A sneak peek at a handful of 2023’s class of
40 Gators Under 40

A cutting-edge museum leader. An award-winning landscape architect. A sports marketer and agent for the NFL. A researcher dedicated to eliminating health disparities.

These are just some of the outstanding UF alumni honored at this year’s annual 40 Gators Under 40 celebration.

They come from diverse backgrounds, professions and life experiences. What unites them is a passion for excellence and innovation, as well as a heartfelt love for their alma mater.

We’ll be showcasing many of the honorees in depth throughout the year. In the meantime, here’s a handful of the 2023 amazing honorees.

40 Gators Under 40 honors outstanding young Gators who are going greater in their communities and professions.

Learn More

The holder of dual degrees in art history from UF, museum director Leslie Anderson (BBA ’04, MA ’06) orchestrates large-scale events that engage visitors with the most crucial issues of our time.

Her homebase is the National Nordic Museum, in Seattle, which bills itself as “your gateway to Nordic history and contemporary culture.” There, as its director of collections, exhibitions and programs, Anderson has organized major exhibits with Sweden’s Nationalmuseum and Finland’s National Gallery; collaborated with Jónsi (vocalist for the band Sigur Rós) on his first major U.S. art show, and coaxed leaders from Iceland, Finland, Denmark and Norway to appear in programs for American viewers.

Anderson made a major impact in 2021 at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. There she directed a symposium of world museum leaders and speakers from seven nations to discuss the impact of climate change on Arctic museums.

A polyglot, Anderson has studied Spanish, Italian, French, German and Danish, and considers curiosity and persistence among her main strengths.

When asked to imagine a movie made about her life, she graciously suggested the movie’s title, the lead actor and even the soundtrack.

“Reese Witherspoon would play me in ‘Keeping Curious’ or ‘The Indefatigable Curator,’” she said. “And Tom Petty’s music would figure prominently.”

There’s a Gator working to help you save money, build and improve credit – and ultimately enhance your financial life.

That person is Scott Brown (BSBA ’06, MS ’07), president of consumer information services at Experian. He joined Experian in 2021 and now leads teams of professionals for this $1.4B business.

Brown previously spent 12 years at Nielsen – the global company that measures and shapes what people listen to and watch. There he ran its $2B+ audience measurement business and migrated its technology platform to the cloud. For those and other efforts, he was named to Broadcasting & Cable’s “Watch List,” which highlights the key leaders shaping the future of media.

He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Warrington College of Business and lives and works in his hometown area of Tampa Bay.

Give thanks to UF’s College of Health & Human Performance because one of their own is dedicated to eliminating disparities in prostate cancer, a disease that kills twice as many Black men as U.S. men overall.

The person doing that good work is award-winning researcher Dr. Ewan Cobran (BSHSE ’06), a senior associate consultant and career scientist in the Department of Quantitative Health Science, Division of Epidemiology, at the Mayo Clinic, in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Since beginning his career at the University of Georgia, College of Pharmacy, Cobran has cultivated a national research agenda focused on who gets – and doesn’t get — prostate cancer, increasing understanding of prognostic genetics and other factors. Cobran’s socially responsible focus has struck a chord with the National Cancer Institute, National Center for Advancing Translational Science and the American Cancer Society, all of which have funded his teams’ research.

Cobran says many people helped him on his path in life, but one person especially dear to him was his grandmother, affectionately called Mum, who lived in England. When he was starting out in life, she gave him a great piece of advice.

“As I was finishing my undergraduate studies at the University of Florida, Mum told me, ‘Be fearless, take risks, make mistakes, and always have your own,’” he recalled. “I have lived by her advice when making career and personal decisions.”

Stephen English (BS ’07) spent his freshman year at UF as a walk-on player for the Florida Gators football team.

That experience didn’t translate to any Heisman Trophies; rather, English took advantage of his time in the Swamp to pivot to zoology as a major.

One of most his memorable courses at UF – which may have prompted his choice of major – focused on an early personal obsession.

“I loved dinosaurs as a child,” he explained, “so when I registered for ‘Age of Dinosaurs’ as my first-ever class in Summer A 2003, I thought college was going to be amazing!”

After earning his bachelor’s degree in 2007, English briefly became a high school coach before working for three years at Danny Wuerffel’s Desire Street Ministries.

English is now a physician assistant at the Moffitt Health Center at the University of Southern Mississippi, in Hattiesburg. In addition to caring for patients, Stephen lectures in health sciences and serves as a preceptor for physician assistant students. He has also served for nine years as the president of the Mississippi Academy of Physician Assistants.

In his spare time, English makes room for playing with his boys, spending time with his wife and collecting sports cards and memorabilia.

A secret passion or talent of his?

“My love for Disney music and the ability to sing most of the songs from the classic movies of my childhood,” he admitted.

“Versatile” aptly describes the life path of Galey Gravenstein (BSPR ’07), a track & field and cross-country letter-winner who crossed lanes from public relations (her major) to finance after graduating summa cum laude from UF in 2007.

Gravenstein is now vice president and regional director for Goldman Sachs Asset Management, where she caters to the needs of independent broker/dealer financial advisors and Registered Investment Advisors throughout Florida.

Since 2020, you can also find Gravenstein on Instagram and TikTok at @galeyalix, representing her side business, Galey Alix Design. With T-square and hammer in hand, she designs and renovates people’s homes on the weekend as a complete surprise to them. She proudly notes that Galey Alix Design currently has over 3.5M followers on social media and over 500M video views in the last year.

Landscape architect Laurie F. Hall (BLAE ’09), PLA, ASLA, ISA, goes from spaces large to small, and from interiors to exteriors, in her work as principal with CHW Professional Consultants, in Alachua. The firm specializes in planning, surveying, engineering, landscape architecture, and ecological and construction services.

During her career, Hall has worked on a wide range of award-winning projects throughout the southeastern United States. Her extensive portfolio includes campus design and planning projects for the University of Florida, UF University Athletics Association and UF Health. She is an advocate for sustainable community design and is passionate about creating places that provide opportunities for people to live, work and play.

The best advice she ever received?

“Always have a mentor and be a mentor,” she said. “I am grateful for those who have supported me in my career, and I take any opportunity to support those coming along, especially UF students.”

In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and their three young children, and the family can often be found at any UF sporting event.

If someone gave her a million dollars to better the world, she knows exactly what she would do with it, she said: “I have a personal connection to Type One Diabetes and would love to direct more money into finding a cure.”

Whitney Holtzman (BSJ ’10) is the founder and CEO of Social Victories, a social media and marketing consulting company for leaders in the sports world. She is also an agent for the National Football League — one of about 30 female NFL agents in the world — and as chief marketing officer, represents clients across pro sports, including NFL players and professional sports leagues and teams.

A graduate of UF’s J school, Holtzman began her sports career at ESPN, launching the network’s women’s sports initiative, espnW. From there she operated the social media channels for Major League Baseball and all 30 teams, and pivoted to marketing for the Miami Dolphins, RISE and sports franchises.

Whitney is also the author of “You Are the First You,” an Amazon best seller.

Among the people she’d most like to meet are Oprah, Tim Tebow and Tom Brady, she says.

Holtzman notes that her favorite free-time pursuits include “traveling — it’s my goal to visit every state and every continent — eating at delicious restaurants, spending time with loved ones and animals, reading, watching house-hunting shows on Bravo and HGTV, and going to the beach.”

Jacky Lagrace (BHS ’06) is vice president of population health for Ascension Florida & Gulf Coast.

Jacky works by side with physicians, practice administrators and care teams to implement population health-management initiatives and to optimize the use of clinical information technology. He is passionate about working with colleagues to advance priorities in population health, clinical practice efficiency, processes and outcomes.

Jacky notes that social determinants of health may impact as much as 80% of a person’s health. If given a million dollars to advance any cause, he says he would “invest in improving the lives, health, and environment of communities served.”

From Central Florida, Jacky graduated from the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions in 2006 with a Bachelor of Health Science and a Master of Health Services Administration from the University of Michigan. While studying at UF, he was a McNair Scholar and received the Dean’s Outstanding Award.

If he could have a film made about a topic close to his heart, it would be “Fruits for Kids,” he said.

“It would be a documentary about providing access to fresh fruits and vegetables to families in need, starring members of the community,” he said.

One of this year’s outstanding alumni of the UF College of Medicine (COM) is neurologist Lauren Bowen Reoma (MD 11, HS 15), who specializes in clinical trials methodology, especially with HIV-infected patients.

Dr. Reoma is a staff clinician and medical director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Clinical Trials Unit in the Office of the Clinical Director, in Bethesda, Maryland. There she oversees the centralized support for NINDS-sponsored IND and IDE clinical trials and data and safety monitoring procedures, as well as serves as the medical monitor for selected NINDS-sponsored trials.

Reoma was elected a member of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) End-organ Disease, the Inflammation Transformative Science Group and the ACTG Neurology Collaborative Science Group. She is the lead or associate investigator on numerous studies into HIV infection, antiretroviral therapies with ALS, inflammatory and infectious diseases of the nervous systems, and other topics.

Reoma can boast of three ties to COM: It was there that she earned her medical degree, in 2011, completed her internal medicine internship, in 2012, and completed her neurology residency, in 2015.