By Erin Jester
Since 2006, the University of Florida Alumni Association has honored outstanding young alumni who have made a significant impact on their industry or field and have made important contributions to their communities. The College of Public Health and Health Professions is pleased to recognize three 40 Under 40 honorees for 2025.
alexandra hill, D.P.T. ’14
Staying flexible is a theme in Alexandra Hill’s personal and professional life.
Hill, a physical therapist specializing in pelvic health and oncology at UF Health Jacksonville, has adjusted her goals again and again. Once a pre-med student, a personal experience with health care put her on a different track. A side gig in 2020 unexpectedly made her an entrepreneur.
“Stay open, even if you know what you want to do,” she said.
Originally on a pre-med track at Kent State University, her personal struggle with getting the right care shifted Hill’s perspective on her future career. After three years of dealing with hip pain and being told multiple times by specialists that there was nothing wrong, she finally found a surgeon and physical therapist who were able to diagnose a tear in the cartilage of the hip joint.
After a successful surgery, she began working with the physical therapist to help get her back to playing sports and living life pain-free.
The experience made her realize she wanted to build longer-term relationships with patients and help people find lifelong empowerment with their health, so she set her sights on physical therapy school.
“Within health care, PT really aligns more with what I wanted out of a career,” she said.
After receiving her doctoral degree in 2014, Hill completed a year-long women’s health physical therapy residency at Duke Health. After working at several hospital systems in a few different states, Hill moved back to Florida in 2021 to work at UF Health Jacksonville.
As a younger clinician, Hill said it can be hard to get one’s foot in the door at the national level.
“You need help from people who will bring you a seat at the table,” she said.
That’s where Meryl Alappattu, DPT, Ph.D., a research associate professor in the Department of Physical Therapy, came in. Alappattu was one of the first pelvic and oncology physical therapists Hill shadowed. Her prowess and reach within the field made an impression and further piqued Hill’s interest in those specialties.
With Alappattu’s guidance, Hill was able to get accepted into national conferences and organizations as an early professional. They still work together on research.
Only 5% of physical therapists in the United States identify as Black, as Hill does. She said she feels lucky to have spent time at UF and Duke, where she felt all groups are welcomed and celebrated.
In turn, she has sought to work with high school students from underrepresented groups, hoping to catch them earlier in the educational pipeline and get them interested in physical therapy.
Hill started her business, OncoPelvic PT, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when health misinformation and disinformation was circulating widely.
What started as an Instagram page has grown into a robust, inclusive educational platform for patients with pelvic health, lymphedema and cancer-related conditions and the clinicians who treat them. Her website features a blog, webinars, product recommendations, continuing education courses and other resources for patients and clinicians all over the globe.
Hill has even more up her sleeve. She and her husband, Stephan Woods, are developing a pelvic health product that they hope to bring to market later this year. The details are under wraps for now, but she said the product will address a market gap for patients experiencing pelvic health challenges.
Getting on a 40 Under 40 list was a bucket list goal for Hill. She was also recognized as a PHHP Outstanding Alumna in 2020.
“It means I’ve truly been able to make an impact, not just on my profession, but my community,” Hill said. “It means that my actions have been so much bigger than myself, and to get that from UF is such an honor.”
Matthew Medley, B.H.S. ’09, M.H.A., ’12
Matthew Medley has dreamed of this moment.
He has received other accolades for his work in health care administration, including a PHHP Outstanding Alumnus award in 2022. But for him, being on UF’s 40 Under 40 list is the pinnacle.
“It is a different level of accomplishment to be acknowledged by an institution that you’re so excited and grateful to be a part of,” Medley said. “It’s a unique mark that I get to leave on UF for everything UF has given me.”
Medley, who received a Bachelor of Health Science in 2009 and a Master of Health Administration in 2012, is now the chief operations officer for the Midlands Division of the Medical University of South Carolina Health System, where he oversees administrative operations for three hospitals.
Simply put, he ensures patients have a high-quality, safe and seamless transition throughout their health care journey. This could include overseeing the building of a new obstetrics unit, taking swift action to fix operating room equipment failures, streamlining appointment scheduling services and making sure the hospitals look welcoming to patients.
“No two days are the same,” he said. “I love it.”
Prior to his current position, Medley was an administrative fellow at Johns Hopkins Medicine, business manager of UF Health Pharmacy – Shands Hospital, operations manager for the Mayo Clinic’s Cancer Services Program and operations administrator for two of Mayo Clinic’s surgery departments.
Medley’s interest in medicine and health began at an early age. His mother was a nursing assistant at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, so the topic was always around. Originally, he wanted to be a doctor.
“I think that’s all people ever know, is being a doctor or a nurse,” he said.
But when he took a class about health care administration as an undergraduate, that all changed.
Medley said he had to work very hard to succeed in his pre-med courses, but understanding business systems and how to improve them came easily to him.
“Once that happened, it just clicked,” he said.
After completing his B.H.S., Medley took a gap year to find out if health administration was truly for him. He shadowed professionals, talked to his mentors, did research and was a teaching assistant for a class in the B.H.S. program taught by Jamie Pomeranz, Ph.D., assistant dean for undergraduate research and clinical professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy.
In fact, it was Pomeranz who recommended Medley to the M.H.A. program. Medley said Pomeranz continues to mentor and advise him today.
“I wouldn’t be here without him,” Medley said.
His other mentors at UF include Ed Jimenez, who was UF Health Shands’s chief operating officer and took Medley on as his first intern, which Medley said launched his career. Thomas Crawford, a former professor in the M.H.A. program, is the current chief operating officer for MUSC Health System and recommended Medley for his current position.
Medley said his key to success has been building relationships with leaders in the field as well as going after quality opportunities.
“Success equals relationships times results,” he said. You have to grow both of those things.”
The hardest thing for early career professionals and students right out of school is getting that first big opportunity, he said, and the way to it is by being present and prepared.
“The discipline that I gained as a student at the University of Florida has really carried me throughout my entire career,” Medley said. “For the mentors, for the people that believed in me, this is my way to say thank you.”
Sheldon Waugh, Ph.D., ’18
With a body of work spanning geography, epidemiology, military and civil service, there has been one constant throughout Sheldon Waugh’s education and career: data.
Now a lead data scientist at the U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of the Inspector General, the triple Gator leads oversight teams for congressionally funded programs across the department’s 13 bureaus.
To those in the know, the Department of Commerce is lovingly referred to as the “department of data.”
“That is definitely a common thread,” Waugh said. “You need data to make everything work.”
Waugh originally came to UF to pursue an aerospace engineering degree, but later decided he was more interested in the broader field of medicine.
After auditing a medical geography class, he found there was a career path that encompassed both medicine and his childhood love of maps and geography. Around the same time, he discovered he had a skill for using geographic information systems (commonly known as GIS), a computer system for understanding spatial patterns in data tied to geographic locations.
The instructor of the medical geography class, Liang Mao, Ph.D., an associate professor in the UF College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Department of Geography, encouraged Waugh to continue down that path, and recommended him for the department’s master’s program.
Another, Jason Blackburn, Ph.D., a medical geography professor and a member of UF’s Emerging Pathogens Institute – offered Waugh a position in the Spatial Epidemiology and Ecology Research Laboratory, which Blackburn directs. There, Waugh was able to find community with other researchers and work on projects he was passionate about while he completed his Ph.D.
Through his studies in vector-borne diseases, Waugh realized he was interested in solving complicated problems at the intersection of many different disciplines. He set out to earn a third degree from UF – a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the College of Public Health and Health Professions.
Waugh said he was particularly grateful to Robert Cook, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Epidemiology, who served on Waugh’s Ph.D. committee and provided guidance and advice during that time.
During his master’s and Ph.D. studies, Waugh was also a company commander for a U.S. Army Signal Corps unit, an Army branch dedicated to communications and information systems – another opportunity to interact with data.
Waugh was in ROTC as an undergraduate and commissioned upon graduating in 2011.
“I wanted to learn how to be a leader,” he said. “I appreciated the Army for allowing me to grow and develop into who I am today.”
After receiving his doctoral degree, as an epidemiologist with the U.S. Army Public Health Center, Waugh researched the spread of zoonotic diseases – diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans.
One of his accomplishments was establishing a collaboration with Banfield Pet Hospital to collect and compare data on the incidence of zoonotic diseases in military-associated animal populations, which range from bomb-sniffing dogs to pets owned by service members to turtles brought into school classrooms on a military base.
“We have to be cognizant of the fact that being in different areas includes exposures to different diseases, from leptospirosis in Japan to hookworm in Alabama,” he said. “It’s a distinct population but it’s a wide population, as well.”
He was also part of the Army’s Covid-19 task force, collecting constantly evolving guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health in the early days of the pandemic and developing policies to support Army personnel worldwide.
The work was intense, and by the time the task force was winding down, Waugh felt he needed a break from health crises. He landed at the U.S. Census Bureau, where his work as a data scientist increased flexibility and oversight among field representatives collecting census information.
The work also yielded the bureau’s highest award – the Department of Commerce’s Bronze Award – and the U.S. Census Director’s Award for Innovation.
He was surprised and delighted to appear on a 40 Under 40 list at UF, a place he considers a second home after spending 10 years on campus.
Waugh said it’s difficult but important to take stock of one’s own work as a civil servant.
“I’ve done a lot of cool things, and it’s nice to recognize that in myself,” he said. “I’m honored.”