Panther alum Yulia Dannen, a Russian immigrant and single mother who has built a successful accounting business, recently won a statewide entrepreneur of the year award. “(They) said UNI’s accounting program is the best and now I know it is,” she said.
For Brandon Purvis, undergraduate research at UNI was a career-changing experience. A year-long stint as a researcher with assistant professor of computer science Dheryta Jaisinghani has him considering graduate school after they developed a preliminary system for enforcing social distancing guidelines in classrooms using the revolutionary field known as the Internet of Things.
The estimated 10,000 cyclists pedaling into Waterloo today are rolling under a whimsical passage built from bicycle parts. It’s the latest piece of public art from Victoria Reed (‘10) an accomplished sculptor who has public art installations throughout Iowa. This one will be moved onto the city’s bike trails after RAGBRAI ends.
UNI senior Aaron Brown is already weighing three job offers - and he won’t even graduate until December. The construction management major is part of a Panther program that has doubled in size over the last five years as industry demand accelerated. UNI is the only university in Iowa that offers a four-year construction management degree.
UNI alum and classically trained singer MaKayla McDonald never envisioned a place in the industry for a young, Black queer singer. Now the dynamic, up-and-coming soprano - who performs Friday through Sunday as Ida B. Wells in “The Suffragist” at the Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center - is winning lead roles in opera houses across the country.
The UNI Alumni Studio at the Red House Studios – a partnership between the Hearst Center for the Arts and the UNI Department of Art – was awarded in July to a recent graduate of UNI’s studio art program.
Andrew Dickerson (BFA Photography, 2019) will be using the space, located on the Hearst property, to further his art practice over the next year.
Jeff Mochal, the new head of corporate communications for MGM Resorts International, credits his undergraduate experience at UNI with helping him decide the career path he didn’t want.
Running past bullets and crossing oceans to escape genocide in her home country, Ariane Hakizimana grew up in survival mode. But at UNI, she found a supportive community that helped give her the skills to thrive — and keep fighting for her goal of helping others.
Sarah Joanne Boury overcame huge challenges that few can imagine to walk the stage May 7 for her diploma and to turn the tassle on her graduation cap.
Indeed, the 23-year-old Des Moines, Iowa, native is believed to be the first to graduate from college — having earned a double major — while deaf (using one cochlear implant), breathing with one lung and sustaining herself through a tube-feeding system.
Growing up in Ottumwa, Isaac Campbell never imagined he’d get the opportunity to work on projects for national art galleries abroad, or work alongside a world-renowned French artist at the Louvre in Paris. But at UNI, he gained the skills and made the connections to gain access to once-in-a-lifetime opportunities — and develop lifelong passions.
