Author Archives: Kaitlin Barker

About Kaitlin Barker

Arts and Sciences Deans Office

#Throwback

Happy Birthday, IMS!

Fiorenza Micheli studied sustainable fisheries as an undergrad in the IMS. Now, she is a professor of biology at Stanford University.

Fiorenza Micheli studied sustainable fisheries as a graduate student in the IMS. Now, she is a professor of biology at Stanford University.

 

In celebration of the 70th birthday of UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences, we share this field research photo from the early 1990s of Fiorenza Micheli, a graduate student of marine scientist Charles “Pete” Peterson. In this photo Micheli was preparing for a day on the water studying sustainable fisheries in Carteret County. Today, Micheli is a professor of biological sciences at Stanford University.

 

Learn more about the research that happens at IMS at an open house Oct. 21 from 1 to 4 p.m. Read more here

Carolina Quoted

When national and international media need experts to comment on and analyze news and trends, they turn to Carolina. Of course, College of Arts & Sciences faculty often make news of their own with groundbreaking research findings. Here are just a few examples; see more at college.unc.edu.

The old well covered in snow. Photo courtesy of Kayce Scinta.

The old well covered in snow. Photo courtesy of Kayce Scinta.

The New York Times

“Our goal as scientists isn’t to save only endangered invertebrates like coral but to preserve the reefs that hundreds of millions of people depend on. Food, jobs, tourism revenue, recreation and buffers from coastal storms are just some of the value coastal communities get from healthy reefs.”

—  John Bruno, biology professor, on preserving coral reefs

NPR

“IT’S GOOD NEWS IF YOU WERE A LITTLE BIT OF A NERD OR A THEATER GEEK. WE’RE THE ONES THAT TURN OUT THE BEST IN THE LONG RUN.”

Mitch Prinstein, psychology and neuroscience professor, on the science behind popularity

The Times of Israel

“The mosaics provide a great deal of information about ancient daily life, such as the construction techniques shown in the Tower of Babel scene.”

Jodi Magness, religious studies professor, on archaeological finds in Galilee

The Guardian

“An event of this scale can very well take years, and in some cases it may take more than 10 years to actually fully recover from this event.”

— Gavin Smith, director of the Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence, on Hurricane Harvey

National Geographic

“TARDIGRADES ARE EXTREMELY HARDY ANIMALS. SCIENTISTS ARE STILL TRYING TO WORK OUT HOW THEY SURVIVE THESE EXTREMES.”

Thomas Boothby, chemistry post-doctoral associate, on the indestructible power of microscopic creatures

 

The 0.3 percent

Carolina alumna Zena Cardman stands on a tarmac holding her gear. She is a new NASA astronaut trainee. Over 18,000 people applied to be in the 2017 class; she was one of 12 selected.

Carolina alumna Zena Cardman is a new NASA astronaut trainee. Over 18,000 people applied to be in the 2017 class; she was one of 12 selected. Photo by Robert Markowitz, NASA.

From the lava fields of Hawaii to the vast expanse of Antarctica, alumna Zena Cardman has ventured to some of Earth’s most remote places. Now she has set her sights on the ultimate frontier — space.

Life-changing moments can come when you least expect them. On a hot August afternoon, Zena Cardman feels her phone buzz and sees a number she doesn’t recognize — an area code from Houston. She hesitates, thinking it might be a marketing call.

She decides to answer it. A woman’s voice says, “Hello, this is the astronaut selection office.” Cardman stands up and starts pacing around the living room. It’s not a marketing call, and it’s not a joke. “We’d like to have you come down to Houston for an interview.”

After a few seconds of stunned silence, Cardman says she would be honored.

Back in January, she had submitted her resume to the NASA Astronaut Candidate Program. “That’s all the application is; there’s no essay to wax poetic about why you want to travel to space,” Cardman says.

She heard nothing for the next nine months. Then, less than two weeks after she received the phone call from Houston, Cardman found herself at Johnson Space Center.

Her first morning there, she walked down a hallway lined with photos from every era of the space program, from Apollo 1 astronauts practicing egress training in a swimming pool to Scott Kelly floating in the cupola of the International Space Station.

“I get shivers every time I walk down that hallway,” Cardman says. “The fact that they even want to consider me for this kind of position is amazing.”

From UNC to world’s edge

Zena Cardman poses in front of the barren, frigid landscape of Antarctica.

During her time at UNC, Cardman went on three expeditions to Antarctica.

A decade before she walked down that hallway at Johnson Space Center, Cardman walked into Coker Hall, home to the biology department on UNC’s campus.

As a first-year student, Cardman fully immersed herself in Carolina’s rich culture of science and discovery. She found particular inspiration in an Endeavors magazine article by another undergraduate student, Kate Harris. “She had also worked in marine sciences and done research in Antarctica,” Cardman says. “I just thought that was so cool.”

When Cardman thinks something is cool, she goes after it full-throttle. “I was dead set on going south,” she says.

Two years later, she did.

After four days aboard the Laurence M. Gould, Cardman finally saw the southernmost continent,  but it didn’t look like land.

“It looked like clouds on the horizon, like a white haze,” she says. “It’s such a cool feeling — to cross an ocean and see land that you’ve never seen before, land that you’ve never stepped foot on.”

Standing at the edge of the world. Stepping into unexplored territory. That’s what astronauts do. Cardman believes her research experience (she has participated in three expeditions to Antarctica) has a strong correlation to space travel.

“You’re in a remote place with a limited number of people and you’re relying on this ship as your home and your life support,” she says. “You are there to do science. But you have to be just as willing to fix the toilet, clean up, cook, and be part of daily life to keep your lifeboat running.”

Practice for Mars  

Seven years later and over 7,000 miles from Antarctica, Cardman displays leadership skills characteristic of the best field scientists. She’s in Hawaii, pretending to be on Mars.

As part of the BASALT (Biologic Analog Science Associated with Lava Terrains) research project, Cardman and her colleagues carry out a simulation for a mission to Mars in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Two people play the role of astronauts while Cardman and a group of volunteers run support.

The new recruits take a selfie.

The new recruits take a selfie. (photo courtesy of NASA)

An instrument needs recalibration. An antenna needs to be adjusted. Something simple but essential — like the meter stick used for scale — was left behind and needs to be jury-rigged. Cardman helps rectify those issues. “Field work is a reminder that we’re all human and we’re bound to make some mistakes,” she says.

Going to Mars appeals to Cardman because she is a scientist. “Doing geology on another planet would be amazing,” she says. “But I never really thought about the requirements to direct those scientific investigations. There are logistical roles people have to play — how do you make sure you’re getting good data and good samples when the scientific experts are remote?”

Hawaii. Antarctica. The Arctic. Canada. Italy. The Gulf of Mexico. Virginia. Cardman has collected data and conducted field operations all over the world. It makes sense that she would be adept at doing the same thing on another planet.

More tests, more tasks

Over 18,000 people applied to be in this class of astronauts, and Cardman is one of 50 finalists. She’s in the top 0.3 percent.

After a battery of interviews, medical exams, skills-based simulations, and aptitude tests, Cardman is certain about two things:

“I don’t need to see a doctor any time soon,” she says with a laugh. And she really, really wants to be an astronaut.

At the end of May, Cardman receives another phone call; the number with the Houston area code is familiar now. She knew the Astronaut Selection Office would call on the 25th, whether the final answer was yes or no.

When Cardman received the call of a lifetime, a friend was there to capture the moment.

When Cardman received the call of a lifetime, a friend was there to capture the moment. (photo courtesy of Zena Cardman)

“I was really, really glad to have a few close friends spend that morning with me, otherwise I would’ve been a mess!” Cardman says. “It was one of the most surreal moments of my life! Honored and overjoyed doesn’t even begin to explain it.”

At just 29 years old, Cardman has accomplished something only the smallest fraction of humans do — becoming an astronaut-in-training.

Zena Cardman graduated from UNC in 2010 with a major in biology and minors in marine sciences, creative writing and chemistry. She was a Carolina Scholar as an undergraduate and also received a Burch Fellowship. She completed her master’s degree in marine sciences at UNC in 2014 and was working toward a Ph.D. at Penn State when she received the call from NASA.

 Story by Mary Lide Parker ’10, a writer for Endeavors magazine.

Choosing lives of community advocacy

An alumni couple help people transition out of homelessness and preserve historically black neighborhoods in Chapel Hill.

From left, Maggie West, Mike Alston, Julius Alston and Hudson Vaughan in the Alston brothers’ home. The Community Empowerment Fund and the Jackson Center worked together to help the brothers settle into a duplex in the Northside neighborhood.

From left, Maggie West, Mike Alston, Julius Alston and Hudson Vaughan in the Alston
brothers’ home. The Community Empowerment Fund and the Jackson Center worked together
to help the brothers settle into a duplex in the Northside neighborhood. Photos by Kristin Chavez.

Collaboration, conversation and cultivating relationships with people in their community drive the work and personal lives of alumni couple Maggie West and Hudson Vaughan.

Two organizations they co-founded focus on preserving the future of historically black neighborhoods in Chapel Hill and providing relationship-based support for people experiencing homelessness. The seeds for those nonprofits — the Community Empowerment Fund and the Marian Cheek Jackson Center for Saving and Making History — were planted when they were students at UNC.

CEF, which initially grew out of a summer undergraduate research project, offers saving opportunities, financial education and support to individuals who are seeking employment, housing and financial freedom. It has chapters in Chapel Hill and Durham. West (public policy and Latin American studies ’10) serves as CEF’s co-director.

Vaughan (history and minor in entrepreneurship ’08) is senior director of the Jackson Center, which works to honor, renew and build community in Northside and Pine Knolls, two historically black neighborhoods in Chapel Hill. It grew out of a partnership between communication professor Della Pollock’s class and St. Joseph CME Church.

UNC students are actively engaged in both organizations — last year 390 volunteered at the Jackson Center and 150 at CEF. Students help with needs such as financial coaching, finding housing, organizing community cleanups and processing oral histories.

West and Vaughn on the steps of their Northside home.

West and Vaughn on the steps of their Northside home.

The couple first met over coffee in August 2009 when they discussed ways their two organizations could partner together. They continued to cross paths, their friendship developed into something deeper, and they were married in October 2014. They live in the Northside community, just minutes from where they work, and love hosting community barbecues. Vaughan still has a note from a neighbor that was written to the couple after they were married. In part, it reads: “I pray that your lives together will be overrunning with grace, love, mercy and peace. …”

“We are part of a community that has so powerfully taught us the lessons of love and resilience,” Vaughan said. “This community has made us want to stay rooted here.”

West said she felt encouraged during her time at UNC to take risks “and to see unexpected losses or challenges as learning opportunities,” a lesson that has served her well over the years.

“It sounds cliché, but it really got into my soul in a particular way — that invitation for things not to work out the way you wanted them to, but to actually turn out better because of that,” she said.

There are many ways in which their organizations intersect. They like to tell the story of Mike and Julius Alston, two brothers who were staying at the men’s shelter in Chapel Hill. CEF and the Jackson Center worked together to help the men settle into a duplex in Northside. (In 2015, Carolina provided a critical financial boost to the neighborhood with a $3 million, 10-year, no interest loan to establish a land bank as properties in Northside become available. The Alstons’ duplex was purchased with the help of Self-Help Credit Union, which manages the land bank.)

Julius Alston and Hudson Vaughn share a laugh in the Alston brothers' home.

Julius Alston and Hudson Vaughn share a laugh in the Alston brothers’ home.

Both West and Vaughan have been recognized for their town-and-gown efforts. She was named the 2016 Citizen of the Year by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce and was declared a “Hometown Hero” by WCHL/Chapelboro; he won a 2016 University Diversity Award. They both serve on the Orange County Affordable Housing Coalition.

At the heart of it all, they both say that what fuels their passion is being transformed by their community in all that they do.

“We’ve been together since the very beginning in watching our organizations grow and change. … Along the way, we’ve learned a lot from each other,” Vaughan said.

For more on the work of CEF and the Jackson Center, visit communityempowermentfund.org and jacksoncenter.info.

Story by Kim Weaver Spurr ’88

The man behind HGTV

Lowe built Scripps empire on DIY, food and travel — and a focus on core values

Scripps Networks Interactive Chairman, President and CEO Kenneth Lowe, executive management and HGTV talent Jonathan Scott (L) Drew Scott (R) ring the NYSE opening bell in honor of the 20th Anniversary of HGTV at New York Stock Exchange on October 14, 2014 in New York City.

Scripps Networks Interactive Chairman, President and CEO Kenneth Lowe, executive management and HGTV talent Jonathan Scott (L) and Drew Scott (R) ring the NYSE opening bell in honor of the 20th Anniversary of HGTV at New York Stock Exchange on October 14, 2014 in New York City. (photo courtesy of Scripps Network)

At age 10, Ken Lowe ’72 built a makeshift radio station in the garage on his family’s rural North Carolina tobacco farm.

“I think my biggest audience was probably livestock,” he joked in a recent interview.

Lowe has come a long way from that first foray into broadcasting. Today he is chairman, president and CEO of Scripps Networks Interactive. His accomplishments over four decades with Scripps include being the brainchild behind HGTV, managing the transformation of the Food Network and Travel Channel and presiding over the launch of DIY Network and the Cooking Channel.

In July, Discovery Communications Inc., owners of Discovery Channel, TLC and Animal Planet, bought Knoxville-based Scripps Networks for $11.9 billion.

“For me, this was like watching your first-born child leave the nest because I created and started it, but it just seems like a natural fit,” said Lowe, who will serve on the Discovery board once the transaction is complete.

Lowe grew up on the outskirts of Mount Airy, the town that was the inspiration for Andy Griffith’s fictional Mayberry. He was always fascinated with how radio provided a window to life in the bigger cities and the world.

But Lowe had another love: construction — everything from building tree houses to helping his uncle, a contractor, during summers. That, plus a strong entrepreneurial streak, helped plant the seed for the HGTV launch years later.

Lowe and wife, Julia, with Jonathan and Drew Scott, hosts of “Property Brothers,” at an auction to benefit the American Heart Association.

Lowe and wife, Julia, with Jonathan and Drew Scott, hosts of “Property Brothers,” at an auction to benefit the American Heart Association. (photo courtesy of Scripps Network)

At UNC, Lowe majored in radio, television and motion pictures, and he roomed with Rick Dees, a radio personality known today for his Weekly Top 40 countdown. In the late 1960s, the campus radio station asked the pair to interview an artist they’d never heard of. The singer showed up with a beat-up guitar, sang a few songs and delivered long, rambling answers. The artist? James Taylor, who would release his debut album a few months later.

“We joked that we were the first two guys to discover James Taylor and then kind of blow him off,” said Lowe.

After college, Lowe took radio jobs in several cities. He joined Scripps in 1980 as general manager of radio properties and later was named vice president of programming, promotion and marketing for nine TV stations.

In that era of sensational talk shows, with hosts such as Morton Downey Jr., Jerry Springer and Geraldo Rivera, Lowe said he was frustrated by the lack of quality programming for families, especially shows targeted to women. He began developing shows that appealed to upscale and educated female viewers, a demographic that advertisers covet.

Initial response to the 1994 HGTV launch was tepid: “We can’t wait to watch a network about grass growing and paint drying,” Lowe recalled critics saying.

But he persisted. Today, the network includes hits such as Fixer Upper and Property Brothers, while popular Food Network shows include Chopped and Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

Lowe, head of Scripps since 2008, said a key was to focus not just on “whether we’d be successful as a business” but company culture and core values, which include integrity, diversity, humor, and compassion and support.

In the future, Lowe said he hopes to spend more time with his wife, playing golf and cultivating his growing car collection. ”He serves on several nonprofit boards and plans to spend more time supporting the Girls Leadership Academy of Wilmington, the inner city charter school for girls in North Carolina which he co-founded.

Ken Lowe, right, with his former roommate, radio personality Rick Dees, at a 2014 Center for Communication event.

Ken Lowe, right, with his former roommate, radio personality Rick Dees, at a 2014 Center for Communication event. (photo courtesy of Scripps Network)

As a kid from rural North Carolina whose parents never went to college, Lowe said Carolina was “eye opening” because of the diversity of students he encountered on campus. He remains in contact with many former professors, mentors and students. Including one zany former roommate.

“Rick Dees and I are best friends — I just spoke with him,” Lowe said. The feeling appears mutual. In April, Dees tweeted: “Congrats to my bff Ken Lowe, inducted tonight into the Cable TV Hall of Fame!”

By Pamela Babcock

 

 

 

Passport to everywhere

Dean Kevin Guskiewicz with geography professor Diego Riveros-Iregui in the Galápagos.

Dean Kevin Guskiewicz with geography professor Diego
Riveros-Iregui in the Galápagos.

I didn’t study abroad as an undergraduate, but I am fortunate that my research, teaching and personal travel have taken me across the globe in the decades since. As dean, it has been my privilege to travel to Berlin, London, Stockholm and the Galápagos. I love seeing firsthand how our talented students are learning from our extraordinary faculty as they experience a different culture — taking classes, talking with locals, trying new foods and being exposed to new ways of seeing the world. These students never fail to tell me how this opportunity has expanded their horizons and transformed their lives.

Our cover story is about the study abroad experience and Carolina’s push to be the great global public research university. Why the emphasis on global education? Our students need an international perspective if they are to be the leaders of tomorrow. I often talk about the College being the place where we will take on some of the world’s grand challenges. The first step to doing that is understanding how the world works today.

By the time this magazine reaches you, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will have launched its comprehensive Campaign for Carolina. One of the important campaign priorities of the College of Arts & Sciences is to provide more study abroad experiences for our students. In November, I will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong to meet with alumni, students and global partners to help establish new experiential learning opportunities. Other campaign priorities are to expand our efforts in digital literacy and to build a new home for convergent science.

You can read about all of these initiatives, and much more, on this web site. I hope these stories enlighten and inspire you.

Best,