Month: October 2026

Walking between Huff and Freer halls during her first semester at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Vivian Villegas encountered something that surprised the friend beside her: an academic advisor who knew her name and remembered her first big test. 

Health and Kinesiology advisor Amy O’Neill stopped to ask how it had gone. For Villegas, a freshman from Dixon, Illinois, that small exchange helped make a large university feel manageable. 

Years later, the pediatric occupational therapist returned to accept the College of Applied Health Sciences’ 2026 Young Alumni Award, recognizing work that helps children find their own ways to participate and belong. 

Villegas joined tourism executive Patrick Kaler and Paralympic wheelchair champion Susannah Scaroni as the college’s 2026 alumni awards recipients. Their careers reach from classrooms to international competition to the communities that welcome travelers, connected by an Illinois education and a commitment to expanding opportunities. 

“Although their paths are very different, each has used an Illinois education to open doors for others and strengthen communities,” Dean Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell said. 

For Villegas, the recognition brought back another campus memory: watching the same awards ceremony as a student in 2016. 

“This really is a full-circle moment and one that I will cherish forever,” she said. 

She arrived at Illinois planning to become an occupational therapist and chose kinesiology as her major. Within the college, she found opportunities to work as a research assistant and serve as student council president her senior year. 

After earning her bachelor’s degree at Urbana-Champaign, she completed master’s and doctoral degrees in occupational therapy at the University of Illinois Chicago. 

Her work now focuses on children, including nonspeaking autistic students, in school and community settings. She helps students who use augmentative and alternative communication and has helped develop an early literacy curriculum for children in kindergarten through second grade. 

Her work also extends to research at the Children’s Participation and Environment Research Lab, teaching occupational therapy students an Illinois-Chicago and serving on the Board of Managers at GiGi’s Playhouse Chicago, which supports people with Down syndrome and their families. 

Accepting the award, Villegas emphasized the significance of recognition for clinicians whose daily contributions may draw little attention. She described herself as representing alumni “engaging in the meaningful everyday work that often goes unrecognized.” 

For Kaler, recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award, the road back to Illinois began with a decision to step away from an established career. 

About a decade into the tourism industry, he returned to school with plans to earn a master’s degree and eventually become a professor. Research papers, seminars and discussions of theory made the transition demanding. 

“I won’t pretend that was an easy decision,” he said. 

His advisor, former Recreation, Sport and Tourism Department Head Carla Santos, helped him navigate the move from professional life to academia. But graduate school also clarified what Kaler missed. 

“I missed the people,” he said. “I missed the problem-solving and creating experiences that can truly change lives.” 

After earning his master’s degree in tourism in 2005, he took a job in Lake Tahoe, California, instead of continuing toward a doctorate. For someone who grew up in Rantoul, Illinois, the move stretched his expectations. 

“The thought of going to Lake Tahoe was never on my bingo card,” he said. 

Kaler’s career subsequently took him to Los Angeles, Northern Virginia and Buffalo, New York. Since 2014, he has led Visit Buffalo Niagara as president and CEO, with responsibilities that also include the Buffalo Convention Center and Buffalo Sports Commission. 

Hanley-Maxwell’s remarks placed that work in the context of community development, describing destination leadership as a way to support local businesses and create opportunities throughout a region. 

Kaler credited graduate study with strengthening his research and strategic thinking. He also credited colleagues, staff members, industry partners and family for helping make his career possible. 

Alongside his industry work, Kaler has shared his experience through teaching, lectures and appearances at national tourism conferences. 

His advice to students left room for uncertainty. 

“The field will surprise you,” he said. “It might bring you back to school years later than you planned. It might take you far from where you thought you’d ever end up. Trust it anyway.” 

For Scaroni, opportunity is inseparable from access. 

The recipient of the Disability Resources and Educational Services’ Harold Scharper Achievement Award came to Illinois from tiny Tekoa, Washington, to study and train with its wheelchair racing program and renowned coach Adam Bleakney. She earned a bachelor’s degree in dietetics and a master’s degree in nutritional sciences and became a registered dietitian. 

Her athletic achievements include six medals across four Paralympic Games, with gold in the T54 5,000 meters at the Tokyo Games and four medals at the 2024 Paris Games. She also has won the Boston, Chicago and New York City marathons. 

A serious training accident in 2021 interrupted that career. Her return to elite competition added another chapter to a record that Hanley-Maxwell described as extending well beyond results, through mentorship, disability advocacy and work promoting wellness. 

In accepting her award, Scaroni focused on the people who helped make an accessible education possible. She credited Scharper and DRES founder Tim Nugent with demonstrating that everyone deserves the freedom education offers. 

“As many of us—and I would argue that those of us with disabilities, especially—know, freedom can feel like the absence of a barrier,” Scaroni said. 

That freedom, she said, allowed her to pursue goals in athletics, academics and her profession. 

“For me, a physical disability has never been a barrier to any of my physical, academic, or professional dreams,” she said. 

Together, the honorees offered different measures of achievement: destinations strengthened, students supported and barriers removed. Their remarks also returned repeatedly to the people and experiences that helped them reach those milestones. 

For Villegas, that connection still feels personal whenever she returns to campus, whether to watch basketball, walk the Quad or share the university with loved ones. 

She closed by thanking the college for the award and, “more importantly, for making this campus my favorite place to come home to.” 

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