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Tar Heels serve and study across the globe

From fighting wildfires in California to unearthing 1,600-year-old mosaics in Israel, Carolina’s faculty, staff and students share snapshots of their recent activities.

A firefighter spraying water with a hose.
Graduate student Patrick Bradey was one of the approximately 10,000 wildland firefighters hired by the U.S. Forest Service to fight and prevent fires, protecting millions of acres of forests.

We know what many of you did this summer, thanks to the Carolina faculty and staff members who responded to The Well’s request for information. We have also included recaps of other recent explorations that you may have missed.

Here are some samples:

Patrick Bradey

Master of public administration student, School of Government, and law student, School of Law

Summer location: Eastern California.

Inyo National Forest extends 165 miles near the California and Nevada border. It covers about 2 million acres, mostly on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada.

Patrick Bradey was a wildland firefighter in the Inyo National Forest, which extends 165 miles near the California and Nevada border. It covers about 2 million acres, mostly on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada.

I spent this summer working as a wildland firefighter in the Inyo National Forest in eastern California. The experience was an excellent opportunity to learn about land management, planning and execution of large-scale government operations, and the (literal) boots-on-the-ground implementation of federal policy. I was glad to be able to do so in a role that directly contributed to the safety and well-being of the local community.


John Bruno

Professor, biology, College of Arts and Sciences

Summer location: Galapagos Islands.

Scalloped hammerhead shark in Galapagos

One of John Bruno’s projects in the Galapagos focused on the scalloped hammerhead shark, a critically endangered species globally.

I took 10 students to the Galapagos to do field research at Carolina’s Galapagos Science Center. We worked on a variety of projects including coral restoration, the role of temperature in structuring the marine food web and the ecology of juvenile scalloped hammerhead sharks.

Read about more of the research done at the center this summer.


Monica Hill

Director, North Carolina Scholastic Media Association

Summer location: Carroll Hall.

Lucy Smithwick and Abigail Welch prepare swag bags for NCSMI2022 attendees.

Lucy Smithwick and Abigail Welch prepared swag bags for attendees of the 2022 North Carolina Scholastic Media Institute. Smithwick and Welch, both student assistants in North Carolina Scholastic Media Association offices, attended the Summer Institute when they were high school editors.

After two years of virtual programming, we were excited to welcome back to campus the North Carolina Scholastic Media Institute, continuing an 81-year tradition at Carolina for this academic camp. High school journalism students and teachers from Boone’s Watauga High to Kill Devil Hills’ First Flight High joined us for three days of instruction in broadcast, yearbook, news, literary magazine, design and photojournalism. Together, our annual statewide student media contests and the statewide institute served 51 schools this summer.


Jodi Magness

Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism, College of Arts and Sciences

Summer location: Huqoq, Israel.

Split graphic showing ancient Jewish mosaics

Left: The Israelite commander Barak depicted in the Huqoq synagogue mosaic. Right: Fox eating grapes depicted in Huqoq synagogue mosaic. (Photos by Jim Haberman)

A team of specialists and students returned to Israel’s Lower Galilee for the 10th year to continue unearthing nearly 1,600-year-old mosaics in an ancient Jewish synagogue at Huqoq. Discoveries made this year included a mosaic panel showing a story from the book of Judges. This is the first depiction of this episode and the first time we’ve seen a depiction of the biblical heroines Deborah and Jael in ancient Jewish art.

Read the story about the Huqoq excavations.


Buckley Public Service Scholars

Carolina Center for Public Service

Summer location: Blue Ridge Mountains.

Nine students in NC Outward Bound program in Blue Ridge Mountains summer 2022

Each year, the Carolina Center for Public Service awards scholarships for undergraduate students at Carolina to participate in a 28-day summer course through the North Carolina Outward Bound School.

Nine Carolina students spent a month backpacking, rock climbing and whitewater canoeing with the North Carolina Outward Bound School through scholarships provided by the Thomas James Endowment at CCPS through the Buckley Public Service Scholars Program.


Royster Society of Fellows

The Graduate School

Summer location: Tübingen, Germany.

Students from the Royster Global conference summer 2022

The Royster Global conference included 17 student participants, with eight from Universität Tübingen and two from King’s College London.

Seven doctoral graduate students from Carolina traveled to Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen for the 2022 Royster Global Conference, an initiative of The Graduate School designed to increase awareness and understanding of graduate education across international borders. The sixth annual conference — the first held in person in two years — focused on the theme of mis- and disinformation or how information spreads in a rapidly, increasingly global, communications landscape. Read the story from The Graduate School.

Read more stories on faculty and staff at TheWell.UNC.edu