Welcome, New UCF Alumni Board Members!

Garrison Cohen ’14 is a litigation attorney at Holland & Knight LLP in Orlando, where he represents companies and business owners in a wide range of matters, including business-to-business disputes, commercial real estate litigation, labor and employment issues, class actions, and consumer-related claims. 

He earned his bachelor’s degree in legal studies with a minor in business administration from the University of Central Florida in 2014 before earning his law degree from the University of Florida Levin College of Law in 2017. 

Cohen is married to fellow UCF alumna Jaimie Cohen, a board-certified oncology pharmacist with AdventHealth. In 2025, they welcomed their son, Grayson, a hopeful future Knight. 

He says that choosing just one favorite UCF memory is difficult, but aside from meeting his wife, Cohen says watching the final space shuttle launch from campus stands out the most. “It was amazing to witness history and be a part of a university with such strong ties to our space program.” 

After serving as a UCF Alumni Board Committee Advisor for the past two years, Cynthia Chamberlin ’95 ’98MBA joins the board this year as an elected director. 

Chamberlin spent more than 27 years in the pharmaceutical and medical device sales industry, earning numerous national sales awards and serving on the Marketing Advisory Board at Connetics Pharmaceuticals. She now invests in and manages real estate properties in the Orlando area. 

She earned both her bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1995 and her MBA in 1998 from the University of Central Florida. 

Chamberlin is married to fellow UCF alumnus John Chamberlin ’91MBA, a safety specialist with Siemens Gamesa Wind Energy. 

Chamberlin’s favorite UCF memory is her undergraduate commencement, when her husband surprised her with his encouragement to pursue her MBA. “He told me that if I wanted to continue my education and get my master’s degree, he would help me make my dream a reality,” she says. “Yes, I did!” 

Shannon Chapman ’09 is the senior director of mergers and acquisitions at Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits. A first-generation American and citizen of Barbados, she began her technology journey at UCF, where an introductory programming course inspired her to pursue a bachelor’s degree in information technology with a minor in secure computing and networks.

After graduating, Chapman launched her career as a network operations center engineer before advancing into IT and enterprise service management leadership. She is also a published author, mentor and advocate for women in technology. Through the Chapman Family Endowed Scholarship in Computer Science, she supports UCF students working to advance opportunities for women in the field.

Chapman’s favorite UCF memory is tailgating on Memory Mall before the Knights’ first home game in the newly opened football stadium.

Melanie Johnson ’02 ‘06MBA is a senior leader in Enterprise Security at Lockheed Martin, where she has built a 24-year career that began through the company’s College Work Experience Program (CWEP) while attending UCF. In her current role, she leads IT and security initiatives, overseeing project delivery, data governance and performance metrics that support business transformation across the enterprise. As a Generative AI Champion, she has successfully led multimillion-dollar projects across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. 

Johnson earned both her bachelor’s degree in management information systems and her MBA from the University of Central Florida. During her time at UCF, she was a LEAD Scholar, a member of Delta Delta Delta and competed on the university’s water polo club. She also holds several professional certifications, including Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM) and PMI Certified Professional in Managing AI (PMI CPMAI). 

Johnson lives in Heathrow with her husband and their four-year-old daughter.  

Johnson’s favorite UCF memory is celebrating both her undergraduate and graduate commencements. “Standing on the stage, I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and optimism about the future, knowing that the education and experiences I had gained from UCF would propel my personal and professional growth,” she says. 

Todd Owen ’93 is a senior district sales manager at AbbVie, where he has built a more than 25-year career in the pharmaceutical industry. He leads a team of 10 pharmaceutical sales representatives serving North Florida and South Georgia, helping connect patients living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) to the care and treatments they need. 

Owen earned his bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Central Florida in 1993. 

He and his wife, fellow UCF alumna Debbi Owen ’92, have been married for 26 years. Debbi is also a pharmaceutical representative with AbbVie. Together they have two children, Grace and Jake. Grace recently graduated from Florida State University and is pursuing her master’s degree in human resources at the University of Tampa. Jake is a freshman baseball player at the University of South Carolina Sumter and hopes to one day transfer to UCF and continue the family’s Knight tradition. 

As a UCF football season ticket holder for more than 25 years, Owen has celebrated countless Knights victories. But his favorite UCF memory is watching the Knights cap off their perfect 2017 season with a win over Auburn in the 2018 Peach Bowl, finishing the year 13-0. 

After serving as a UCF Alumni Board Committee Advisor for the past year, Remi Salter ’12 joins the board this year as an elected director.   

Salter is senior legal counsel at Red Bull, where she leads brand enforcement matters across the Americas, focusing on protecting the company’s intellectual property portfolio. Before joining Red Bull in 2022, she was an attorney at Steptoe & Johnson LLP, where she maintained a complex commercial litigation practice. 

Salter earned her bachelor’s degree in political science and a certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from the University of Central Florida in 2012. She went on to earn her Juris Doctor with a specialty in international law from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law in 2017. She also mentors students in UCF’s Legal Studies program as well as law students at Stetson Law and UC Berkeley. 

Salter is married to fellow UCF alumnus Kevin Benik ’12, whom she convinced to transfer to UCF in 2009. Kevin serves as senior manager for the Office of the CEO at Dropbox. 

Choosing a favorite UCF memory isn’t easy, but Salter says three moments stand out: serving as a Burnett Honors College Peer Ambassador, jumping into the Reflection Pond with her Alpha Delta Pi sorority sisters before graduation and attending the Knights’ 2022 victory over USF with her father after moving back to Florida from California.