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Leadership and Management in 60 Seconds
This is Catalyze, a podcast produced by the Morehead-Cain Foundation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With a wink and a nod to the Foundation's two chemist benefactors—John Motley Morehead III and Gordon Cain—“Catalyze” is meant to represent action, movement, and bringing about change. Our conversations with action-oriented alumni and scholars cover Carolina experiences, career evolutions, individual leadership approaches, personal values, and all kinds of stories of trans ...
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Consultant and entrepreneur Bradley Opere ’17 of FarmMoja: ‘Africa is a place that a lot of people are waking up, step by step’
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Bradley Opere ’17 is the co-founder of FarmMoja, an agriculture social enterprise in Nairobi, Kenya. Bradley joined Catalyze to share about what got him interested in the agriculture industry, how FarmMoja is working to rehabilitate land and support smallholder farmers, and why it was important for the alumnus to return to Africa after graduating a…
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Portfolio manager Ying Hua ’10 on the two approaches to investing and what college students should know about getting started
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Ying Hua ’10 is a portfolio manager at Balyasny Asset Management, a hedge fund with $15 billion of assets under management. On this episode, Ying breaks down the two approaches to investing (fundamental and quantitative) and gives personal finance advice for college students. She also shares how to embrace volatility and risk in your career. Prior …
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Episode teaser: 60 seconds of career advice, from Ying Hua ’10
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Our next Catalyze guest is Ying Hua ’10, a portfolio manager at Balyasny Asset Management in San Francisco. Ahead of releasing her full episode, we’re sharing 60 seconds of her advice for college students interested in pursuing a career in finance. Listen before your next interview, or if you just need a pep talk. Music credits: “Outside the Box,” …
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Meet Dr. Brandi Brimmer, Morehead-Cain Alumni Associate Professor in the Department of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies at UNC–Chapel Hill
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Catalyze is honored to have Dr. Brandi Brimmer on the series to talk about her first year so far at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, her background in African American social and political history, and her current and upcoming research projects. Dr. Brimmer, an associate professor in the Department of African, African American, and …
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MLK Day Special: Wendell McCain ’92, son of Greensboro Four civil rights activist Franklin McCain, with scholar host Benny Klein ’24
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For MLK Day, scholar host Benny Klein ’24 interviews Wendell McCain ’92, the son of activist Franklin McCain of the Greensboro Four. Wendell shares about what it was like to grow up around one of the leaders of the civil rights movement and the lessons he learned from his father about pursuing justice. He also talks about his journey through the fi…
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From the Los Angeles Times to freelance: documentarian Rob Gourley ’18 on making the jump
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Rob Gourley ’18 is a documentary producer, cinematographer, and video editor based in Chico, California. During the pandemic, the alumnus was working for the Los Angeles Times as a video producer when an opportunity came up to work for PBS on a NOVA series about electric airplanes. What was intended to be a sabbatical turned into the launch of Rob’…
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The power of third parties to keep countries accountable on climate action, with economist Billy Pizer ’90
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Upon his return from the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, Billy Pizer ’90 joined Catalyze to analyze the major announcements made and new global carbon market rules. The economist also shares his thoughts on the role of technologies backing cryptocurrencies in emissions reporting and payments. Billy is the…
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What women want at work and what companies can do to reduce the gender gap in the post-pandemic workforce, with Ursula Dimmling Mead ’02 and Anna Pickens ’23 of InHerSight
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Since the beginning of the pandemic, millions of women have dropped out of the workforce, and many have yet to rejoin. Ursula Dimmling Mead ’02 has been studying what women want at work for the bulk of her career. She built a tool to help women make data-informed decisions about where to apply (and where to avoid applying). Ursula is the founder an…
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The role U.S. universities play in driving nuclear weapons research and development, with Seth Shelden ’98 of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
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Seth Shelden ’98 is the United Nations liaison for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). The coalition was awarded the Nobel Peace Price in 2017 for its work to bring about the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The TPNW outlaws the use, testing, development, production, possession, and transfer of nuclear …
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How Chattanooga is building a model for smart cities, with Geoff Milliner of the Chattanooga Enterprise Center, and Morehead-Cain’s Montez Thomas
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Catalyze is joined by Geoff Milliner, the COO of the Chattanooga Enterprise Center and a 2021 Civic Collaboration host for Morehead-Cain, and Montez Thomas, assistant director of scholar advising at Morehead-Cain. This episode is the second in a two-part series on the Civic Collaboration program. The Enterprise Center tasked their team of Morehead-…
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Liz Kistin Keller ’04 of Albuquerque’s Office of the Mayor on increasing access to digital services in local government
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Catalyze is joined by Liz Kistin Keller ’04 of the City of Albuquerque’s Office of the Mayor and a 2021 Civic Collaboration host for Morehead-Cain. This episode is the first in a two-part series on the Civic Collaboration program. The Office of the Mayor tasked their team of Morehead-Cain Scholars to explore the online user experiences of the 50+ p…
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We’re back! Fall events lineup for Morehead-Cain
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Catalyze is back for the fall season, and we have a lot to share about. RSVP for this semester’s events: Find your class-year decade event with Morehead-Cain President Chris Bradford. Learn more about the (Mini) Forum’s events, beginning the week of November 15th and leading up to our Day of Giving. Music credits The music for this episode is by sc…
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Managing an international business in Myanmar through a military coup and the COVID-19 pandemic, with J. R. Ching ’01 of Yoma Strategic Holdings
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We’re launching our fall season with J. R. Ching ’01, the chief financial officer for Yoma Strategic Holdings. We asked J. R. to join the show to help us understand the military coup in Myanmar and to hear how his company has managed the ongoing crisis as the Delta variant continues to surge throughout the country. Credits The music for this episod…
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Ads, algorithms, and reversing capitalism in art, with producer and musician Nicholas Byrne ’19
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Catalyze invited Nicholas Byrne ’19 of Arts + Crafts back to the series to talk about his latest music projects, and because we thought you might want to learn more about the artist behind the music that’s featured on the show. We first brought Nicholas to Catalyze in October 2020 as the producer, guitarist, and singer was road-tripping across the …
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Gap Year Dispatch: Emile Charles ’24 (and ft. Taylor Shinal ’25, Mark Finamore ’25, Asher Wexler ’25, and Noah Gottlieb ’25)
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For this special segment of Catalyze, Emile Charles ’24 shares the most impactful aspects of his international gap year, pandemic disruptions included. The scholar interned at a children’s hospital in Cape Town, South Africa; visited his father’s Caribbean home in St. George’s, Grenada; worked on a global public health collaboration between the Uni…
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Chris Bradford, incoming president of Morehead-Cain, on building transformational educational opportunities in Africa; reimagining ‘lifelong impact’ at Morehead-Cain
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The road that brought Chris Bradford to Chapel Hill began in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and included stops in New Haven, Connecticut; Palo Alto, California; Oundle, England; and Johannesburg, South Africa. Chris spoke with Morehead-Cain from his home in Johannesburg to share his story of founding African Leadership Academy (ALA), his personal mission (wh…
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Amber Koonce ’12, civil rights attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, on juvenile justice advocacy; redefining beauty standards for women of color
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Amber Koonce ’12 is a civil rights attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Amber shares how her Morehead-Cain summers working at a women’s correctional center in Ghana and at a young boys’ correctional center in Scotland helped inform her vocation to defend human rights and civil rights in representing incarcerated people, particu…
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Karen Stevenson ’79 on her nontraditional path to federal court judge: “No one else can tell you what your path should be”
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When reporters and public relations professionals come calling, Karen Stevenson ’79 knows what to expect: They are going to ask her about being “the first.” As a high school senior, Karen became the first African American woman to receive the Morehead-Cain Scholarship as part of the inaugural group of female Morehead-Cain Scholars. In 1979, the alu…
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Andrew Patterson ’06 of Greenfly, Inc., on growing online communities through brand ambassadors in sports, politics, and business
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Andrew Patterson ’06 is the vice president of partnerships and strategy at Greenfly, Inc., a software platform that helps organizations build their communities through brand advocacy. Andrew shares about Greenfly’s role in connecting major sports leagues to fans through more authentic and personalized game coverage; successful strategies that the B…
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Alan Murray ’77 of Fortune on political polarization, growing revenue streams in media, & the future of work
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Alan Murray ’77 is CEO of Fortune Media. Prior to joining the media organization in 2015, Alan served as president of the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. For nearly two decades, he held a number of roles at The Wall Street Journal, including deputy managing editor, executive editor online, and the Washington bureau chief. Alan also served a…
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UNC-Chapel Hill’s 51st Rhodes Scholar: Sarah Mackenzie ’20 on the connections between poverty and participation in the criminal justice system
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Sarah Mackenzie ’20 of Calgary, Alberta, has received the Rhodes Scholarship to pursue a fully funded postgraduate degree at the University of Oxford beginning this fall. The recent graduate is one of 11 Canadians selected to join the 2021 cohort, and she is the 51st Rhodes Scholar from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to …
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Morehead-Cain Mentoring Pair: Tom Thriveni ’10, comedy writer for The Late Late Show with James Corden on CBS, and guest co-host Lauren Gornto ’21
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Our first guest for this episode is Tom Thriveni ’10, a comedy writer on The Late Late Show with James Corden on CBS. As a Morehead-Cain Scholar, he interned with Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, an opportunity offered by Jon Benson ’06 (Jon produced field segments on the show at the time). Following his graduation from the Univers…
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Morehead-Cain election roundup: Ricky Hurtado ’11 elected to NC House of Representatives as only Latino to serve in state legislature, other victories across the state
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We’re sharing a brief roundup from the 2020 General Election on November 3. We had a number of Morehead-Cain Alumni running for office; here’s how their races turned out. Ricky Hurtado ’11 was elected to North Carolina’s House of Representatives. The alumnus will represent District 63 in Raleigh. The Representative-elect will be the only Latino to …
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Mindfulness miniseries Pt. 1: Walking meditation (10 mins), with Reiki practitioner Jenny Cimaglia ’07
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We're sharing two episodes as a special miniseries on mindfulness to help you relieve some stress. The first is a 10-minute walking meditation that you can do indoors or outside (wherever you have at least 10 to 15 feet of space). This session is guided by wellness professional Jenny Cimaglia ’07. The following episode is a five-minute breathing ex…
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Mindfulness miniseries Pt. 2: Breathing exercise (5 mins), with Reiki practitioner Jenny Cimaglia ’07
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For the second episode in our miniseries on mindfulness, wellness professional Jenny Cimaglia ’07 guides a five-minute breathing exercise. All you need is a quiet space. The previous episode is a 10-minute walking meditation guided by Jenny. About Jenny Jenny Cimaglia ’07 is a yoga teacher and Reiki practitioner based in Westport, Connecticut. Foll…
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Eric Lee ’18, Nicholas Byrne ’19, and Sam Lowe ’20 on making music, art on the road with U-Haul
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Outside their Airbnb in Cheyenne, Wyoming, three Morehead-Cains shared about their adventures thus far in road tripping across the country with a U-Haul-turned-mobile-recording-unit. Eric Lee ’18, Nicholas Byrne ’19, and Sam Lowe ’20 had spent the last six months or so with seven other Tar Heels on a historic farm in Colbert, Georgia. The unincorpo…
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Sanya Shah ’22 on the life and legacy of composer Florence Price
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A performance by Sanya Shah ’22 will release this Friday, October 2, 2020, at 1 p.m. EDT through an online event hosted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Department of Music and Arts Everywhere. Sanya (soprano) and UNC junior Lauren Ragsdale (mezzo-soprano) will perform the works of composers Florence Price and Betty Jackson King…
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Learn to Win and the rise of e-coaching, with Andrew Powell ’15 and Sasha Seymore ’15
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Andrew Powell ’15 and Sasha Seymore ’15 (as well as UNC alumnus and former football player Tommy Hatton) are the co-founders of Learn to Win, a mobile learning platform that uses a content creation engine and data analytics suite to build and deliver training materials for instructors, coaches, and teachers of all kinds. The two alumni worked on bu…
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Civic Engagement Pt. 1: Voting this November, with political scientist John Sides ’96
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To launch our fall season, we spoke with John Sides ’96, a professor and William R. Kenan, Jr. Chair in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. His research focuses on comparative and American politics. The alumnus is co-author of the book, “Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Me…
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Civic Engagement Pt. 2: Community organizing and activism, with Greear Webb ’23
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For our second episode of our two-part series on civic engagement, we spoke with Greear Webb ’23 of Raleigh, co-founder of Young Americans Protest (YAP!) and the NC Town Hall. At Carolina, the scholar serves on the Commission on Campus Equality and Student Equity and as co-chair of the political action committee for the Black Student Movement (BSM)…
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When the coronavirus takes over your beat: Laurel Wamsley ’06, reporter for NPR, on covering the pandemic
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Before March of this year, Laurel Wamsley ’06 covered stories for NPR focusing on cities, technology, policy, and criminal justice. Now, the Washington, D.C.-based alumna covers the coronavirus which, of course, has impacted all aspects of society. In between filing stories, Laurel spoke with Morehead-Cain from her home in the Columbia Heights neig…
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Online events, kudos, other news from Morehead-Cain. Also: an update from Corrie White Conrad ’02 of Sephora
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These are strange times to be living in, but it’s also a very busy time for Morehead-Cain, so we wanted to get everyone up to speed. Last Thursday, we announced the Morehead-Cain Class of 2024. We want to wish a warm welcome to the 70 new scholars who are joining the Carolina community. This week, we’re launching our Virtual Morehead-Cain SEVEN Spe…
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Bruce Gellin ’77 on the race for a coronavirus vaccine and the defense against COVID-19’s return
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Morehead-Cain called Bruce Gellin ’77, president of global immunization at the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington, D.C., to get a better understanding of what would need to take place before a coronavirus vaccine could protect against the next global outbreak. We also asked scholars to share their coping strategies amidst the pandemic (thanks to…
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Niki Shamdasani ’15 on launching Sani, bringing South Asian-inspired formalwear to Rent the Runway
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The Catalyze podcast returns with Season Four, headlining with Niki Shamdasani ’15, the co-founder and CEO of Sani Designs. People told Niki and her sister, Ritika, that they were “delusional” for aspiring to break into the fashion world with South Asian formalwear. But in the past two years, the sisters have proved the naysayers wrong in big ways.…
This episode features Michelle Jana Chan ’96, an award-winning journalist based in London. Michelle began her career with Newsweek magazine in New York, Beijing, and London, before she moved into radio and then television as a news producer for CNN. She is now travel editor of Vanity Fair, contributing editor at Conde Nast Traveller, and the BBC’s …
Today you'll hear from David Royle, Morehead-Cain Class of 1978. Originally from Bristol, David leads the editorial team that launched the Smithsonian Channel—which is the youngest channel to have ever won an Emmy. David was previously Executive Vice President of Production for National Geographic Television & Film, where he helped launch the Natio…
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Episode 20: Audience Q&A with Taylor Branch ’68
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You're about to hear the second half of a recorded visit with Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Taylor Branch. Last week we published a moderated Q&A with him, and now you're about to hear an audience Q&A. This conversation was recorded live during a recent visit Taylor made to the Foundation, when he was in Chapel Hill to be inducted int…
Catalyze Season Three continues with a bonus episode featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author Taylor Branch ’68. This interview was recorded in front of an audience during a recent visit Taylor made to the Foundation, when he was in Chapel Hill to be inducted into the NC Media and Journalism Hall of Fame. A member of the Morehead-Cain …
Today you'll hear from Jim Exum, one of eight members of the first class of undergraduate Morehead-Cain Scholars: the Class of 1957. Jim is also a former Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. After attending law school on a full scholarship at New York University, Jim practiced law in North Carolina until 1967, when he began a term in …
On this episode of Catalyze, you'll hear from Danae Ringelmann ’00, co-founder of Indiegogo—a crowdfunding platform that disrupted the fundraising industry when it hit the market in 2008. While Danae and her team were getting the company off the ground, people told them it was a mistake to host it online. In more recent years, the company has faced…
You're about to hear from U.S. Representative Jim Cooper, Morehead-Cain Class of 1975. Born in Nashville, TN, Jim represents the state's 5th District, which includes Nashville and surrounding areas. In Congress, he's known for his bipartisan work on the federal budget, health care, and government reform. When Congress is not in session, Jim teaches…
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Episode 15: Jenny Youngblood Campbell ’95
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You're about to hear from Jenny Youngblood Campbell ’95, chief marketing officer for the dating app company Tinder. Jenny formerly worked as a managing director at the marketing agency 72andSunny—with clients including adidas, Google, Starbucks, Uber, and eBay. Before that, she was a senior global brand director at Nike. In our conversation, you'll…
On this episode, you'll hear from Peter Henry ’91, an expert in global economics and a recent recipient of UNC's Distinguished Alumni Award. Peter was the youngest person ever to serve as dean of New York University Stern School of Business. In January 2018 he stepped down—after eight years in the role—to return to his economic policy research. Pri…
You're about to hear from author and playwright Jim Reston, who graduated in the Morehead-Cain Class of 1963. Jim is from Washington, D.C. and has been not only an eyewitness to major historical events of the last few decades, but actually participated in them: from the Civil Rights movement, to the Vietnam War, to the Watergate scandal, and more. …
Our final episode of our second season features someone who knows a great deal about living a life of service. We talk with the CEO of Habitat for Humanity International: Jonathan Reckford, Morehead-Cain Class of 1984. Listen to Jonathan talk about his varied career path, which includes a stint in strategic planning for Disney and an SVP role at th…
This week we talk with Cathy Alston-Kearney, an alumna from the Morehead-Cain Class of 1981. Cathy grew up in Nashville, North Carolina and now lives in Warrenton, North Carolina—population 862. For twenty-one years, Cathy was the executive director of the Warren Family Institute, helping underprivileged families find affordable housing. She now wo…
This episode of Catalyze features Major Jason Kemp, former commander of India Company, Third Battalion, Second Marines—and now an officer in the U.S. Marine Reserves. Jason currently lives in Raleigh, and he works for a utilities company called Pike Electric. On top of that, he spends a few hours a week helping veterans get connected to the Triangl…
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Episode 9: Jed Lau ’98 and Kerry Anne Harris ’11
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Gender roles often prescribe that a husband should be the breadwinner while a wife should stay at home. But the modern feminist movement can also make women feel guilty if they do choose to stay at home with their kids. How does a high-achieving, values-driven college graduate like a Morehead-Cain navigate these challenges? In this episode of Catal…
This week we’re continuing a season that highlights lives of service. You'll hear from Meg VanDeusen, Morehead-Cain class of 2014. Meg is a former Fulbright English Teaching Assistant, former Girl Scout Troop leader, and current senior manager of operations and finance at a small nonprofit called Feedback Labs. Our conversation starts with her foun…
Welcome to Season 2 of Catalyze, a podcast from the Morehead-Cain Foundation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As we shared during our first season, Catalyze features stories of values-driven leadership. This season we’ve chosen to highlight lives of service. Our first episode this season is a conversation with Dr. Amir Barzin ’06…
