As a tour guide with the UNC Visitors Center, Dalili guides guests across campus, weaving tales of campus history and accolades, all while sprinkling in her personal Tar Heel experiences.

Instead of focusing on rankings and academic achievement, Dalili crafts a tale of home.

“I love sharing my story and giving somebody a different perspective of what it’s like being a Carolina student,” said the native of Knoxville, Tennessee. “When I’m sharing with visitors about how much I love UNC, it’s more than talking about my GPA or an experience in a classroom. Carolina is just so unique because the University is what I think about when I think of home. It’s such a rare thing for me to experience.”

As the Youth Poet Laureate of Tennessee, Dalili shares her personal experiences through her poems at in-person events at Tennessee high schools. (Submitted photo)

‘Art is universal’

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dalili’s parents split, and she had to navigate homelessness, financial struggles and difficult family relationships. She turned to poetry to help process her emotions and correct misconceptions about her lived experiences.

She recently published two collections of her poems, “To Make it Out Alive” and “Thank You for Staying.”

“My poetry is an art, and art is universal. After I finish a poem, it gets sent into the void, and it’s not mine anymore,” said Dalili. “Then everybody else can interpret it for themselves and relate it to their experiences.”

In 2023 Dalili was named the inaugural Knoxville Youth Poet Laureate, and she now serves as the Youth Poet Laureate of Tennessee. Selected for the statewide laureate based on her artistic merit and community engagement, Dalili shares her personal experiences at webinars, workshops and in-person events at Tennessee high schools.

As part of her role, the Carolina sophomore has spoken to Tennessee legislators about gun violence, homelessness, child abuse, suicide prevention and racial injustice.

“I’m a representation of Tennessee youth, especially when it comes to situations where their voice needs to be heard or considered relating to policy,” said Dalili.

A ‘beautiful surprise’

While the spontaneity of her life experiences led her to Carolina, Dalili can’t imagine being anywhere else. It’s a necessary chapter in her story.

Though her family dynamics were strained, she quickly created a family who helped her apply to Carolina and settle into campus. She recalls her high school guidance counselor pushing her to apply to college — something Dalili didn’t think feasible — and handing her the Fiske Guide to Colleges to conduct research. She carried it “literally everywhere,” starring ones to consider. She wound up applying to 18 colleges, hoping one would offer her financial aid.

On April 13, 2023, Dalili got a “beautiful surprise” when she learned she was a Carolina Covenant scholar. The Carolina Covenant, a full financial aid package that allows students to graduate from the University debt-free, also offers support to help scholars thrive at Carolina and beyond.

“The Covenant is an embodiment of Carolina’s service,” said Dalili. “They are giving to thousands of students, without expecting anything in return.”

In her time at Carolina, Dalili gives back by giving tours of the University and staying involved with the Carolina Covenant and other organizations on campus.

After earning her bachelor’s degree in biology with minors in poetry and painting, Dalili hopes to attend the Adams School of Dentistry and become an orthodontist.

“Carolina chose me,” said Dalili. “It is such a beautiful thing because everything lined up the way it was supposed to.”

Like everyone else at his elementary school in Thousand Oaks, California, Kyle Lobenhofer was a Los Angeles Dodgers fan. He still remembers the voice of iconic broadcaster Vin Scully announcing those baseball games. “I loved hearing him and wanted to do what he did,” he said.   

Later, after speaking with Los Angeles Kings commentator Bob Miller for a school project, Lobenhofer grew even more determined to become a sports broadcaster, too.   

Embracing every opportunity

When Lobenhofer came to Carolina, he quickly discovered ways to cultivate his passion for sports broadcasting at UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. 

In his first day in MEJO 101, he found out about “Sports Xtra” from guest speaker Charlie Tuggle, John H. Stembler Jr. Distinguished Professor. 

“He said, ‘student-run sports show,’ and my ears perked up,” said Lobenhofer.   

Lobenhofer started as a volunteer reporter, filming events and creating highlight videos. When he enrolled in the “Sports Xtra” class, he became the director, overseeing the control room and making calls about camera switches and graphics shown during broadcasts.   

The class also allowed Lobenhofer to pursue his passion to be on camera. He served as the women’s tennis analyst when the team won their first NCAA national championship, providing highlights of their matches on regular broadcasts.  

In 2023, he took on his largest role yet — executive producer. In the role, he oversaw all aspects of the show: assigning reporters, creating schedules, planning show content and mentoring new staff.

Meet our winter graduates.

“My favorite part is the hands-on environment. It’s one thing to sit in a lecture and learn about broadcasting, but to learn by doing is important,” said Lobenhofer.     

In his sophomore year, Lobenhofer became a production assistant with GoHeels Productions. There he covered over 100 Carolina games, working either in camera operation, replay operation or technical director roles. Several broadcasts he’s worked on have aired on the ACC Network Extra or the ESPN app. Lobenhofer says the fast-paced nature of athletics gave him the additional experience of live event directing.  

“With a studio show, you can plan. With a sporting event, you have no idea what will happen,” said Lobenhofer. “That’s the joy of sports, right? You don’t know what’s going to happen.”   

As he gained more experience, Lobenhofer found that his passion for working in front of the camera was shifting to working behind the scenes. “I am more in my element when I am directing or producing. It’s how my brain works. It is a puzzle. I like to think of it as, ‘OK, how am I going to get from here to here?’” said Lobenhofer. “There’s a level of excitement to put the pieces together for it to go right.”  

An Olympic-sized opportunity

This summer, Lobenhofer covered the 2024 Paris Olympics as part of a partnership with UNC Hussman. As a venue reporter, Lobenhofer interviewed athletes and posted flash quotes and press conference highlights on the Olympic Broadcasting Services’ website for worldwide media to access.  

That opportunity confirmed how Carolina provided Lobenhofer enough experience to feel prepared wherever he went next.   

“When I walked through the swim venue, I thought, ‘This feels just like covering a Carolina sporting event. This feels normal.’ I had to remind myself I was covering the Olympics,” said Lobenhofer. “I am well prepared wherever I go because of Carolina.”   

After graduation, Lobenhofer hopes to work for a sports team or television network in broadcast production.   

“I came into Carolina and got involved in every way possible,” said Lobenhofer. “That’s always been my mentality — to take the opportunities because you never know where they are going to lead.”   

“No one actually believes us when we say that,” says Ryan. “But according to the doctor, we’re not.”

“One of our genetics professors in grad school still doesn’t believe it,” Brandon adds.

While the Mouerys may not share the exact same DNA, the twins have followed identical paths to Carolina where they have a single purpose in their research: Find solutions to cancer.

This mission is personal for Ryan and Brandon, who earned doctoral degrees in genetics and molecular biology in August and will be recognized at Winter Commencement along with other summer graduates.

Ryan was diagnosed with leukemia as a 3-year-old and underwent treatment before entering remission when he was 8. In 2016, their mother, Sherry, died of cancer during their senior year at Penn State.

Since earning their doctorates, the Mouerys have begun working as postdocs in the lab of Channing Der at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, studying ways to improve pancreatic cancer treatments.

“I think we got so much more of the real-world human element of what people going through cancer look like,” Brandon says. “Once we realized our aptitude and passion for science in high school, it just became a pretty obvious way to merge those two things.”

Meet our winter graduates.

Always together

Growing up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Ryan and Brandon did everything together — from playing the same sports to studying and performing in marching band. Today, the two are distance running partners and enjoy cheering on their undergraduate alma mater and the Philadelphia Phillies.

Ryan’s cancer treatments as a child were about the only thing that ever separated them.

“I think somehow that made us even closer in the end,” says Brandon.

The bond has been a constant in their lives. When it was time for college, they both initially attended Mansfield University to play in the band. The twins later decided being at a larger research university was best, and off they went to Penn State.

“It’s pretty hard to get us apart from each other,” Ryan says.

But when it came to graduate school, they were prepared to head in separate directions. Per the advice of a mentor, the twins each applied to eight schools but only one together: Carolina.

The line of thinking was that applying to too many of the same schools could hurt each other’s chances of getting in.

UNC-Chapel Hill was a school they weren’t willing to compromise on, however.

“UNC is one of the top schools for biomedical research,” Ryan says, noting the deciding factor.

Lab work

As scientists, Ryan and Brandon know the importance of specificity in cancer treatment. Sadly, they learned that lesson when doctors couldn’t identify a primary site for their mother’s cancer.

“If you can identify exactly what cancer type it is and maybe know some genetic profiles, you can really target the therapy,” Ryan says.

In the Der lab, the two are working on ways to fortify treatments that target a gene called KRAS, which Brandon says is mutated in about 95% of people with pancreatic cancer. Much of their work involves finding ways to account for pancreatic cancer’s ability to become resistant to otherwise effective treatments targeting KRAS.

The work excites them as scientists. As brothers and sons impacted by cancer, they see it as their vocation.

“Maybe someday, 30 years from now, we can look back at what we did and maybe see a therapy in the clinic that we had a small part in,” Brandon says. “I think it keeps getting you out of the bed in the morning.”

These stories inspire Gil Munoz’s academic, research and career aspirations as the premed senior studies the intersection of farmwork and medical access at UNC-Chapel Hill, 1,800 miles away from her homeland.

Farmworkers and physicians

Gil Munoz moved to Charlotte from Maracaibo in 2015 and to Chapel Hill six years later when she enrolled at Carolina. Though she never worked on her family’s farm in Venezuela, she has a deep knowledge and appreciation of farmworkers’ specialized skills and physical labor.

She credits her grandmother, a doctor in Venezuela, for sparking her passion for health care.

“I always knew I was going to major in biology,” Gil Munoz said. But anthropologist Jocelyn Chua’s Comparative Healing Systems class introduced her to another way of looking at health care: medical anthropology.

“It opened my eyes to how health disparities play a major role in the development of disease in certain populations, and it started my interest and passion for the major,” Gil Munoz said.

She decided to double-major in biology and medical anthropology, taking medical school prerequisite classes through the first and looking at health and illness through biological, cultural, political and economic lenses through the second.

She’s also minoring in Latina/o studies, working as a resident adviser with Carolina Housing and delving into research opportunities at the McKay genetics lab. Under the mentorship of graduate student Oscar Arroyo, she studied fruit flies to determine which maternal factors impact offspring and their development.

Gil Munoz interned with the Equity and Environmental Justice Program through the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, where she researched genes associated with endometrial cancer. She also worked at Oerth Bio, a local startup that studies the efficiency of current farming practices, and the nonprofit Student Action with Farmworkers, based in Durham.

The diverse experiences and knowledge she gained led to a new goal: combining her areas of interest and conducting original research.

Research in the field

With a 2024 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship through the Office for Undergraduate Research, Gil Munoz began her investigation of the health care experiences of farmworkers in the greater Triangle area. She spent the summer working with local organizations to interview farmworkers near Benson, about an hour from Chapel Hill.

“The primary goal of my study is to understand how working conditions and social inequalities affect farmworkers’ health in the long term and short term as well as their willingness and ability to seek medical attention,” she said.

In mobile clinics, she observed interactions and translated conversations between medical providers and Spanish-speaking workers. She spent time in the fields with workers and visited their homes and communities.

The conversations that resonated most with her and the workers she interviewed, she said, were ones centered around family — parents and grandparents that, like Gil Munoz’s, passed down skills and knowledge and worked to provide for their children and loved ones.

After graduation, Gil Munoz hopes to attend medical school and become a pediatrician or a family medicine provider. She plans to continue to serve the farmworker community through her future medical practice and volunteer work.

Read more about Michelle Gil Munoz.

On a family trip to Las Vegas when he was a high school sophomore, Molton caught a performance by Lance Burton, one of the most successful magicians of all time.

Mesmerized, Molton realized he wanted to pursue a career as an illusionist. He rushed to purchase the classic “Expert Card Technique” and began practicing. His persistence paid off. He founded Jared Molten Magic in 2003 and worked as a magician for 10 years, as well as general manager of Tannen’s Magic, the oldest operating magic shop in New York, for three. It was a wonderful opening act for Molton, but it wasn’t enough.

“What I love about magic is how people light up when you do a trick,” he says. “They have this moment of wonder and mystery, and there’s something really beautiful about that. Then, when I looked at it through the lens of business, of product, of scaling, I realized that business and product ignite the same reaction as magic but at scale.”

With the idea that he wanted to do something bigger, Molton looked at MBA programs and UNC Kenan-Flagler soon stood out.

“What drew me to UNC, more than anything, was the alumni network,” says Molton ’15 (MBA). “There’s just an incredibly strong connection that UNC alumni have with the school. And it’s real and you find it wherever you go. When you find somebody who went there, it’s an instant connection.”

Molton sees three fundamental skills that overlap between magic and business. They were the motivation for writing a book about his nontraditional career path: “For My Next Trick: A Magician Transforms into a Tech Executive” (JM Musings LLC, June 2024).

First, magicians can tweak their performance based on feedback from their audience, while product managers are looking at data from customers to figure out what’s working and what isn’t.

Second, leaders must prepare either for the magic show or the problem statement. You don’t want to mess up a trick or a business decision.

Third, presentation is key in both fields.

“The stakes are always high,” says Molton. “The stakes in a business meeting are high in a different way. But you still don’t want to mess up. You want leaders to see you as competent and capable.”

Writing the book on magic and business

Molton devotes the entire second section of “For My Next Trick” to his experiences at UNC Kenan-Flagler – from courses to career support and the welcoming community – and how important they were to his career switch.

His thriving career has taken him from Amazon to Chewy to Udacity.

He worked at Amazon for more than six years after graduating from UNC Kenan-Flagler. He played a large role in giving users the ability to download video content on Amazon Kids devices and in launching Amazon Halo. At Udacity, an online platform for professional skill development in tech, he is vice president of consumer.

Molton continues to perform as a magician but, as an entrepreneur, manufactures weighted backpacks for burning calories.

He’s also under the spell of his young daughter. “I want to be present for every single moment,” he says. “That’s what matters in life,” he says. “It is the people with whom you surround yourself. That is what will give you joy. That is what will give you motivation. All the rest is just noise.”

Read more about Jared Molton.

At UNC’s School of Library and Information Science, they can enroll in associate professor Francesca Tripodi’s Misinformation and Society class for a sociological analysis of how power complicates knowledge production. Throughout the semester, they explore historical perspectives, examine their own beliefs, and learn to think critically about the process of acquiring information.

Scholar behind the course

A sociologist and information scholar, Tripodi is a principal investigator at the Center for Information Technology and Public Life at UNC-Chapel Hill and an affiliate at Data & Society Research Institute. She has twice testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to explain how online search relevance is gamed to drive ideologically based queries and spread conspiratorial logic. Her work is frequently covered by mainstream press.

“If we want to study Information, we need to understand how misinformation, propaganda, conspiracy or the spread of lies is part of the process that models and sustains power,” Tripodi says. “Even information that we think of as ‘Truth’ can be problematic. The point of the class is to provide a historical overview of how we come to trust information, what stories are enacted and why that matters. “

To help students grapple with these challenging topics, Tripodi introduced some new assignments this semester. Students interview a peer on the stories they learned growing up, analyze conspiracy theories and examine stories told in public art.

The midterm assignment is a paper that analyzes a historical topic that hasn’t necessarily been framed as disinformation but was a lie created to hold on to power. “Some of the assignments that students have turned it in the past look at like body image for example, or the food pyramid,” Tripodi says. “It can be even very silly. Like why do we think spinach has so much iron? Or more serious things, like the decision in New York not to put fluoride in the water. The goal is for students to think about the role power and technology play in shaping our historical legacy.”

Lessons for the rest of us

Tripodi has a few tips on how to become a better consumer of information, starting with doing research.

“A lot of times people do their own research with the best of intentions, and we forget that our starting points guide what information is returned to us,” Tripodi says. “If we see something that doesn’t seem right on TikTok or Twitter, and then we use those same words or concepts in our search query, the likelihood that the same information will be returned to you is high. it’s easy to think that because you did that two-step process of ‘fact checking’ it means the information is somehow more valid. But ‘doing your own research’ is complicated and search algorithms are dominated by relevance – they are designed to best match your keywords.”

Tripodi also encourages people to consider the issue of insular information. “If you are talking about something that someone you trust has no idea about, that should probably be a red flag,” Tripodi says. “What you’re looking at is insular. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, it just means that only this small section of society is thinking about it, so you might want to question why that is. Sometimes it’s because the larger system shuts it down, and that’s how activism works. But people with a vested interest, whether it be a for-profit or corporate power or a political power, might be manipulating you.”

Read more about Francesca Tripodi’s class.

Recorded in the early days of the pandemic, the song has an eerie, brooding sound perfect for late October. Adding to the mood is the spellbinding violin music played by Libby Rodenbough of Mipso, a Chapel Hill-bred quartet that averages nearly a million monthly listeners on Spotify.

Rodenbough’s inclusion on Dore’s song is fitting, considering she was once one of Dore’s students at Carolina.

A professor of English and comparative literature in the College of Arts and Sciences, Dore is the rare professor by day and rock musician by night — and she’s a star in both worlds. Earlier this year, Dore earned a UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching, and her 2022 studio album “Highways and Rocketships” drew praise in Americana circles.

Dore, 55, has linked literature and music in the classroom and in two books, “Novel Sounds: Southern Fiction in the Age of Rock and Roll” (2018) and “The Ink in the Grooves: Conversations on Literature and Rock ’n’ Roll” (2022).

Dore believes in the power of the humanities to connect people and promote civil discourse. She likes to challenge her audiences and her students.

“I believe that the essence of critical interaction and civil discourse is intellectual exchange, and that that’s a fundamentally creative endeavor,” Dore said. “I’m a Socratic teacher. I call on students because I expect them all to be ready for class discussion, and it’s my job to make the conversation balanced among all the people in the room.”

A Carolina faculty member since 2010, Dore teaches courses on American modernism, Southern literature and William Faulkner, who featured in her 1999 dissertation at the University of California, Berkeley.

In recent years, Dore started teaching a creative writing course on songwriting, which combines two of her most fervent passions. The class ends with students recording their own music at a local studio.

“By the grace of the creative writing program, I’m allowed to teach it, and it has turned into just a fantastic course,” Dore said. “It’s really different because I’m an authority and an expert in Faulkner and American fiction, but nobody’s an authority in songwriting. We’re all just kind of students of the song in a certain way in the class.

“I’m very much teaching the class and setting the exercises. But in terms of who’s writing the best song, it could be anybody, right? A mechanic or a Ph.D. — or a student or a teacher — can write a great song.”

Music, as much as literature, runs through Dore’s veins.

She released her first album, “Perfect City,” in 2001. Two decades later, after raising a daughter with drummer husband Will Rigby (of rock band The dB’s), Dore released “Highways and Rocketships,” and she’s putting the finishing touches on her third album, “Hold the Spark.”

Over 2022-23, Dore launched “Ink in the Grooves Live” — a unique public humanities tour in support of both her album and most recent book. Dore said she came back from that “Rock ’n’ Roll Sabbatical” feeling reinvigorated in the classroom.

The same holds true for her excellence in teaching award.

“It’s a huge honor,” Dore said. “It’s a beautiful recognition and an affirmation of something that I value very deeply. It invigorated me, sure, to go on the road. But this award also invigorated me to keep trying to get better and to just keep making the classroom an exciting place for the students to be.”

“I love mentorship. I hope students can maybe see a little bit of themselves in me because I certainly see a little bit of myself in them,” Santiago said. “I’m grateful to have an opportunity like this. I don’t take it lightly. I hope that there’s a little bit of a seed being planted that’s beyond me or beyond that student.”

Santiago tailors her mentoring to each student’s interests.

“When she meets every student, she asks, ‘What do you want to be?’” said senior Chris Williams, executive producer of “Carolina Week,” a live weekly student news broadcast. “After that, she finds stories and newscast roles that line up with that. There’s so much care and intention rather than just assigning a broad assignment to every student.”

Santiago said she sees a bit of herself in her students at Carolina. (Johnny Andrews/UNC-Chapel Hill)

Santiago started as an assignment editor at WCJB in Gainesville, Florida, then worked at news stations from Alaska to Raleigh’s WRAL. In 2016, she joined CNN as an international correspondent, which gave her a broader perspective as she covered topics ranging from presidential campaigns to weather events.

A couple of years ago, she took a break from the field to mentor journalism’s next generation at Carolina.

“What better use of my time than to help mold the next generation?” Santiago said. “The industry is evolving in ways that I don’t think we yet know. We are going to need a strong wave of young journalists to be leaders and pillars of democracy. If I can use my time doing that, that’s time well spent.”

Santiago has taught the course that produces “Carolina Week” for two years. The show recently won first and second place in the 2024 RTDNAC awards’ Ken White Best Student Newscast category. This semester, Santiago took on two new courses. One course, Covering and Engaging Latinx Communities, teaches students how to craft an advertising and public relations campaign on engaging young Latinx voters. A new course, MEJO 390, encompasses two weekly live shows, “Rise and Shine” and “Carolina Ahora.”

“Rise and Shine” is a morning show that highlights arts and lifestyle, while “Carolina Ahora” is a Spanglish newscast that addresses issues impacting the Latinx community.

Santiago’s classes allow students to be involved in every part of the broadcast process. They pitch segment ideas in editorial meetings, work control room positions or serve as on-air anchors or reporters. Outside the classroom, students create video packages highlighting campus, state and national issues.

“Professor Santiago helped me set goals for my career, which has made me much more invested in my education. I went through a rut in my junior year when I realized I didn’t want to be a reporter as much as I thought coming into Carolina,” Williams said. “When she gave me the opportunity to produce for ‘Carolina Week,’ I felt like I found the place I truly belonged. I was sitting in the middle of the newscast one day, and I realized I was genuinely enjoying seeing the show come together.”

Santiago has taught courses that produce the “Carolina Week” newscast, and she now has taken on a new course that has two weekly live shows: “Rise and Shine,” a morning arts and lifestyle show, and Spanglish newscast “Carolina Ahora.” (Johnny Andrews)

To give students feedback and advice, Santiago often brings in reporters from across industries, field and show producers, anchors and photographers. The professionals pair with students to offer feedback on scripts and videos before “Carolina Week” broadcasts.

“These connections, opportunities and real conversations about what it’s like will hopefully set them up for success,” Santiago said. “There are a million ways to measure success, but my measure of success is can I get you a job? And can I get you a job you’ll keep?”

Vihlen began her military service in 1998 in the Air Force ROTC at the University of Virginia, where she earned a bachelor of science degree in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical/space engineering. Next August, the professor and chair of the aerospace studies department in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences will retire from the Air Force after leading the Air Force ROTC at Carolina since 2022.

Growing up in Charlottesville, Virginia, Vihlen enjoyed hearing the stories her maternal grandfather shared about his career as an Air Force officer. Her father took her for flights when she was a teenager, and she fell in love with flying. At 16, she started her first job as a receptionist at a flight school, earning money to put toward flying lessons.

Vihlen said that the Air Force seemed like the right career path, so she joined the ROTC at UVA.

“I was surrounded by good, like-minded people who shared my goals of serving our country and flying and were committed to leading lives of integrity,” she said. “Having grown up in this country where we have tremendous freedom, I loved the idea that I was going to be able to give back to help preserve the way of life that I grew up with.”

While she enjoyed her student ROTC experience, Vihlen admitted that she found it challenging.

“I struggled, and my time management wasn’t great,” she said. “But by the time I graduated, I learned how to prioritize and to succeed, with the support of some upperclassmen who mentored me and some active-duty cadre members who believed in me.”

Vihlen brought that experience to her role at Carolina.

“I know how much pressure these cadets are under and that even the good ones are going to struggle sometimes with classes and family commitments,” said Vihlen. “I believe in them the way that my cadre staff believed in me.”

The cadre staff within Carolina’s aerospace studies department consists of four active-duty Air Force members, including Vihlen.

“We help them figure out what Air Force career field they’re interested in and suited for,” she said. “We find mentors for them in those fields so they can make an informed decision. We get them across the finish line to commission when they graduate.”

Vihlen said that one of the most important aspects of her job is taking college students and turning them into leaders.

“If they don’t lead the military, they are going to be leaders in their communities, as business owners, CEOs, politicians, president of their kid’s PTA,” she said. “All of those require leadership skills, and we teach them the foundations of those skills.”

Vihlen has used her leadership skills in a wide variety of assignments during her Air Force career. She had four combat tours in Afghanistan and served for three years as an exchange officer in an active United Kingdom Royal Air Force squadron.

The cadets are the best part of Vihlen’s current assignment at UNC.

“If you spend five minutes with these cadets — or probably any student at Carolina — you immediately realize how intelligent and hardworking they are,” she said. “Knowing that our country and our Air Force are in really good hands with these young men and women and that I played a small part in getting them to where they are is very rewarding.”

The photo captures a proud memory of U.S. Army service for the man who is now a leading epidemiologist and a research expert on diseases caused by ticks and mosquitoes.

“The infantry to academia path is not particularly common,” says Boyce ’12 (MD), an assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine and UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and a member of the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases.

These days his duties include searching for solutions to malaria in Uganda, seeing patients in the UNC Infectious Diseases Clinic and studying a rare mosquito-borne disease in western North Carolina. But the memories — good and bad — from serving as the leader of this reconnaissance platoon during the Iraq War stick with him.

Boyce and those under his command were tasked with scouting the location of enemies and relaying information before calling in reinforcements.

“We spent a lot of time getting shot at,” says Boyce. “That’s how you often find where they are. And my guys, they all came back alive. About 25% were wounded, and about 25% won various awards for bravery or heroism — but they all came back alive.”

Boyce is among those recognized for bravery. He received the first of his three Bronze Star medals in 2004 and the last in 2009.

That was for service during his second tour, when there was a surge in Iraq, and Boyce felt compelled to leave medical school at Carolina to return to active duty. “It was really hard for me to concentrate because I just saw all of my friends going back, and it felt like I would have more impact going back than sitting in a classroom,” he says.

In that tour, Boyce served as a civil affairs officer, working on infrastructure, rebuilding communities and addressing local grievances.

“What we cared about was that we took care of each other and all tried to survive as best we could,” says Boyce (right) of the reconnaissance platoon he led. (Submitted photo)

Applying military lessons to public health research

As a kid growing up in Clemmons, outside Winston-Salem, Boyce was fascinated by bugs. Later, as a scientist, he was fascinated by the diseases bugs cause.

“You have to have an insect, you have to have the pathogen — whether it’s a bacteria or a virus or a parasite — and you have to have the human,” he explains. “And all those things have to come together in the same place at one time.”

Solving these complex problems sometimes requires organizational and logistical skills Boyce learned in the military, as well as leadership experience. One important lesson? “Don’t tell people how to do their jobs. Tell them what the goal is,” he says.

That approach has helped Boyce oversee projects involving doctors, nurses, medics, epidemiologists, geographers and local community members.

Boyce and his collaborators created a malaria test that better identifies the need for immediate medical care. They’ve also pinpointed malaria hotspots and are studying whether treating baby wraps with a bug repellent will protect children from mosquitoes.

“We have reasonably good treatments and diagnostics,” Boyce says. “There, it’s about how do we get those things to people.”

Boyce recently attended a 20-year reunion with the reconnaissance platoon. Keeping up, he says, has been harder than you might think.

“As much as I love those guys, being around them reminded me of some of the most difficult times in my life,” Boyce says. “But as we have gotten older and our hair’s turned gray, I think we increasingly appreciate the role that we all played in each other’s lives. None of us are unscathed, but at least we’ve got each other.”

“We have reasonably good treatments and diagnostics” for malaria Boyce says. In Uganda, “it’s about how do we get those things to people.” (Submitted photo)