100 People to Meet in 2026: Educators

As leaders in higher education, these educators and administrators are passing on their knowledge to the next generation of Virginians.

ANNA W. HICKEY

DEAN OF JOSEPH W. LUTER III SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, CHRISTOPHER NEWPORT UNIVERSITY, NEWPORT NEWS

Retired U.S. Coast Guard captain Anna W. Hickey stepped into the role of business school dean at Christopher Newport University in August following a national search. Hickey served in the Coast Guard beginning in 1997, and before retiring this year, she was vice provost for academic administration at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut.

Born in Taiwan, Hickey grew up in Montana, and after graduating from the Coast Guard Academy, she earned her MBA at Florida Atlantic University and a Ph.D. in accounting at West Virginia University. She has taught accounting, government financial reporting and other subjects, and has written reviews for the Journal of Accounting Education.

BRUCE HOLSINGER

ENGLISH PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, CHARLOTTESVILLE

The setting for Bruce Holsinger’s bestselling 2025 novel, “Culpability,” grew from a pandemic getaway to the Northern Neck. The modest Airbnb his family rented was next to a renovated waterfront compound. The juxtaposition stuck with him.

Holsinger is a scholar of medieval literature and culture, as well as editor of U.Va.’s peer-reviewed journal New Literary History. He’s written five novels, but in May, Holsinger received a life-changing phone call from Oprah Winfrey, who named “Culpability” her book club pick for July, the month of its release. She called it a “scorching summer page turner.” Set on the Chesapeake Bay, the book follows protagonists dealing with the outcome of their autonomous vehicle’s crash with another car. “I’ve been fascinated and repulsed by the propensity of AI to threaten human autonomy,” Holsinger told U.Va. News.

He is also board president for Charlottesville-based nonprofit WriterHouse, which supports authors.

KELECHI C. OGBONNA

SCHOOL OF PHARMACY DEAN, VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY, RICHMOND

Kelechi C. Ogbonna has a memory of his grandfather traveling from Nigeria to the family’s New Jersey home. During the trip, the patriarch went to the hospital for a procedure and suffered acute kidney failure due to medication. Right then, Ogbonna decided to become a pharmacist to help prevent that sort of thing from happening to others.

Ogbonna joined VCU’s faculty in 2012, and he became the university’s first Black pharmacy school dean in 2022.
The strength of the university’s pharmacy program, Ogbonna says, was a factor behind Eli Lilly’s announcement in September to invest $5 billion to build a manufacturing facility in Goochland County.

“A lot of what I’ve been doing is speaking to the merits of our educational programs and why we believe we’re on the cutting edge of where industry is headed,” Ogbonna says.

THOMAS POWELL

PRESIDENT, AVERETT UNIVERSITY, DANVILLE

Averett University’s board found themselves searching for someone to lead the private university after its last president exited after serving three months, citing a family health matter. Even more urgently, the new leader had to deal with a financial disaster. In March, the Danville college sued its former chief financial officer and investment consulting firm in a dispute involving spending endowment funds to pay university debts. Averett also owes more than $13 million in bonds.

Thomas Powell, the retired president of Maryland’s Mount Saint Mary’s University and a former education dean at Winthrop University and Montana State University-Billings, signed up for the job in April, joking that it was “because they let me out of the asylum.” But the real answer is that Powell believes he’s up to the challenge. “This would be a good capstone to my career,” he says.

TERRY L. PRICE

COSTON FAMILY CHAIR IN LEADERSHIP AND ETHICS, UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, RICHMOND

Growing up, Terry Price was taught to never discuss politics or religion. Then, he became a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where no topic was off-limits for intellectual discourse. “That was the place where I was the most free,” Price says.

College campuses have changed over the last decade, he maintains. “It became more difficult to talk about things in a classroom or in a faculty meeting … for all kinds of reasons.”

This spring, Price offered a class titled “You Can’t Think That! Or Can You?” where students are exposed to ideas with which they disagree and build skills for what Price calls “productive disagreement.”

In a Wall Street Journal editorial, he wrote, “With a lot of practice, they all learned how to be good intellectual friends despite their many differences.” In January, he received a 2025 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

JULIE ROSS

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND PROVOST, VIRGINIA TECH, BLACKSBURG

In January 2026, Julie Ross will step into her new role as Virginia Tech’s executive vice president and provost, the university’s second ranking official, who serves as acting president in the president’s absence.

Ross moved from Maryland to Blacksburg to be the first female dean of Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering in 2017. She took an additional role as special adviser to President Tim Sands in 2023.

During her tenure, enrollment in the College of Engineering grew by 28% and research expenditures by 22%. Ross developed new programs in biomedical engineering, computer science and nuclear engineering. She also helped to launch the Institute for Advanced Computing in Alexandria.

Previously, Ross had been the first female dean of the College of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Maryland’s Baltimore County campus.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from Purdue University and a doctoral degree from Rice University, both in chemical engineering.

TERESA SEGELKEN

DIRECTOR OF CONTINUING AND PROFESSIONAL STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON, FREDERICKSBURG

Teresa Segelken arrived in Fredericksburg in 2020 as a training and curriculum specialist for the Marine Corps, a job that had her focusing on family members of Marines who needed workforce training. The pandemic wasn’t an easy time to move to a new town, but Segelken has learned to appreciate the community and history of her city. In 2022, she started at the University of Mary Washington, where she is director of continuing and professional studies.

In July, her office received a GO Virginia grant to start a new health care practice management certificate program — in essence, training health care workers how to be effective medical practice managers. “They’re usually not trained in management,” Segelken explains. “They’re nurses leaving the bedside.” Launching in the first or second quarter of 2026, the new program will teach leadership, communication and human resources skills that these job pivoters need. Segelken’s office also will host free seminars this year focused on artificial intelligence tools for small- and medium-sized businesses.

MATTIE QUESENBERRY SMITH

POET LAUREATE OF VIRGINIA; INSTRUCTOR, VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE, LEXINGTON

A Montgomery County native, Mattie Quesenberry Smith majored in biology and English literature at Hollins University and went on to earn her master’s degree in creative writing, focusing on writing poetry. She later worked as a legislative assistant on Capitol Hill and wrote screenplays for documentaries directed by her husband, including the award-winning “Between Two Fires,” all while raising 10 children. “I discovered poetry is one way for people to share life,” Smith says, “its real-world scientific mysteries and joys, as much as its lamentations.”

In November 2024, Smith, an instructor of writing and rhetoric at Virginia Military Institute, was named the state’s poet laureate. In July, she received a $50,000 Academy of American Poets Laureate fellowship for her statewide project to support veterans through poetry. Titled “Perseverance and Resilience,” the project was inspired by her father’s and uncles’ stories about World War II and the Korean War, and includes readings and workshops throughout the state, a poetry contest and a published anthology.

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