Reunion 2026 Speakers
Jane Buyers '81, HT
Jane Buyers was previously a Managing Director and senior banker with J.P. Morgan Chase. In 2025, after fifteen years of service, she was named an Honorary Trustee of Simmons University. She is a former board member of the Collegiate Church, the Center for Hearing and Communication, the Robert Toigo Foundation, and C. Brewer & Co, Ltd. After her banking career, Jane took up writing as a creative and therapeutic outlet. Her experiences taught her that people lead more satisfying lives when they are aligned with what matters most to them and have the freedom to navigate their choices in a healthy and balanced way. She endeavors to embody those concepts in her daily interactions. Jane brings warmth, integrity, humor, and compassion to her writing and interpersonal relationships.
Sanda Erdelez
Dr. Sanda Erdelez is a Professor and Dean of the School of Library and Information Science. She received her LL.B. and LL.M degrees from the University of Osijek Law School (Croatia) and a Ph.D. in information transfer from Syracuse University. She was also a faculty member at the University of Missouri, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Osijek.
Dr. Erdelez is a former Fulbright Scholar and recipient of The Texas Excellence Teaching Award and The ALISE Pratt-Severn Faculty Innovation Award. Her research interests include human information behavior, human-computer interaction, and usability evaluation in online environments. She has been internationally recognized for her pioneering research in the areas of information encountering and opportunistic discovery of information. Her research has received funding from both corporate and government sources including Dell Inc., SBC Communication, Texas State Government, and NSF. She is an active member of the Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T), where she has served in numerous leadership roles including the chair of the Special Interest Group on Information Seeking and Use (SIG USE) and member of the ASIS&T Board of Directors.
In 2015, Dr. Erdelez received the Outstanding Contribution to Information Behavior Research Award from SIG USE and also became a member of the SIG USE Academy of Fellows. She currently serves as the chair of the iSchools Organization.
Justine Pouravelis
Justine Pouravelis joined Simmons in May of 2025. She is a 15-time Emmy-Award Winning sports media executive with 17 years of industry experience.
Pouravelis began her basketball career at Catherine McAuley High School in Portland, Maine, where she led the Lions to a basketball Class A State Championship. She continued her academic and athletic pursuits at Bowdoin College, earning a degree in economics with a French minor and distinction as a Sarah and James Bowdoin Scholar. She competed in the 2004 Division III Basketball National Championship and was a Division III All-American.
With close to two decades of experience in the creative world, Pouravelis has produced nearly all types of content from long-form documentaries, short-form digital video, live television, and social media. She managed a multi-platform team of 15 people; overseeing social media, long- and short-form content strategy, and original content production for the home of the Red Sox and Bruins. Pouravelis set strategy and KPI goals for a multi-platform content team across 11 social streams at NESN and Sportsnet Pittsburgh with over 1.5 million combined followers.
Pouravelis co-launched Women of NESN (WON), an external female-led branding of umbrella women's sports content in New England creating content for the PWHL hockey team. She took part in launching a video podcast about women's sports called "Respect Her Game."
A proud Charlestown resident and Maine native, Pouravelis is committed to advancing the intersection of women's sports, media, and education.
Erica A. Schuling '13MS, '18MEd
Erica Schuling has served as the Director of Athletics & Recreation since March 2022, after stepping into the Interim Director role in January 2022. She began her career at Simmons University in 2006 as the head women’s soccer coach and expanded her leadership by becoming Associate Athletic Director in 2015.
She was named 2023-2024 Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Executive of the Year, and trained as an NCAA One Team Facilitator at the NCAA Headquarters in Fall 2024. She has introduced several new initiatives, including the reinstatement of indoor and outdoor track programs, increasing Simmons' sports sponsorship to 11 varsity teams. Additionally, Schuling was instrumental in supporting the start of the Cheer Team as a club sport.
A native of Weymouth, Massachusetts, Schuling lives in Swampscott with her wife Tara and their two children, Spencer and Sloane.
Lynn Perry Wooten
Lynn Perry Wooten, a seasoned academic and an expert on organizational development and transformation, became the ninth president of Simmons University on July 1, 2020. She is the first African American to lead the university.
Specializing in crisis leadership, diversity and inclusion, and positive leadership—organizational behavior that reveals and nurtures the highest level of human potential—Dr. Wooten is an innovative leader and prolific author and presenter whose research has informed her work in the classroom and as an administrator. She first joined a university faculty in 1994 and has served in administrative roles since 2008. Dr. Wooten came to Simmons from Cornell University, where she was the David J. Nolan Dean and Professor of Management and Organizations at the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management.
Dr. Wooten also has had a robust clinical practice, providing leadership development, education, and training for a wide variety of companies and institutions, from the Kellogg Foundation to Harvard University’s Kennedy School to Google.
Dr. Wooten grew up in Philadelphia, where she attended an all-girls high school. She earned a BS in accounting in 1988 from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, a Historically Black College, where she graduated as valedictorian; an MBA from the Duke University Fuqua School of Business in 1990; and a PhD in business administration from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business in 1995. She received a Certificate in Advanced Educational Leadership from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education in 2018.
John Young
Dr. John Young is a developmental biologist and Elizabeth Backofen Endowed Professor at Simmons University. The students in his lab use frogs to understand how changes in development can form the basis of the many forms seen in nature. He teaches courses that focus on development, stem cells, and biological diversity. He received his PhD from University of California, Berkeley, his MS from the University of Oregon, and his BS from Aquinas College.