A Duck Like These

A DUCK LIKE THESE

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Soon.

YOU’RE IN

YOU’LL BE A DUCK LIKE THESE.

YOU’LL BE HERE. MOTIVATED BY THE PROSPECT OF MOVING FORWARD.

YOU WORKED HARD, PERSEVERED, AND IT PAID OFF. PRETTY SOON, YOU’LL BECOME PART OF AN EXTRAORDINARY GROUP OF DOERS AND ACHIEVERS. ALL DRIVEN BY A HUNGER FOR KNOWLEDGE. A DESIRE TO SEARCH AND CREATE. AND THE NEED TO FIND A BETTER WAY.

ONE OF THOUSANDS OF INDIVIDUALS — ENTHUSIASTIC COLLABORATORS— WORKING TOGETHER.

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A DUCK LIKE

Sage Limpp-Wagner A DUCK LIKE

She’s a recent graduate. Double majored in geography and German. And she loves maps—working on them and making them. So it was pretty ideal when she landed a job working with Google to help them keep their Maps service up to date. Her job title? Hard to say exactly.

Most days, visual data specialist. Some days, data wrangler. Often, contract problem solver. She jumps around, so it’s difficult to characterize what she does or what it’s called. Strange? Not at all. It happens all the time, because every day jobs that never existed before are being created—especially in the technology sector.

Which is why the world always needs fresh graduates who are broadly prepared, like Sage, to take on just about anything that life, or Google, can throw at them.

Amber Prigge-Bryan “You can taste the air,” she said. Trees, fresh air everywhere: it’s not surprising that was one of the first things Amber noticed when she arrived from Houston. Something else she noticed—which came as a wonderful surprise to a cultural anthropology and queer studies major like her—Eugene is a very friendly place. Her advice? “Be prepared to be talked to.” She found connections, culture, and conversation wherever she went. In and out of class. On and off campus. An incurable people person, she was in paradise. So after graduation, she stayed. Today, Amber is teaching—using her broad social science skill set to help at-risk youth, right here in Oregon.

Thanks, Amber.

WOMEN’S & GENDER STUDIES CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY & QUEER STUDIES COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

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GEOGRAPHY | GERMAN

2013

COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

2014

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A DUCK LIKE

Grant Gurewitz

A DUCK LIKE

Renée James Renée knew she wanted to become a lawyer—or a political scientist. And run track. So she came to the UO. Learned to think broadly, deeply, and critically in the College of Arts and Sciences. What she didn’t expect was that her liberal arts education would lead her right into the lion’s den of the tech industry. Which, as it turned out, was exactly where she belonged. And for good reason: the industry is full of staggeringly smart people who are really good at creating, collecting, moving, and storing data, but there are too few who know how to critically analyze and make sense of it. Which as it also turns out, is something her UO liberal arts education trained her to do really well. Today, Renée is helping to find innovative ways to unlock valuable information trapped in giga, peta, and yottabytes of data. At a little company called Intel. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. She’s the President.

POLITICAL SCIENCE | MBA (1992) COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

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Grant started his UO college career as a pre-business major intending to make the leap to sports business marketing. It wasn’t long, though, before he began rethinking everything, due in large part to the time he spent with other new students in the First-Year Interest Group (FIG) that he joined. He lived, learned, and exchanged ideas with them, and they exposed him to options he’d never considered. One discovery lead to another and the next thing he knew he was majoring in journalism, specializing in public relations and minoring in geography. Sounds like an odd combination at the outset, until you hear where he’s ended up today: Grant is a Social Media Coordinator at Zillow—you know, one of the hottest domains on the planet. Adding a little context, he’s a social storyteller helping to strategically grow a company that specializes in merging vast amounts of real estate and demographic data with a navigable geographic digital environment. In other words, whoa. Grant, it was meant to be.

PUBLIC RELATIONS | GEOGRAPHY (MINOR) 1986

SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM & COMMUNICATION

2013

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A DUCK LIKE

Yen Pham A teacher and self-proclaimed introvert from New York, Yen came here to dive deep into our world-renowned Special Education program. Her plan was to get in, get out, get back to teaching, earn tenure, and do research.

Which is almost what happened. She got in. But then she got involved—in everything. With an improv theater group, Rehearsals for Life, committed to promoting social justice. With our uncommonly cross-disciplinary Technology Entrepreneurship Program (TEP)—where she helped legal and business minds, and social and neuroscientists bring a new startup technology to market. Yen got involved with cycling and hiking.

Mycology. And, of course, urban farming. Then she finished what she came here to do in the first place. Sure, she took the winding road, but she enjoyed every lifeenriching minute of a journey that lead her right where she wanted to go. An assistant professor in New Mexico, Yen helps Hispanic and Native American communities overcome poverty and disabilities—and she’s well on her way to finding better ways through research.

A DUCK LIKE

Zayne Turner She has a degree in Journalism. She went on to get an MFA. She draws, writes, and has a penchant for concrete poetry. Yes, concrete poetry. So it should come as no surprise that she’s currently working in Minneapolis at the Loft Literary Center—the oldest and one of the most prominent literary centers in the US. However, what she actually does there might surprise you. She’s their technology manager—and a programmer. Zayne keeps the Loft’s digital infrastructure humming along, as it should. Unexpected? Perhaps a little.

Hey, she found something else that she loves to do on the way to doing what she loves. And fortunately, she is broadly educated and armed with the communication and leadership skills she needs to be able to take advantage of just such opportunities as they arise.

MAGAZINE JOURNALISM COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

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SPECIAL EDUCATION

2013

SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM & COMMUNICATIONS

2006

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A DUCK LIKE

Tiffany Rose Thomas

A DUCK LIKE

Rachel Winchester

Tiffany came here pretty convinced she knew what she wanted to be. Until she fell out of love with what she wanted to be. It happens. You get exposed to new ways of thinking and doing. You change, and then you change your mind. Tiffany discovered that as technically-minded as she is, she also has a creative side that she couldn’t ignore. So she traded in her original plans and started down a new path. One that was both technically and creatively challenging. Theater Arts, Scenic Design. Where did it take her after graduation?

Thanks to her training and the communication skills she developed here, Disney Interactive. She’s helping the world’s most famous mouse keep things looking just right. Say “hi” to Donald for us, Tiffany.

She’s a dancer and a choreographer. But she doesn’t do dance the way others do. Never has. Which is why she just...belonged here. And found support here. Our faculty understood that, for her, dance isn’t about meticulous movements practiced to perfection; it’s about storytelling and creativity. And making something new. That’s why on any given day she can be found mashing up theatre with dance, and creating strikingly unexpected performances filled with abstract movements in place of words. Making people think and wonder and awe. And that’s why she was chosen to make history and receive the highest honor in adjudicated collegiate dance: Rachel became the first dancer from the UO to show her work at the American College Dance Festival at the Kennedy Center. Validating? You could say that. The experience propelled her forward and encouraged her to become a full-time professor of dance, teaching others how to listen to their hearts and how to fly, too.

MFA SCHOOL OF MUSIC AND DANCE

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2014

COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

THEATER ARTS | SCENIC DESIGN

2013

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A DUCK LIKE

Tyree Harris Tyree’s career trajectory went parabolic right after he graduated from the UO. He says it was because he was in just the right place, with all the right people, at exactly the right time. But it’s a little more complicated and a lot more interesting than that. What really happened: he came to the UO to study journalism, speak his mind, and ruffle some feathers. To challenge us as much as we challenged him. A wordsmith and storyteller, UO newspaper editor and TEDx speaker, it was clear that he had talent; he just needed someone to help him channel it. So one of his professors did. Next thing he knew, she’d found him a creative partner (James, the talented fellow to the right) and they were getting a crash course in portfolio development. Suddenly, they were among the 100+ students that the J-school sends to New York during Ad Week. Then they were being interviewed—and they left NY with two job offers. And then, bam, they were shooting a Super Bowl commercial. Yeah, it all happened pretty fast. Sometimes, that’s just the way it happens here.

SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM & COMMUNICATION

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ADVERTISING

A DUCK LIKE

James Beké

James started as a marketing major. Then he became a sociology major. Then cinema studies. Then journalism.

Finally, he discovered advertising. It took a while, but he got there. He just took the indirect route. Madness?

Nonsense. He did exactly what you’re supposed to do here. What we encourage you to do. Explore. Figure out who you are. Find out what sets your imagination on fire. Eventually, James tossed everything he’s good at and everything he loves in a blender and set it to

2013

SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM & COMMUNICATION

liquefy. Art, video, music, words, and his curiosity about what makes people tick. He ended up in a completely wonderful, totally unexpected place. World, meet James.

Advertising creative slash art director who’s one-half of a creative team that created some of those standout spots for Beats by Dre. He’s making advertising into art, blowing up the interwebs on behalf of some of the top brands in the world, and feeling pretty good about deciding to explore his options in the J-school at the UO.

ADVERTISING

2014

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A DUCK LIKE

Neil Everett A DUCK LIKE

Dylan Haynes Dylan came to the UO fired up. He poured himself into science and his Clark Honors College core curriculum.

But he was careful along the way to not overdo it and burn out. Always balancing biology with liberal arts, and work with play. Smart move; his strategy paid off. Before he knew it, Dylan found himself doing promising research—as an undergraduate—in our world famous Washbourne Labs. Studying synapse formation in zebrafish. The National Institute of Health even provided funding to help him finish it. And with all that balancing of his time, the UO gave him the opportunity to engage the amazing community of Ducks and explore other paths. So somewhere between pre-medical club meetings, a track event at Hayward, and volunteering at an area hospital, he decided he likes people more than fish. Dylan’s going to become a doctor—a well-balanced one. And he’s going to be brilliant at it.

Neil came to the UO laser-focused on getting a degree in journalism. Sure, he’d though about becoming a veterinarian for about 10 minutes on e day, but in general, he’d made up his mind. Fortunately, even if you don’t stray too far off the path, you still end up with more than you expected. Because as Neil put it, at Oregon, “You don’t just get an academic education.

It’s a life education.” Truer words were never spoken.

Thanks to his UO journalism degree, he was immediately employable after graduation. One job led to another and soon, he landed a sports-loving journalist’s dream job. As of this year, he’s been at ESPN for over 15 years. Catch him on the West Coast edition of SportsCenter. And even around campus. Go Ducks!

BIOLOGY | BIOCHEMISTRY COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

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2014

SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM & COMMUNICATION

JOURNALISM

1984

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A DUCK LIKE

Ashleigh Fischer Ashleigh: an architecture major with an engineering minor, deeply interested in sustainability and competitive running. The UO: a lush, green campus surrounded by hundreds of miles of running trails and home to one of the best architecture programs anywhere. It just made sense. What happened next? Lots of work and lots of field research. She embraced every opportunity.

She participated in a Passive House monitoring study and learned to hack a house so as to gauge everything from air quality to energy efficiency. She jumped at chances to research and get published. And she got involved with the Energy Studies in Buildings Lab that provides students with opportunities to consult with working professionals at firms throughout the Pacific Northwest. Outstanding firms like ZGF Architecture.

Where, as it turns out, Ashleigh found herself employed after graduation. Funny how that works out like that sometimes. And for students here, often.

A DUCK LIKE

Korrin Bishop Korrin considered everything. Pre-engineering, mathematics, sociology. She even explored getting a degree in the classics—Ancient Greek—after studying abroad in, you guessed it, Greece. A friend told her about the Planning, Public Policy & Management (PPPM) program. A few intro courses later, she knew she’d found her true north. She felt they “weren’t just talking about theories, but really teaching you how to apply them.” And even giving people the tools to change the world a little. These days Korrin is working directly with the US Housing & Urban Development Office to create systemic change and make a difference in people’s lives across the country, through federal homelessness prevention programs.

She’s changing the world, one small world at a time.

PLANNING, PUBLIC POLICY AND MANAGEMENT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE & ALLIED ARTS

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ARCHITECTURE

2014

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE & ALLIED ARTS

2011

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A DUCK LIKE

Diara Melendez A DUCK LIKE

Ken Bischell Just like anything worthwhile, you get out of it what you put into it. Which is exactly what Ken realized as he was starting his second year studying the “Queen of Sciences”—mathematics. He decided to take advantage of the college experience and wade deeper into the community of Ducks all around him.

In no time, he discovered a whole set of like-minded peers right under his nose. It wasn’t long before they became more than a support system; they became lifelong friends. So where is he now? He’s an actuarial analyst with a not-for profit healthcare provider, PacificSource. “I use statistics to quantitatively evaluate and prepare for risks.” In other words, he has a fantastic job where he uses the tools he learned here at the UO, every single day.

MATHEMATICS COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

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Diara came to Oregon by way of Nevada, by way of Chile, to study Global Management at the Lundquist College of Business. Actually, first she came here as a physics major.

Whip smart. Ready for anything. With deep scholarship support. Then, she did what a lot of students do, she changed her mind and became a Global Management major. Once she got on the right path, things worked out pretty brilliantly. She dove right in. First order of business: Study abroad in Spain. Next order of business: Get noticed. She became active in several organizations on campus, including Lundquist’s CEO Network—an organization for business students of color. Turns out it was a very good move. Soon, she was being recruited by several corporations. And, yes, she landed a job at one of them—before she’d even graduated. Today, Diara is thriving as a Licensed Relationship Manager at KeyBank.

Kinda like the Wolf of Wall Street, she jokes, without all the wolf. Or any of the Wall Street.

BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION | GLOBAL MANAGEMENT | SPANISH (MINOR) 2013

LUNDQUIST COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

2013

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A DUCK LIKE

Dave Elkin

A DUCK LIKE

Claire Mauldhardt

One day as he was trying to leave, Dave ran into a professor who reminded him about a portfolio review that evening. Dave explained that he was just too busy.

At which point his professor politely urged that this was something that he really ought to do. So, begrudgingly, respectfully, Dave went. And met his future employers.

And found a job where he’d spend the next 8½ years, become a project manager, and help his team win a prominent national award (“Zidell Yards,” 2014, check it out). All because a professor gave him a little nudge. Well, and because the UO set him up for success. Today, he continues to do what he loves as a landscape architect at Metro in Portland. To quote Dave, “I take vapor—words that people talk—and build things out of those words.”

She’d considered other paths. She’d even joined a Firstyear Interest Group that provided a forum to explore a range of creative and liberal arts options together.

Then it happened. She heard about landscape architecture and it just...clicked. What drew her to it?

The process. The planning. The cooperation between people working together to make sure projects had every chance to come to life. And then there’s the being able to see it, frequently literally, come to life.

Just like the Portland project Claire recently worked on with a team from GreenWorks that won the coveted American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) National Honor Award. Nice, right? But what has she done lately? She’s moved up and on. Specializing. A wet weather expert helping to wrangle storm water for Capital Region Water in Harrisburg, PA.

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE & ALLIED ARTS

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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

1998

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE & ALLIED ARTS

2007

3/13/15 12:20 PM

A DUCK LIKE

Soon.

Matt Keown Marimbas, gongs, bongos. Metal pipes, car parts, and glass bottles. You name it, Matt can play it. He even knows how to play a cactus—by amplifying and plucking the spines. Yes, really. In fact, Matt’s been playing music on anything he could find since he was a kid. Something he picked up from his father. Without getting into a discussion about DNA and gene expression, let’s just say rhythm is in his blood. He knew for most of his life that he wanted to continue down the percussive path that his father began to forge as a Duck a generation earlier. How’s that worked out for him? Well, extremely well. He came here, met his wife (also a percussionist), and got to study with a professor who’d made an impact on his father 35 years earlier. Then he graduated and his UO BA has been opening doors for him ever since.

Like the one at Johns Hopkins’ Peabody Conservancy where he studied next. The door at Yale, where he’s now doing graduate work. And, of course, stage doors all over where he entertains thousands.

YOU’LL BE A DUCK LIKE THESE.

YOU’LL BE HERE. ONE OF THOUSANDS OF INDIVIDUALS—SEARCHING AND CREATING. ASKING, “WHAT IF…,” COLLABORATING, AND FINDING BETTER WAYS.

ACCEPT OUR INVITATION TO BECOME A DUCK. ENROLL TODAY AT: ADMISSIONS.UOREGON.EDU/ENROLL

SCHOOL OF MUSIC AND DANCE

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MUSIC | PERCUSSION PERFORMANCE

2013

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1282 University of Oregon | Eugene, OR 97403-1282

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