Alumnus Profile
camper.” The 10-year-old Kugelman and his equally mischievous older brother were given to pranks, like toilet-papering other cabins or sneaking over to the girls’ quarters. “They knew they were in trouble, but I let them stay at camp,” Dooley remembered. “I said, ‘You’ve got to prove to me that you’re model campers.’” Later becoming a camp counselor and then coming to Blacksburg for his undergraduate study, Kugelman stayed in touch with Dooley. “He really inspired people to go on and do good things with their lives, and he inspired me,” Kugelman said. Kugelman went to New Zealand for graduate work, studying natural history and wildlife filmmaking and communication at the University of Otago in Dunedin. His first project after graduation was an independent film that told the story of a Tibetan refugee, a protester who had been jailed and tortured. His most recent show is National Geographic’s series “Dangerous Encounters,” hosted by crocodile expert Brady Barr. The series takes Kugelman across the globe in pursuit of hippos, crocs, pythons, and other predators. But, like Harris, Kugelman has a soft spot for the primates of “Orangutan Island.”
“At first they all looked alike to me,” he said of the Borneo island population. “They all had red hair and all walked around on all fours. But after you spend time with them, their personalities come through. Their haircuts look different. They are so humanlike. They are completely engrossing.” He is so moved by the orangutans’ heartbreaking habitat loss that he’s hoping to take part in a feature-film-length documentary if money can be raised. Films such as the Tibetan project are what he terms “soul food,” and he’d like to do more of them. He and a former classmate from New Zealand hope to make films for nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations devoted to human-relief efforts or wildlife assistance. TV shows pay the bills, but Kugelman’s heart is with projects that help others. “The idea is to use the craft to get messages out that need to be out there.” Andrea Brunais is the communications manager for Outreach and International Affairs.
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