Archive for category: Featured

The University of Georgia sends its graduates to a number of major metropolitan cities, including Washington, D.C. Two recent graduates, Alex Laughlin (AB ’14) and Julia Carpenter (ABJ ’13, AB ’13), now work for the Washington Post, one of America’s premier newspapers. Digital Specialist Jamie Lewis (AB ’12, AB ’12) recently interviewed Alex and Julia to learn about their paths to D.C.

Tell me a bit about your positions at the Washington Post. 

Alex: I’m a social media producer. Half the day I run the main social accounts (Facebook and Twitter), and the other half of the day I spend working on emerging platforms for the Post like Instagram, Snapchat and List.

Julia: I’m an embedded social media editor. That means I work on the audience engagement team, but instead of focusing on the main accounts and the entire newsroom like Alex does, I’m narrowing my focus to two things: our features department, and our Tumblr presence. Our embed program (we’re still hiring for two gigs — in local and world — so tell your friends!) just launched this past fall. Before I started as an embed, I was a digital producer on the social media team. I worked on some wonderful projects, like our voicemails Tumblr This Year I Learned (y’all should call in!) and user-generated content and new platforms (just a year ago, that meant things like Snapchat, messaging apps and Tumblr — isn’t that weird?).

Alex Laughlin (AB ’14), social media producer at the Washington Post  

What pushed you to move to D.C. after graduation?

Alex: I had always been interested in moving to DC because it’s a major city, but not as massive as New York. I fell in love with it when I interned here in the summer of 2013, and then I moved here after graduation when I got a job at a small political magazine.

Julia: I was interviewing for two jobs at the same time — one was in D.C., and the other in New York. I’d interned in New York (twice!) and I’d lived there (twice!), so I decided to do the thing I hadn’t done before. I wanted to explore a new city, and I wanted to do journalism — the gig at The Post was the perfect opportunity to do both.

Julia Carpenter (ABJ ’13, AB ’13), embedded social media editor at the Washington Post 

How did your time at UGA prepare you for the professional world? Any particular professors, classes or organizations that affected you?

Alex: I was a women’s studies major, and the greatest preparation I got in the classroom for the “real” world was the ability to think critically about the systems around me and also know how to form an airtight argument and advocate for myself. The majority of my practical journalism experience came from my time at the Red & Black, where I was a reporter and then an editor (before our notorious walk-out in 2013!). I was also a member of a Panhellenic sorority, where I learned how to make small talk.

Julia: I was a total Red & Black junkie. I tried pretty much every job in that newsroom, and the friends I made there are now my strongest professional connections (and my dearest confidantes). I also can’t say enough how my double major — in magazine journalism and in English — and my Honors Program thesis work with Dr. Elizabeth Davis prepared me to think critically about new media storytelling. My thesis research was, seriously, just reading hundreds of characters worth of Twitter fiction — total dream, and something I bring up in work convos more often than is probably polite.

What advice would you give to a student interested in working on the digital side of journalism?

Alex: Make friends with the most ambitious people you know. Learn a lot about something that isn’t journalism. Always have a side project going — whether it’s an internship, a club leadership position, or a job. Trade them out each semester, and then take your last semester off. Don’t be scared to go to meetings for clubs you want to join — even if the people seem really cool and intimidating! They aren’t that cool, I promise.

Julia: Intern like a crazy person.

You’ve both got some pretty fun projects aside from your jobs at The Post – tell me about them!

Alex: I host and produce The Ladycast, which is a podcast where I interview cool women about their lives and their careers. I also have a YouTube series called “Side Hustle” with Femsplain.

Julia: I love side hustles! I have way too many open Google docs of projects yet to see the light. Otherwise, I run two newsletters: A Woman to Know and Drunk Poetry Circle. A Woman to Know is a daily missive about a woman from history, politics, art, science, you name it. I’ve written about Caresse Crosby, the inventor of the bra; Hazel Scott, a pioneering jazz musician; Tsuneko Sasamoto, a 90-year-old (still working!) photographer; the list goes on.

My friend (and fellow UGA alum!) Maura Friedman and I run Drunk Poetry Circle, a place for all happy hour poems to live (and also, sometimes, to die). We think everyone is capable of wonderful, moving, sad, hilarious poems — sometimes you just need a discount cocktail or two to stoke the creative flame. We ask people to submit the best of their work to us, and every week we send out a newsletter featuring the best (or funniest) verses.

Alex (left) and Julia (right) with Lindsey Rogers Cook (ABJ ’14), fellow Bulldog and Washington, D.C., resident 

What has been your biggest accomplishment since leaving UGA?

Alex: My biggest accomplishment is probably launching my podcast!

Julia: I’m proudest of This Year I Learned. I worked on it with one of my most favorite creative collaborators, Masuma Ahuja, and the whole thing — every message, the wave of responses — is just magic magic magic.

Best memory from your time at UGA?

Alex: Some of my favorite memories include walking from the SLC to North Campus in the fall, debating in my women’s studies classes, studying at Walker’s, and Take Back the Night with WSSO!

Julia: I have too many to pick one. Athens is one of those places I think about all the time — like whenever I have a bad day, or a good day, the first thing I think is “what’s happening in Athens right now?” Strolling up to Jackson Street Books after class in Park Hall. Ringing the Chapel Bell with my best friend on his graduation eve, after a night out at Blue Sky and Allgood. Studying at Walker’s with dirty chais. The thunder of “Touchdown, Georgia!” that echoed every Saturday. Walking down Bloomfield Street at night, surrounded by porches and twinkly lights. The apple and cheese sandwich at Marti’s. Staying late at The Red & Black and then walking home to my own (first!) apartment, where I lived next door to my bestest friends, where I could hear the crack of baseball bats practicing throughout September.

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In 2012, Shimat Joseph was given the position of Integrated Pest Management Adviser from the University of California. In this job, Shimat has dealt with the task of working with local growers to combat pests, specifically the cabbage maggot. In the last few years though, he has focused on finding alternative approaches for combatting these pests and restoring the future of agriculture for the state of California.

Shimat Joseph (MS ’06, PHD ’10)

Growing up in India, Shimat loved gardening, and chose to study agriculture in college. What began as a love for agriculture and gardening back home eventually led Shimat to study the field of entomology. In 2002, Shimat travelled halfway around the world to pursue a Master’s degree in entomology from the University of Georgia.

His past research areas have focused on turf control and pest management to deal with the hemlock woolly adelgid.

Congratulations on all of your success Shimat, and good luck with your future endeavors!

Read more about Shimat Joseph.

Digital Specialist Jamie Lewis (AB ’12, AB ’12) recently interviewed alumna Dr. Kim Osborne (PHD ’06). Osborne is a professor at Purdue University and was named the inaugural C-SPAN Endowed Chair at Purdue’s Brian Lamb School of Communications.

You were named to the C-SPAN Endowed Chair at the Brian Lamb School of Communications at Purdue. Can you tell me a little bit about that position? 

The C-SPAN Chair is a new position at Purdue in 2015-2016, and I am honored to be selected as the inaugural recipient of this prestigious endowment. It is a terrific fit for me because of my background in both public affairs and communication, which are areas central to C-SPAN’s mission. As a scholar, my academic expertise includes cultural studies, program planning, power/hegemony and media literacy.

Before I started at Purdue, I worked for two Cabinet-level federal agencies, in domestic and international roles, and I also have more than two decades of experience with corporations, nonprofits, top PR agencies, and media outlets worldwide helping to shape public opinion and public policy. At Purdue, I speak and teach, I serve on national boards, and I mentor the next generation of public affairs and strategic communications practitioners. It is rewarding to help guide young people whose skill set will impact decision making – from the U.S. Congress to statehouses to corporations nationwide.

Your resume boasts a variety of accomplishments. What are some accomplishments of which you are most proud? 

It seems like I have lived many lifetimes in one, and this has made my life interesting. Professionally, my recent assignment as the Chief Strategic Communications Advisor to the Afghan National Security Forces made me proud. I was the U.S. Department of Defense’s top civilian communications advisor to Afghanistan’s defense ministries in Kabul. In addition to my day-to-day duties mentoring senior leaders in the Afghan Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior, I was tasked with “fixing” the “broken” communications function in the Afghan National Army. (Did I mention that I had never worked in a war zone before?) My plan provided recommendations for major organizational improvements, identified training needs and remediation, and proposed more proactive and strategic messaging focused on the end of Operation Enduring Freedom, the upcoming presidential elections, and other major high-stakes, high-visibility endeavors.

Additionally, I guided senior military personnel in the development of the first strategic communications plan for the Afghan National Army, and I led efforts by ISAF’s Ministerial Engagement Team and the U.S. Defense Department’s Ministerial Advisory Group. For my part, the Afghan National Army’s Director of Strategic Communications called me “the best advisor I ever had … in spite of being a woman.”

Personally, I have done a lot of things that make me proud. One of them is saying yes when a woman asked me if I believed in her dreams. She approached me at a speaking engagement in Los Angeles, and she told me she wanted to start a leadership development program to send young adults to Ethiopia to do service work. She asked if I thought she could do it and if I would give her advice. Today, she is the executive director of a start-up nonprofit organization called Ethiopian Diaspora Fellowship. In the first year, EDF sent five young people from the Ethiopian diaspora – including one UGA graduate — to Addis Ababa for six months where they worked with community partners to build capacity in sub-Saharan Africa. In a recent meeting, Ethiopia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs asked if EDF could expand their program and model to other western nations and bring even more help to Ethiopia. I am officially the organization’s “strategic advisor,” but I am always introduced as the “person who said yes.”

You earned your Ph.D. in adult education at UGA. What attracted you to UGA? Do any particular memories of your time in Athens stand out? 

After I executed the public launch of Kelly Educational Staffing, which became the fastest-growing, most profitable business unit in (Fortune 500 professional services supplier) Kelly Services’ history, I’d become tired of Michigan’s winter weather. UGA’s Office of Public Affairs offered me a job in which I would help elevate the institution’s profile in the national media, and I did not hesitate to move south. In the decade that I worked and studied at UGA, I have more fond memories than I can recount in this space. Academically, I am grateful for the opportunity to study with several of the most esteemed scholars in the field of adult education and to have graduated from the top program in the discipline. Professionally, I enjoyed starting the Amazing Student feature on UGA’s website with my colleague, Janet Beckley, because I got to learn about and showcase so many talented Dawgs. I also enjoyed working as the first coordinator of the joint program between UGA’s Office of External Affairs, the Office of the President, and the Athletic Association where we featured UGA’s top teaching, research and service faculty on the field during home football games – which helps remind the Bulldog Nation that there is a university attached to its football team!

If you could give one piece of advice to UGA students as they prepare for internships and graduation, what would it be?

Be bold. Dare to dream. Take chances. Live the life you wish for. Think outside the box. Color outside the lines. Blaze new trails. I think back to when I was graduating from college, and I want to take that 22-year-old version of myself and hug her. I want to tell her to worry less and risk more. I want to tell her it will turn out to be more amazing than she can imagine. I want to tell her not to be so concerned about what other people think. And I want to assure her that it’s okay if you don’t know what you want to be when you grow up. Try one thing, and when it’s time to try something else, then do that. You only have all the answers when you look back at your life, never when you look ahead. It blows my mind to think about what a pivotal and transformational time this is in human history. What incredible opportunities we have to influence the course of events-for ourselves, for other people, for societies and for humankind! Do something positive. Inspire others. Make the world a better place.

Anyone familiar with downtown Athens and its eclectic variety of shops is surely familiar with Frontier. Since opening nearly 20 years ago, the store has connected local artists with community members by providing a venue for them to showcase and sell their work.

UGA alumna Devin Clower (BFA ’08) took ownership of the store three years ago. Her background in interior design helped her with the introduction of custom framing and redesigning the store layout.

The store’s motto, “All for the heart and home,” is reflected in the unique gifts that you can find at the store. Devin has worked hard to fulfill the motto, and through her leadership, the store has grown into a local favorite.

Congratulations on your hard work, Devin!