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Alumni All-Stars
UC Santa Barbara Alum and former Daily Nexus reporter Gretchen Macchiarella spoke with journalism students of UCSB’s Professional Writing Minor about ways that they can use their reporting to spur social change. Macchiarella advocated for the implementation of Solutions Journalism, a type of reporting that highlights how people solve social problems.
UC Santa Barbara History graduate student Andrea Serna has been sponsored for her research by the American Councils for International Education’s Title VIII Combined Research and Language Training Program. Serna will use this fellowship to research her dissertation topic, exploring how new borders affected early Soviet republics. In this interview she explains what her plans are for the time that she will spend on the fellowship abroad.
Max Jack, a researcher and an alumnus of the Ethnomusicology Ph.D. program at UC Santa Barbara, recently spoke to students and faculty about his experience navigating the academic job market in the United States and abroad. Jack also gave advice on doing research and submitting to academic journals.
UC Santa Barbara’s Writing Program invited Dhishal Jayasinghe, a former Global Studies and Philosophy double major and Professional Writing minor, to deliver a talk on the realities of life and career after graduating from college and working in Washington D.C.
UCSB’s Division of Humanities and Fine Arts celebrated Give Day last week with its annual Creativity Contest. Students from all majors and years submitted works in different categories—photography, prose, poetry, visual art, music and video—for the opportunity to be published on the HFA website. The winners were honored at a luncheon award ceremony.
Growing up in Los Angeles, UC Santa Barbara Writing Minor alumna Ashley Rusch frequently tuned in to her local radio station LAist 89.3, formerly known as KPCC-FM, becoming familiar with longtime radio host Larry Mantle. Now, after graduating from UCSB in 2022, Rusch is working for the same host she grew up listening to.
UC Santa Barbara alumna Alivia Birdwell highlighted possible next steps for graduating seniors in the Professional Writing Minor at a recent Graduate Speaker Series talk. Birdwell said her undergraduate internship experience led to a successful career in marketing and explained how the writing minor unexpectedly provided an avenue to the world of marketing - from an internship to her subsequent 10 years of marketing experience.
UCSB Film alum James Hayman spoke at the Pollock Theatre about his experience directing an episode of HBO’s “The Sopranos,” as well as his experience with UCSB’s film department and career. Hayman’s episode, “Eloise” was also screened, followed by an on-stage conversation with moderator Patrice Petro, director of the Carsey-Wolf Center.
Although Christian nationalism is slowly gaining support among Republicans and older Americans, last month’s election results were not as bad as some people expected for Democrats, UC Santa Barbara alum and Skidmore College associate professor Brad Onishi said at an event co-sponsored by UCSB’s Walter H. Capps Center.
HFA student intern Maxwell Wilkens moderated a discussion on the painful associations the Thanksgiving holiday holds for Indigenous peoples, to mark Native American Heritage Month. He was joined by panelists Alesha Claveria, a UC Santa Barbara Theater alum who is now an assistant professor of American Indian Studies at Cal State Northridge, as well as UCSB professors of English Amrah Salomón J, and Candace Waid. During this 45-minute Zoom session, the three professors discussed counter-narratives of Thanksgiving that have yet to become prevalent in the US education system.
Will Hahn, a UC Santa Barbara ice hockey team alum and now a Cal State Northridge graduate film student, works as production assistant for the National Hockey League’s Los Angeles Kings. He has recently combined his passion for film and hockey by writing and directing a film about UCSB’s very own ice hockey team.
Holly Roose, the director of UCSB’s Promise Scholars Program, works with high-achieving, first-generation students from low-income households to ensure their academic success. As director, she advises students, makes sure they hit their academic marks, supports them to overcome life difficulties, and helps them plan for future careers.
Adapted for film from the acclaimed science-fiction novel by Frank Herbert, Dune tells the story of Paul Atreides, son of the noble family that governs the planet Arrakis, and his epic destiny-driven journey to the most dangerous realm in the universe. Dune has been celebrated by both critics and audiences for its exciting storytelling and vivid world building– and coming up with the successful feature adaptation was no small feat. Dune screenwriter and UCSB alumnus Eric Roth spoke with a student audience about his creative process for the film at a recent installment of the Carsey-Wolf Center’s Script to Screen series.
During the current pandemic, a lack of access to labs has made modular synthesizers even more elusive than usual to media arts students. But in a recent lecture hosted by UCSB’s Center for Research in Electronic Arts Technology, UCSB alumna, Jiayue Cecilia Wu, described how free, online software programs and a "student-centered" approach to teaching makes modular synthesis accessible to students. Wu now teaches at the University of Colorado Denver.
Fighting a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis prompted UC Santa Barbara alumna Ashley Ratcliff to inspire others and publish her first book, a memoir titled “Jesus Year.”
Just three years after graduating from UC Santa Barbara, Molly Forster is an award-winning investigative producer who says doing an undergraduate Minor in Professional Writing helped her succeed when she entered in the media world after college.
Helen Murdoch, who received her master’s degree from UC Santa Barbara’s History Department, has spent more than two decades forging ties between the university and the Santa Barbara community, where she has taught history to high school students.
Jake Lazich, a recent UC Santa Barbara Linguistics alumnus, is now serving in the US Army as an infantry officer, aspiring to make a difference in the world by using his knowledge of linguistics to help him serve his country.
In the midst of a pandemic, UC Santa Barbara alumnus Marco Pinter has opened a new museum in Santa Barbara — the Museum of Sensory and Movement Experiences —which features work from other digital media artists affiliated with the university’s MAT graduate program. Pinter recently sat down for an interview with the HFA to discuss his work and the museum’s creation.
Since earning her Ph.D. in History at UC Santa Barbara in 2015, Jefferson has set out to uncover erased moments of African American history. Currently a scholar in residence at Occidental College, she has collaborated with artists, scholars, and institutions to produce educational programming, exhibits, and publications that are dedicated to sharing the African American experience with a wide audience.
