schuette, YLD president

• Lela M. Hollabaugh, general counsel

Newly elected board members for 2020 are:

• Lora Barkenbus Fox, Metro Government Dept of Law

• William J. “Paz” Haynes, III, Bone McAllester Norton

• Marlene Eskind Moses, MTR Family Law

• Junaid Odubeko, Bradley

• Luther Wright, Jr., Ogletree Deakins

• Gulam Zade, LOGICFORCE

Mendes joins Sherrard Roe Voigt & Harbison

Bob Mendes will join Sherrard Roe Voigt & Harbison as a member.

Mendes concentrates his practice in the areas of commercial litigation, business bankruptcy and transactions. He also acts as outside general counsel for a number of companies. He counsels clients in forming and operating businesses and participates in client management teams to formulate policy and strategy, and he provides guidance to help clients avoid and resolve disputes and navigate through change management challenges.

Mendes is a member at Waypoint Law PLLC. He is admitted to practice in Illinois, Tennessee, and before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and a number of U.S. District Courts. He earned his J.D. at the University of Chicago Law School and his B.A. at the University of Illinois.

He is a member of the Nashville Bar Association, Nashville Bar Foundation, American Bar Association, American Bar Foundation and American Bankruptcy Institute. He has been listed in Mid-South Super Lawyers since 2008 and in The Best Lawyers in America© since 2007. In 2019, he was recognized by the Nashville Business Journal as one of the “Best of the Bar.”

Mendes was recently elected to a second term as a Metro Nashville councilmember-at-large. He also is a Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility Hearing Panelist.

Diermeier named Vanderbilt University chancellor

Daniel Diermeier, an internationally renowned political scientist and management scholar, has been elected Vanderbilt University’s ninth chancellor.

He will begin his term as chancellor July 1.

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Guggenheim fellow, Diermeier is the provost at the University of Chicago, where he previously served as dean of the Harris School of Public Policy.

In addition to his role as provost, Diermeier is the David Lee Shillinglaw Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, where he previously served as dean. His pioneering scholarship, which he continued while dean and provost, grapples with major questions facing society, including democratic governance, formal political theory, comparative political institutions, corporate social responsibility, private politics, and crisis and reputation management.

Diermeier was elected a senior fellow of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research in 2004. He has published four books and more than 100 research articles in leading academic journals, mostly in the fields of political science, economics and management, as well as in other areas ranging from linguistics, sociology and psychology to computer science and applied mathematics. His 2011 general audience book, Reputation Rules: Strategies for Building Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset, is widely read and consulted in academia and business. He has collaborated and consulted extensively internationally in both the public and private sectors and speaks five languages.

Diermeier is a member of the board of the University of Chicago Medical Center, the Board of Governors for Argonne National Laboratory, the board of the Field Museum of Natural History and the board of trustees of NORC at the University of Chicago. He previously served as a member of the Management Board of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and as a trustee of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole.

Vanderbilt student wins student entrepreneur prize

Stephanie Castillo, a Ph.D. student at Vanderbilt University, has won the local qualifying round of the EO Global Student Entrepreneur Awards for her business, Phuture Doctors.

GSEA is EO’s premier awards program for students who own or operate a business while attending college or university. This year’s qualifying competition hosted by EO Nashville saw the participation of five students from various local colleges and universities.

Student entrepreneurs competed against peers and were judged by entrepreneur judges. Castillo will now make her way to the national finals Feb. 10-12, 2020, in Silicon Valley, California.

Phuture Doctors aims to increase representation of minorities in STEM and expose high school and undergraduate students to STEM research through YouTube and other platforms. Castillo shares stories of scientists of color so students can explore careers from their homes or classrooms and see themselves reflected in STEM and popular media, ultimately inspiring them to be a leader in STEM.

Rathmell named interim chair of medicine at VUMC

Kimryn Rathmell, M.D., Ph.D., Cornelius Abernathy Craig Professor of Medicine and director of the Division of Hematology and Oncology, has been named as interim chair of the Department of Medicine in the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

As a clinician, she is a leader in ushering in new lifesaving treatments and advocating for cancer research.

Gochberg, Pham receive investigator awards

Daniel Gochberg, Ph.D., and Wellington Pham, Ph.D., both faculty members in Vanderbilt’s department of radiology and radiological sciences, received 2019 Distinguished Investigator Awards from the Academy for Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research.

Bestowed on the top 10% of academic radiology faculty, the award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the field of imaging research.

Battle of Franklin Trust names Farrow director

Kristi Farrow, who has worked for the organization for several years, has been named director of African and African American history for the Battle of Franklin Trust. Farrow has been conducting extensive research into the people and their families who were enslaved at Carnton and Carter House and leads the organization’s Slavery and Enslaved Tours.

Farrow has worked at the Battle of Franklin Trust since 2013, holding different positions such as staff genealogist, executive assistant and tour guide. Besides her time at the Battle of Franklin trust, she enjoys researching and finding lost stories of people forgotten in history.

The Battle of Franklin Trust will be expanding the Slavery and Enslaved tours to five days per week in early 2020. For more information about the Battle of Franklin Trust or booking a tour, visit www.boft.org.

First Horizon names Bradley senior VP

First Horizon Bank has appointed Glenn Bradley as senior vice president, private client relationship manager for Middle Tennessee’s Medical Banking Group. Bradley previously served as vice president. The announcement reflects First Horizon’s continued commitment to invest in its Medical Banking Group.

A veteran of the financial services industry since 1985, Bradley assists physicians, their practices and other medical-related businesses in reaching their short and long-term financial goals with lending and cash management. The UT-Knoxville graduate is a board member of the Nashville General Hospital Foundation and the Nashville Medical Group Managers Association.

Nashville Children’s Alliance chooses CEO

The Nashville Children’s Alliance has named Dawn Harper its CEO to replace June Turner, who retired after more than 20 years with the organization in that role.

Harper, who previously worked in different roles at NCA, returns to the organization after serving at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital and the Tennessee Coaliton to End Domestic and Sexual Violence.

Harper initially joined NCA to work as a forensic interviewer. In 2006, she became coordinator of the NCA’s Child Protective Investigative Team, where she served until 2013.

Harper left NCA to become program coordinator of Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, where she served as a liaison between patients and providers to ensure collaborative, coordinated care for patients. Harper’s work led to the program’s being accredited by the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association. Before becoming NCA CEO, Harper served as associate director for the Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence.

Harper earned a degree in psychology and sociology at West Texas A&M University.

Nashville State hires communications specialist

Tom Hayden has been hired to lead Nashville State Community College’s new public information and marketing department.

As the associate vice president of communications and marketing, Hayden will be responsible for leading marketing, public information, media relations and creative services while providing overall strategic leadership to numerous internal and external functions.

Hayden joins Nashville State after nearly eight years at MP&F Strategic Communications. Before working in the private sector, he was a longtime political communications professional, having served eight years as former U.S. Rep. Lincoln Davis’ director of communications, press secretary and director of U.S. military academy appointments. He also served as former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean’s 2011 reelection campaign’s deputy campaign manager and director of Communications.