An Army captain, an interpreter, and two of her CBS news crew are dead, and television journalist Kimberly Dozier lies critically injured after a roadside bomb exploded after they’d left the safety of a Humvee in Baghdad.

Dozier, 39, a well-known foreign correspondent, earned a master’s degree in Middle East foreign affairs from UVA in 1993. Several news accounts say that doctors are “cautiously optimistic” after surgery on Dozier at an American military hospital.

“I just heard it on the news,” says R.K. Ramazani, founder of UVA’s Middle Eastern Studies department. “I’m concerned and unfortunately having trouble finding more information about her condition.”

Ramazani, an emeritus professor with 54 years at UVA, says he was shocked to hear about his former student today while driving and listening to National Public Radio.

“She was a good student,” says Ramazani, “and very determined to make journalism a career.” As her principal thesis reader, Ramazani says he was struck by Dozier’s maturity and “tremendous drive.”

While in Charlottesville, Dozier bartended at St. Maarten Cafe, according to an article in a UVA alumni publication.

Charlottesville radio host/historian Coy Barefoot met Dozier in the early 1990s when they were both pursuing masters degrees.

“I was fascinated by her experiences,” says Barefoot. “We met at St. Maarten’s on the Corner and hung out with the same group of friends there.”

The two recently reconnected via email, and Barefoot has been hoping to get the globe-trotting journalist to appear on his WINA talk show, “Charlottesville, Right Now.”

“She’s one of the smartest, most capable people I’ve ever met– one of those ‘wow’ kind of people,” says Barefoot. “Her nation has really been well-served by her talent.”

Barefoot says that when he asked Dozier recently why she put herself in such danger, she replied that she was just doing her job.

“She’s fascinated with the Middle East, and the conflicts there fascinate her.” says Barefoot. “She was in war zones before she came to UVA.”

Barefoot believes Dozier would be upset that her injuries are grabbing so many headlines– especially since two members of her crew, plus an interpreter and a soldier, were killed in the same bombing. At least 40 people died in a wave of attacks across Iraq that day, Monday, May 29.

A day later, Dozier was flown to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, for treatment at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a U.S. military hospital.

A CBS report indicates that Dozier’s blood pressure dipped precariously and that her pulse actually stopped at one point after the attack. “If this would’ve happened back in the States,” a doctor at the combat hospital told CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer, “she probably would have died.”

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