Honors Alumni

Honors Carolina alumni continue to pursue their passions after they leave Chapel Hill. Meet a few recent graduates as they embark on a promising future:

Pablo Durana ’06

Reel Water Productions
Pablo used an Honors Carolina Burch Fellowship to spend a summer bicycling 2,500 miles across western China in order to make a documentary film on ethnic minorities. Pablo has worked around the world for companies such as Discovery, Smithsonian, HBO, MTV, National Geographic, NBC, and PBS. Most recently, he was part of the production team that won an Oscar for the documentary short film Inocente.

David Moricca ’98

Founder and CEO, BreakoutBand
A member of the Clef Hangers, Carolina’s popular a capella group, David has always had a passion for music. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he worked at McKinsey & Co. and Scholastic before launching BreakoutBand, a new social music experience that combines his business expertise and love of music.

Annalee Bloomfield ‘09

Co-founder, Great Bridge Group
During a trip to Asia, Annalee met the director of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and became fascinated by how markets work. That led her to do something she had never envisioned: pursue a career in finance. A summer internship at Goldman Sachs led to a job on Wall Street after she graduated. Annalee left Goldman three years later to start her own consumer data analytics company, Great Bridge Group.

Kayla Tausche ’08

CNBC
Kayla graduated from Carolina with a degree in Journalism and Mass Communications. With an Honors Carolina Steamboat Foundation fellowship, she worked as a summer intern at Bloomberg, LP in New York. She currently covers corporate finance for CNBC. Outside of her primary beats, she has reported a variety of high-profile stories, including the Facebook IPO, the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the phone hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s now defunct News of the World.

Will Halicks ’08

National Geographic
When Will heard an Honors Carolina talk by professor Jay Smith about a monster who allegedly roamed the land in 17th century France, it sparked his own interest in the mythical black dog of northern England and the role stories play in our lives. Through a Burch Fellowship, Will spent a summer traveling the British Isles researching the legend of the black dog. Upon his return, he created a 30-minute documentary that helped him get an internship with National Public Radio and a job with National Geographic.

Liz Carter ’08

Peking University, Beijing
Liz became immersed in Chinese culture during her time at Carolina. A Weir Fellowship allowed her to study and work in Beijing, and a Burch fellowship enabled her to study Chinese immigrant women in Japan. She has lived in Beijing since graduating and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Contemporary Chinese Literature at Peking University as the only non-Chinese student.

Alex Berger ’08

UNC School of Medicine
When Alex arrived at Carolina, he knew he wanted to become a doctor. He took advantage of opportunities to get involved in undergraduate research projects and spent a summer studying ethnobiology in Costa Rica. He graduated from the UNC School of Medicine in 2012. Alex currently conducts research on women and obesity, and teaches anatomy and clinical medicine to second-year medical students. He is the recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching; the John Gibbons Medical Student Award from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; and a UNC School of Medicine International Fellowship at the Gertner Institute in Tel Aviv, Israel, where he will continue his work on the effects of obesity on pregnancy and birth outcomes.

Nicole Gallagher ’04

Foreign Service Officer, US Department of State
After spending a semester studying in Spain, Nicole decided that she definitely wanted to live and work overseas. After graduating from Carolina, she earned a master’s degree in International Relations and European Studies at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Nicole then fulfilled her dream of representing America overseas as a member of the Foreign Service. She currently serves as Press Attaché at the US embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Alex Stein ’01 and Asher Stein ’04

Professional Jazz Musicians and Graduate Students
Alex and Asher grew up playing jazz well before they came to Carolina. They studied jazz during the day through the University’s acclaimed Jazz Studies program and practiced their craft at receptions and nightclubs across Chapel Hill at night. Both brothers received Burch Fellowships to study jazz — Alex in New York, Asher in Cuba — and they now play professionally in and around New York City. Alex is currently earning a PhD in Ethnomusicology at Brown University, and Asher is preparing to enter medical school.