As he finished a mastering session for rap supergroup Public Enemy’s “Apocalypse 91 … The Enemy Strikes Back” album, Young turned the studio into a classroom, seamlessly explaining the how and why of what he was doing.

More than three decades later, Young is still offering music production lessons. He just finished his first semester as a full-time faculty member in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences’ music department, teaching two sections of MUSC 156: Beat Making Lab as well as MUSC 212, a one-credit-hour class for students participating in the UNC Hip-Hop Ensemble.

Both courses are natural fits for Young. He said his students’ enthusiasm is what stands out the most from the semester. “They’re excited about making beats,” Young said, “and they rise to the occasion and get it done.”

The same can be said about Young in a career characterized by longevity and variety.

Born and raised in Queens, New York, he was a saxophonist in his youth and began DJing in the late 1980s, working at a popular Long Island nightclub as a teenager. Around the same time, Young started hanging out in the studio with Public Enemy and by the summer of 1989 was producing for the Bomb Squad, the group’s in-house production team.

His beats are on multiple Public Enemy projects, and he also produced solo projects by group members Chuck D (a childhood neighbor), Professor Griff and Flavor Flav. Young has worked with legendary acts like Ice Cube, Busta Rhymes, Eric B. & Rakim and Mobb Deep among others. Several movies, including “Sister Act 2 (Back in the Habit)” and Spike Lee’s “He Got Game,” feature his beats, too.

“I worked with everybody,” Young said.

Displeased with the commercialization of rap and changes in lyrical content, Young decided to focus more on music composition in 1994 after working as a composer on the first season of the TV series “New York Undercover.”

“I didn’t get into it for the money. I just love making music,” he said. “Once I started composing, I was like, ‘Man, I want to do more of this.’”

That desire led Young to the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music composition. He’s composed several orchestral works and created the world’s first hip-hop concerto, “The Five Elements,” in 2024.

Young also serves as a hip-hop ambassador for Next Level, a U.S. Department of State program run in association with the UNC-Chapel Hill music department that took him to Egypt in 2017 and will send him to Italy next year.

Young directs the UNC Hip-Hop Ensemble Fall Concert at Hill Hall on Nov. 11, 2025. (Johnny Andrews/UNC-Chapel Hill)

Inside the classroom

Young teaches students the fundamentals and history of the craft and encourages them to really listen to songs. “Isolate what’s going on, and figure out what sounds are being used,” he said. “Is there a hi-hat? Or what’s keeping the pulse?”

He also challenges students with in-class beat assignments on computer software Ableton. Their creations range from hip-hop and R&B to techno and house music.

Web Allen, a junior business administration major, enjoys the “hands-on” nature of the course. Allen, who sings and beatboxes in a cappella group Psalm 100, also appreciated that Young came to hear his group perform.

“I was like, ‘Heck yeah, thank you!’” Allen said. “It was fun having him.”

Young had a great semester, but he said teaching — like beat making — is trial and error.

“You have to see what sticks and what works,” he said.

“They’re excited about making beats,” Young said about his students, “and they rise to the occasion and get it done.” (Johnny Andrews/UNC-Chapel Hill)

A Carrboro High School graduate, he wanted an academically rigorous path in college. He chose the quantitative biology track and will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in biology.

His interest in data-driven biology deepened through courses such as analysis and interpretation of sequence-based functional genomics. The class was taught by Terry Furey, a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ biology department and the UNC School of Medicine’s genetics department. Meng-Saccoccio recalls the class as transformative.

“He was fantastic,” he said. “This was a quantitative genomics class, and we did so much fun, cool stuff, learning to interpret basic different functional applications of genomic topics. We used coding to expand on that to make predictions, do some analysis.” Students selected an interesting topic with publicly available genetic data, used Linux to align and assess samples and built reports based on their analyses.

He planned to study medicine. “I wanted to shadow people at the hospital, to volunteer, to get ready for med school. But that fell through because I wasn’t able to sustain taking classes and all of that. My health progressively got worse,” he said.

Several of his conditions qualify as “orphan diseases,” defined as affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S. Such conditions may take years to diagnose because symptoms mimic more common disorders.

“Not many doctors are familiar with some of the conditions that I have,” he said. “It took quite a while before some doctors recognized what I was experiencing.”

One condition is myalgic encephalomyelitis, aka chronic fatigue syndrome, characterized by extreme, unpredictable exhaustion.

Another condition, orthostatic intolerance, affects Meng-Saccoccio’s blood flow. “If I stand or walk for too long, I’ll get nauseous or dizzy,” he said. When he uses a wheelchair, his posture is closer to a 90-degree angle, which slows the drop in blood pressure.

In his first year, Meng-Saccoccio connected with Accessibility Resources and Service (which merged with the University Compliance Office in 2024) for help in securing accommodations. As diagnoses were confirmed, the University approved accommodations such as extended testing time and remote class attendance.

He lives on campus in Ram Village. His family supplies lots of support. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to do basic things every day. I don’t have the energy to take out the garbage or cook,” he said. “That my family comes by to help me and they walk with me is probably the biggest blessing that I’ve had in my time here.”

Meng-Saccoccio sipped from the Old Well in 2023 after it reopened with a sloped pathway. (Johnny Andrews/UNC-Chapel Hill)

The 21-year-old found additional support through Tar Heels at the Table, a disability advocacy group. The organization has worked on accessibility improvements, including construction of a sloped pathway at the Old Well. “Some of my best friends who understand what I’m going through have been from that group,” he said.

Meng-Saccoccio considered majoring in English but found an outlet for his writing by minoring in medicine, literature and culture through Honors Carolina. He published “Deep Diagnosis Jungle: Besting the Beast of My Orphan Disease” in The Health Humanities Journal of UNC-Chapel Hill. Courses in bioethics, religion and medicine, and comparative healing systems helped him bridge scientific and humanistic perspectives, an intersection he hopes to study after graduation.

Reflecting on his final weeks at Carolina, he finds “the greatest part has to be the people here,” he said. “I’ve met some truly wonderful friends here at UNC and also some truly amazing professors who don’t just know a lot, they care a lot.”

He was accepted and became an accomplished neurosurgeon.

Now 90, Kelly ’59 (MD) sometimes wondered about finishing his bachelor’s degree. “I was the only person in my medical school class who didn’t have the degree. Quite frankly, I wanted to be an alumnus of the University of North Carolina,” he said. He was even willing to attend class on campus.

Chancellor Lee H. Roberts heard about Kelly’s long-held wish and asked Lauren DiGrazia, associate provost and University registrar, to look into fulfilling that wish. Her staff determined Kelly’s academic record matched 1955 requirements for a Bachelor of Science in chemistry.

His wish has been granted.

On Dec. 14, Kelly will put on a Carolina Blue cap and gown, then join younger graduates at Winter Commencement. His diploma will read “Class of 1955.”

From age 12, Kelly wanted to become a doctor. He took a step toward that goal after graduating as valedictorian of Winston-Salem’s Reynolds High School by enrolling at Carolina in fall 1953 with enough college credits to be a sophomore. He was named to the National Honor Society and Phi Beta Kappa. By spring 1955, 20-year-old Kelly needed one class to graduate.

Kelly (seen here on the far left; fourth row down) with his 1959 School of Medicine class. (Submitted photo)

He knew that Carolina’s medical school had open spots for superior students with three years of accredited college work. “I thought if I could gain two years in my professional career, that would be smart. That’s why I sought early entrance to medical school,” Kelly said.

The admissions board, concerned by his age, denied him admission. But the school’s dean, Dr. Walter Berryhill, heard about Kelly and wrote Reynolds principal Claude Joyner for a reference.  A week later, a phone call informed Kelly that he had been admitted.

“I didn’t know about Dr. Berryhill writing that letter until about 15 or 20 years later when Mr. Joyner visited our house for dinner,” Kelly said. “He brought the correspondence and showed it to me.”

Kelly wanted to become a family doctor. But during a third-year rotation he realized that family medicine patients often had multiple problems. “It occurred to me that to be a really good family physician, I would have to know an awful lot about cardiology, rheumatology and many other things. That didn’t appeal to me. I wanted to go into a field I could know from top to bottom and fix people,” Kelly said.

After researching medical and surgical specialties, he decided to find a neurosurgery residency. That year he also married Sarah “Sally” Kelly, who died in 2014. During their 56-year marriage, they had four children — Kathy Burnette, David Kelly ’84, Mary Brooks and Julia Ann Goins ’89.

“I’m indebted to Carolina’s medical school. My professors taught me firsthand. I learned techniques and teaching that I incorporated in training 48 surgery residents. They’ve practiced from Hawaii to the East Coast,” Kelly said.

Kelly completed residency training at Wake Forest University’s Bowman Gray School of Medicine/North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Peter Bent Brigham and Children’s Hospital, Harvard, and a neurophysiology fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis. He joined the Bowman Gray faculty in 1965. He became neurosurgery chair at Wake Forest Medical Center in 1978.

A specialist in treating brain tumor and vascular disorders of the brain, Kelly was president of several national and state neurosurgical organizations. He has received the UNC School of Medicine Distinguished Medical Alumnus Award (1990), Cushing Medal for extraordinary contributions to neurosurgery (1999) and Order of the Long Leaf Pine (2015) for exemplary service to North Carolina.

Each researcher has authored multiple papers that rank in the top 1% by citation for their field and publication year in Clarivate’s Web of Science platform over the past 11 years. The list is then refined using quantitative metrics, as well as qualitative analysis and expert judgment.

This year, 6,868 individuals across 60 countries earned the distinction.

The University’s most-cited researchers include:

Biology and biochemistry

Xi-Ping Huang, UNC School of Medicine

Clinical medicine

Dr. John B. Buse, UNC School of Medicine

Dr. Lisa A. Carey, UNC School of Medicine and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center

Dr. Sidney C. Smith Jr., UNC School of Medicine

Cross-field

Gianpietro Dotti, UNC School of Medicine and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center

Rachel L. Graham, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

Sarah R. Leist, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

Nigel Mackman, UNC School of Medicine

Evan Mayo-Wilson, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

Alexandra Schafer, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

Jenny P.Y. Ting, UNC School of Medicine

Chao Wang, UNC College of Arts and Sciences

Wei You, UNC College of Arts and Sciences

Yuling Zhao, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy

Engineering, environment and ecology, materials science, and physics

Jinsong Huang, UNC College of Arts and Sciences

Immunology

David van Duin, UNC School of Medicine

Mathematics

David Wells, UNC College of Arts and Sciences

Microbiology

Ralph Baric, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

Lisa E. Gralinski, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

Timothy P. Sheahan, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

Nutrition

Barry M. Popkin, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

Pharmacology

Bryan L. Roth, UNC School of Medicine, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy

Pharmacology and toxicology

Alexander V. Kabanov, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy

Plant and animal science

Jeffery L. Dangl, UNC College of Arts and Sciences

Hans W. Paerl, UNC College of Arts and Sciences and UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

Psychiatry and psychology

Margaret A. Sheridan, UNC College of Arts and Sciences

Social sciences

Noel T. Brewer, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

Stephen R. Cole, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

Yan Song, UNC College of Arts and Sciences

Nine additional researchers were also cited for work conducted while at UNC-Chapel Hill:

Cross-field

Bo Chen, formerly with UNC College of Arts and Sciences

John McCorvy, formerly with UNC School of Medicine

Zhenyi Ni, formerly with UNC College of Arts and Sciences

Dinggang Shen, formerly with UNC College of Arts and Sciences

Qi Wang, formerly with UNC College of Arts and Sciences

Haotong Wei, formerly with UNC College of Arts and Sciences

Xun Xiao, formerly with UNC College of Arts and Sciences

Pharmacology and Toxicology

Elena V. Batrakova, emeritus, UNC School of Medicine

Social Sciences

Byron J. Powell, formerly with UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

DuVal, the Carl W. Ernst Distinguished Professor of History in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences, was one of several historians featured in “The American Revolution,” the 12-hour film from documentarians Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt that debuted nationally on PBS last week.

“I have been in documentaries before, but a Ken Burns film is a whole different level,” DuVal said. “It’s really quite incredible to be featured in a documentary that huge numbers of people will see. I’m getting messages from people all over the state and the country about how they learned new things from what I said.”

Kathleen DuVal and Ken Burns. (Submitted photo)

DuVal’s connection to “The American Revolution” goes back to 2022. That’s when Botstein, Schmidt and another producer contacted her about her research and ultimately invited her to come to New York for an on-camera interview.

One of the film’s objectives is showing how the Revolutionary War’s impact extended well beyond the familiar conflict between the British and independence-seeking colonists. Duval, who won the Pulitzer Prize in May for her book on Native American nations and communities, helped further that effort.

“The film uses my expertise on Native American history, Spanish and French involvement in the war, and women’s history,” DuVal said. “I talked about how women were central to the war, from the battlefield to the homefront. And I talked about the international aspects of the Revolution through both Native nations and European empires.”

DuVal is at least the third historian with ties to Carolina to be featured in a Ken Burns documentary. Alumnus Shelby Foote ’39 was a fixture in the 1990 film “The Civil War” and William Leuchtenburg, William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of History, appeared in 2014’s “The Roosevelts: An Intimate History” and 2011’s “Prohibition.” He also consulted on several other Burns projects through the years.

(PBS/Florentine Films)

“I count myself so fortunate,” Leuchtenburg said in 2014. “It is the most exhilarating thing I do and have done. To have a very first reading of the script of a new film, to have a chance to suggest ways that it might be changed, to be closely listened to by Ken, who, of course, makes the final decision, as he should. It’s just a terrific experience.”

Leuchtenburg consulted on “The American Revolution” until the time of his death in January at age 102. DuVal was grateful to have one last connection to a fellow historian from Carolina through their work on Burns’ most recent project.

“It was fascinating to learn about the long and generative relationship that he [Leuchtenburg] had with Ken Burns,” DuVal said. “It’s wonderful to see his name along with mine in the list of scholarly advisers at the end of each episode.”

DuVal hopes the release of “The American Revolution” just before America marks a major milestone helps the film strike an even more important tone.

“The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is an important time to reflect on the creation of our country and what it meant back then and still means today,” DuVal said. “Sometimes we take our republic for granted, but countless men and women struggled to create this country and, ever since, to try to help it live up to its promises.”

“The American Revolution” is available for streaming on pbs.org and other platforms. DuVal will deliver the keynote address at Carolina’s Winter Commencement on Dec. 14.

The sophomore exchange student’s data science skills were already strong, and he wanted to work on his English.

“In daily life, it is still difficult to find people to talk with,” said Kimura, a Tokyo native. “I have friends, but I can’t talk with them all the time. But here, I can focus on talking to somebody.”

Kimura was one of 20-plus attendees from throughout the University community — undergraduate and graduate students, visiting scholars, postdocs and spouses — striking up conversations with fellow Tar Heels on a mid-November Friday afternoon in the atrium of the FedEx Global Education Center.

These informal weekly meetups — there’s no attendance policy or commitment requirements — are casual in nature but serve multiple purposes.

International and American Tar Heels get to meet new people, exchange culture, practice and receive feedback on their English speaking and learn about University and community resources.

As UNC-Chapel Hill continues to set records in international-student enrollment, the program’s mission is the same as it was when it began in 2010. “We want to give people a sense of community,” said Gigi Taylor, the senior English language and coach specialist at the Writing and Learning Center.

That sense of community leads to results. Students gain confidence in their ability to speak in class and participate in other parts of campus life. Spouses learn about community resources. Participants form bonds with others, even matrimonial ones at least once.

Undergraduate exchange student Ryusei Kimura talks with Marcos Eduardo Gomes do Carmo, a visiting scholar in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences’s chemistry department, at the Speaking Group’s weekly meetup on Nov. 14. (Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill)

Participating in the Speaking Group “really does boost their confidence going back into their academic worlds,” Taylor said. “This is just a good thing for their social life in the community and their academic success.”

Taylor and colleague Warren Christian give the group different topics each week to guide conversations. One week was about forming deeper connections. Another focused on the U.S. government shutdown. The group also makes occasional field trips to local landmarks like the Carolina Basketball Museum, Ackland Art Museum and YoPo.

Taylor said some of the best conversations she can recall were about different marriage customs across cultures and the role of religion in different countries.

Naturally, these talks devolve into other areas of interest, like one’s academic and career plans or what sort of food they miss the most from home.

Among the group’s regular attendees are speech-language pathology graduate students from the UNC School of Medicine, there to meet people and prepare for their future careers.

“Being able to listen to different dialects, accents and things like that — it’s very critical to our work as clinicians,” first-year graduate student Stacy Thornton said. “Being able to decipher different things and train our ears a little bit.”

Gigi Taylor, the senior English language and coach specialist at the Writing and Learning Center, discusses the day’s topic at the Speaking Group’s weekly meetup on Nov. 14. (Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill)

International students also have the chance to work one-on-one with speech-language pathology graduate student Kelly Yang. She gives feedback and tips on improving their speaking skills after having a conversation and listening to them read a passage.

Some of Yang’s advice is easy to get behind. “Watch TV shows. Listen to podcasts,” she said.

Beyond the language skills, the Speaking Group delivers the universal need for connection.

For Kimura, joining the group has helped turn Chapel Hill from just a place into a home.

“I like meeting new people,” he said. “That’s very useful. Also, there are a lot of people from other countries all over the world. It helps me to understand the difference between Japan, the U.S. and other countries. It’s so interesting.”

As the University’s first Latino student body president, Alvarez embraces the challenge of representing his peers, bridging connections across campus and leadership, and ensuring that every student feels heard.

“I represent 32,000 people,” he said. “Serving as president gives me the chance to show up for students, to listen and to learn from them. I believe we’re stronger when we bring different perspectives together.”

Alvarez grew up in Guerrero, Mexico, and moved by himself to the United States when he was 16. As a high school senior, he lived alone and worked overtime at a QuikTrip gas station in Arizona to make ends meet.

At Carolina, Alvarez received a Carolina Covenant and a Wachovia Chancellor’s scholarships.

“I didn’t have much in the United States at the time; it was just me,” Alvarez said. “Carolina offered to pay for my education and had it all figured out for me. Carolina gave me everything.”

Alvarez is double-majoring in media and journalism at UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media and in global studies in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences. He has had summer internships with IHG Hotels and Resorts in Atlanta and the OneCarolina Summer Internship Program, where he got real-life experience in university development.

“In Hussman, we learn how to articulate things, how to communicate mass messaging and also balance the audiences you’re working with. That’s helped me in my term of student body president and at both of my internships,” he said. “Communication is such an important component of being in leadership.”

Since taking office, he has worked to improve communication between University administration and students. At the same time, he’s helping launch efforts like the Carolina Closet, a project to provide students with free access to professional attire for interviews, internships and job opportunities.

“By working with donors and campus partners, I hope to establish the Carolina Closet as a permanent resource, similar to a food pantry but focused on formal wear,” he said.

Since election night, Alvarez’s life catapulted into a state of constant busyness that he’s never experienced before. But he’s not fazed by it; he’s grateful.

“My life has changed a lot,” he said. “You go from being just a student to being a text away from the chancellor and serving on the UNC Board of Trustees and speaking at convocation and being on the stage at graduation. It’s such a privilege to represent so many people, and I’m genuinely excited because it gives me a reason to talk to everyone. If I see a random event on campus, even if I’m not sure I’m invited, I’ll show up and say, ‘Hey, everyone!’”

For Alvarez, serving as student body president isn’t just leadership, it’s gratitude in action, a way to honor the University that changed his life by devoting himself fully to the students he now represents.

“I always knew that I wanted to pay back everything the University gave me,” he said. “I came from an environment of uncertainty, and UNC only wanted me to worry about succeeding. I don’t see a better way to give back than representing the people, giving my energy and devoting my time to students. This opportunity is so full circle and exactly what I was hoping for, to give back to Carolina.”

As an undergraduate at the University of Colorado Boulder, he took astronomy classes and resolved to pursue a career in the field — but the journey wasn’t easy. Boyle applied to graduate programs for years before he found one that accepted him. At one point, an adviser suggested he pursue a different field.

“I’m very glad I was stubborn and didn’t listen to him,” said Boyle, now a Carolina graduate student in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences’ physics and astronomy department.

Not only has Boyle found a home at UNC-Chapel Hill, but his work has drawn global attention. Boyle is the lead author of a significant new study in The Astrophysical Journal that changes the way astronomers view one of the most famous and well-studied star clusters in the universe.

Boyle and his fellow astronomers discovered that the Pleiades star cluster, known as the Seven Sisters, comprises much more than seven stars. By combining data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope, the team uncovered thousands of long-lost Pleiades siblings — or “lost sisters” — that have drifted through the universe over millions of years.

Using stellar spin rates and motion data, Boyle and the team determined that the seven stars we refer to as the Pleiades are the core of a stellar family 20 times larger than previously thought. That family, known as the Greater Pleiades Complex, comprises at least 3,000 stars — and Boyle said that estimate could be conservative.

Read more about Carolina’s research impact.

“In reality, there’s actually far more stars,” Boyle said. “Because our methodology excludes the faintest and coldest stars, that means that we’re missing most of the stars that are part of this cluster. In our membership list, we have about 3,000 stars. I did the calculation, and if you’re able to recover all the stars, there’d be 8,000 to 10,000.”

The findings have massive implications for astronomers, who have long used the Pleiades as an astronomical benchmark for studying young stars and exoplanets. Future studies using this stellar spin rate methodology could trace the origins of other stars and star clusters, perhaps even the sun itself.

These findings could also have a significant global cultural impact, as humans have marveled at the Pleiades —  visible to the naked eye on winter nights and summer mornings — for thousands of years. References to the Pleiades date back to ancient times, with the Pleiades name deriving from the seven divine sisters of Greek mythology.

The Pleiades are mentioned in religious texts like the Old Testament and Talmud. The Māori people of New Zealand call the star cluster Matariki and celebrate its rising in the sky as the start of the new year. The Japanese car company Subaru references the stars in its logo. Even the Carolina women’s ultimate Frisbee team is nicknamed the Pleiades.

The astronomical and cultural impact of this discovery is not lost on Boyle. Years ago, he wasn’t sure he would have a future in astronomy, and now his work is gaining attention from NASA and The New York Times.

“One of the reasons that we’re really excited about this discovery is because of the historical and cultural context surrounding the Pleiades,” Boyle said. “If this had been some kind of random cluster that only astronomers know about, I don’t think this would have been as exciting.

“But to be able to essentially help redefine how astronomers view a cluster that’s been looked at by humans for thousands of years, it feels humbling in a way. It shows that, even for these very well-studied objects, there are still discoveries that are sitting out there that we can make.”

Seniors Rotimi Kukoyi and Gabrielle Moreau received the honor on Saturday, joining fellow senior Tiana Dinham in the 2026 Rhodes scholars class. With 57 recipients in its history, UNC-Chapel Hill is now a No. 1 public university for Rhodes scholars.

“On behalf of the University, I am delighted to congratulate our newest Rhodes Scholars, Tiana Dinham, Rotimi Kukoyi and Gabrielle Moreau,” said Chancellor Lee H. Roberts. “They embody Carolina’s mission through their commitment to service and meaningful impact. This recognition reflects their exceptional promise and dedication to using their talents for the greater good. We are confident they will seize this opportunity and continue to make Carolina proud.”

Kukoyi is from Hoover, Alabama, and won a Rhodes scholarship for the U.S. constituency. Kukoyi is a Morehead-Cain scholar and Honors Carolina student majoring in health policy and management at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health with minors in chemistry and biology. He is senior class president, a Truman scholar and a “Jeopardy!” champion.

Kukoyi is a public health leader and has worked for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Nigeria. On campus, he has leadership roles with Campus Health as well as the UNC Student Health Action Coalition. At Oxford, Kukoyi will pursue the Master of Science in health improvement and evaluation and the Master of Science in evidence-based social intervention and policy evaluation.

“Being selected as a Rhodes scholar is one of the greatest honors of my life,” Kukoyi said. “At Oxford, I will study how we build health systems that prevent harm before it happens. Public health is at an inflection point, and we need leaders who can bridge evidence-based policy with the lived realities of the communities most affected.”

Moreau is from Toronto and won a Rhodes scholarship for the Canada constituency. Moreau is a Robertson scholar and Honors Carolina student majoring in geography at the UNC College of Arts and Sciences with a second major in environmental science from Duke University. She is a citizen of both Canada and the Métis Nation of Ontario.

Moreau is a leader in Indigenous governance and environmental conservation. For the past five years she has served as the Ontario representative of the Métis Nation of Ontario Youth Council. Moreau has participated in multiple international summits, including being a youth delegate at COP16 in Colombia. She has worked at the Harvard Project on Indigenous Governance and Development, gained on-the-ground experiential learning in the arctic through the Students on Ice program, and studied abroad at both King’s College London and the School for Field Studies in Cambodia. At Oxford, Moreau plans to pursue a Master of Philosophy in political theory.

“I am still in disbelief that I’m now a Rhodes scholar,” said Moreau. “At Oxford, I plan to pursue an MPhil in political theory to engage with theories of justice and human rights. I hope later to bring this knowledge to bear upon doctoral work in human geography on Indigenous conceptions of knowledge and justice.”

Dinham is from Jamaica and won the scholarship for the Jamaica constituency. She is also a Robertson scholar and Honors Carolina student, majoring in geological sciences at the UNC College of Arts and Sciences with a minor in geography.

She focuses her work on the fate and transport of contaminants in groundwater and sediment systems and explores ways to harness the Earth’s resources while also preserving the environment. In a ceremony hosted by the governor-general of Jamaica to announce the scholarship, Dinham dedicated the honor to the people of west Jamaica, who were recently struck by the devastating Hurricane Melissa.

Established in 1902, the Rhodes scholarship provides fully funded graduate study at the University of Oxford and is considered one of the world’s most prestigious academic awards.

“Carolina’s 2026 graduating class has three Rhodes scholars. Our students are amazing,” said Marc Howlett, executive director of the Office of Distinguished Scholarships in Honors Carolina. “I’m fully confident that Rotimi Kukoyi, Gabrielle Moreau and Tiana Dinham will make significant and lasting positive impacts on the world. I can’t wait to see what they do at Oxford and beyond.”

The answer has implications for how smoothly the airport operates and the passenger experience.

In real-time, managers must decide when to deploy staff, what wait times to communicate to travelers and whether the airport is approaching capacity limits. They also need to run long-term planning scenarios for adding flights or making operational changes.

Adam Mersereau, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School professor and area chair of operations, joined with some colleagues to address these challenges. They wanted to create mathematical models that — paired with people-counting sensors — estimate crowding in the security area without visual headcounts.

“We saw an opportunity to solve two problems at once,” says Mersereau, who is also a Sarah Graham Kenan Scholar. “Passengers would get accurate wait time estimates so they could time their arrivals better, and the airport would get better data for staffing and long-term planning.”

Mersereau worked with professor Serhan Ziya of the UNC College of Arts and Sciences’ statistics and operations research department and faculty from North Carolina Wesleyan and Duke universities.

They used Raleigh-Durham International Airport as their test case, but their research may also help managers at theaters, hospitals and concert arenas better anticipate and manage crowds.

The difficulties of counting the crowd

Mersereau’s expertise centers on operations at brick-and-mortar retailers, where managers might know what’s selling but not who’s coming in or whether the store is adequately staffed.

Airports pose a similar kind of problem, he says. Managers don’t necessarily know how many people are in a space at a point in time.

“It’s not just passengers waiting in lines, but also bags, planes and crews,” says Mersereau. “And with physical queues, it’s mostly guesswork. No one’s standing there with a clipboard tracking line length in real time.”

To come up with an accurate count, Mersereau and the team installed infrared beam sensors at the entrance and exit of the Transportation Security Administration area at the airport. Each time a passenger breaks the beam, the system logs either an entry or an exit. At any given moment, it tracks the total number of people who have entered since the start of the day and how many have left. In theory, the difference between those two figures should be about how many people are currently there.

But the system’s counts of people coming and going are inherently “noisy.” A couple walking arm-in-arm might register as one person. A big rolling suitcase might count as two. A person inadvertently leaning on the sensor can throw it off completely.

“These little errors add up, and they do so in ways that eventually make the estimates pretty useless,” says Mersereau.

The remedy lies in an algorithm that involves strategic resetting of population estimates. When the system can confidently detect when exits slow or stop through patterns in the departure stream, resetting the count to zero prevents errors from building over time.

The algorithm is most effective at smaller airports like Raleigh-Durham, where traffic naturally rises and falls. In high-traffic airports where crowds never let up, additional data, such as occasional manual counts by airport personnel, can improve performance beyond what the algorithm alone achieves, he adds.

Mersereau’s research has applications beyond TSA checkpoints and airports. It could help managers at venues with scheduled events — such as stadiums, hospitals and museums — better predict and manage crowds.

“Nobody likes dealing with long lines — not travelers, not TSA agents, not the barista behind the terminal coffee counter,” he said. “Everyone has something to gain from making the whole system more efficient.”

Read more about Mersereau’s research.