We're sharing two episodes as a special miniseries on mindfulness to help you relieve some stress. The first is a 10-minute walking meditation that you can do indoors or outside (wherever you have at least 10 to 15 feet of space). This session is guided by wellness professional Jenny Cimaglia ’07. 

The following episode is a five-minute breathing exercise guided by the alumna.

About Jenny 

Jenny Cimaglia ’07 is a yoga teacher and Reiki practitioner based in Westport, Connecticut. Following her graduation from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the alumna worked in cultural heritage preservation at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France, as a Fulbright Scholar and later in culture-tourism strategy in Hanoi, Vietnam, as a Luce Scholar. 

Jenny’s experiences in Vietnam introduced her to Confucianism and Buddhism and informed her interest in exploring religious studies. She received a Master’s of Buddhist Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong in 2011 as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. 

She returned to the United States in 2012 to work as a special events and development coordinator for the David Lynch Foundation in New York City. Through the foundation, Jenny provided meditation classes to underserved populations, including veterans, victims of domestic violence, and elementary school students. 

Jenny began her training to become a yoga teacher in 2015 and studied massage therapy, health, and wellness through the Swedish Institute: A College of Health Sciences. The alumna’s dynamic teaching style brings together her academic expertise on Buddhism and her training in a collaborative theatre style called devised theatre, incorporating elements of nature into her classes. 

Jenny earned a degree in Classics and a minor in anthropology from UNC-Chapel Hill. 

On your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed.

Catalyze is hosted and produced by Sarah O’Carroll for the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on Twitter or Instagram at @moreheadcain or you can email us at [email protected].

Outside their Airbnb in Cheyenne, Wyoming, three Morehead-Cains shared about their adventures thus far in road tripping across the country with a U-Haul-turned-mobile-recording-unit. 

Eric Lee ’18, Nicholas Byrne ’19, and Sam Lowe ’20 had spent the last six months or so with seven other Tar Heels on a historic farm in Colbert, Georgia. The unincorporated community called Smithonia is about 20 minutes outside of Athens. Following Nicholas’s graduation in December 2019, the musician moved to the farm belonging to his grandparents, converted a former commissary into his own production studio, and invited his friends and fellow creatives to stay indefinitely. 

After collaborating throughout the spring and summer on music and other entrepreneurial and artistic pursuits to make the most of anxiety-ridden times in quarantine, the “Smithonia 10” have since scattered—all but the current trio, that is. Their mission for this trip is to get Eric back to his home base in San Francisco after taking the hiatus off work to recharge in rural Georgia.

As a student at Carolina, Eric co-founded a microfinance initiative for entrepreneurs in the Triangle area called Build The Hill. He earned a degree from UNC-Chapel Hill in economics and minors in entrepreneurship and philosophy, politics, and economics. Prior to Covid, the alumnus was working as a business operations analyst in the Bay Area. Eric worked remotely half-way through the summer before deciding to take full advantage of time with friends during extraordinary circumstances. 

Sam will also be joining the West Coast community of Tar Heels to pursue a master’s degree in computer science from Stanford University beginning in January 2021. The alumnus was a computer science major with minors in cognitive science and music. As a scholar, he applied for and was awarded a Morehead-Cain Discovery Fund grant to visit Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). 

As for Nicholas, he plans to continue focusing on his solo digital music project Arts + Crafts and on freelance video assignments. Throughout this year, he has worked on a number of digital advertising and social media campaigns for major Nashville-based artists including Luke Bryan, Sam Hunt, and Keith Urban. Nicholas and Sam also released an EP the day after recording this interview. Listen to “Slowe Byrne.”

U-Haul sponsorship

During Sam’s junior year, he applied for and was awarded another Discovery Fund grant to rent a 15-foot U-Haul to use as a mobile recording studio. The recent graduate and Cameron Champion ’20 collaborated with musicians throughout the trip, eventually arriving in New Orleans, Louisiana. 

Before embarking on this fall’s road trip, Sam contacted U-Haul to pitch a partnership in documenting their journey to the West Coast. The company agreed to sponsor based on their previous success and content. 

You can follow along their road trip to California on Instagram:

• Follow “Haulin’ Sessions”
• Follow Nicholas @art.sandcrafts
• Follow Sam @sacra.monet
• Follow Eric @eric_zone

The music for this episode, entitled “The Softest ‘Yo’ Ever Spoken,” is by Nicholas Byrne (Arts + Crafts) and Sam Lowe (Sacra Monet). 

On your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed.

Catalyze is hosted and produced by Sarah O’Carroll for the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on Twitter or Instagram at @moreheadcain or you can email us at [email protected].

A performance by Sanya Shah ’22 will release this Friday, October 2, 2020, at 1 p.m. EDT through an online event hosted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Department of Music and Arts Everywhere.

Sanya (soprano) and UNC junior Lauren Ragsdale (mezzo-soprano) will perform the works of composers Florence Price and Betty Jackson King. Price became, in 1933, the first African American female composer whose work was played by a major orchestra. King was an African American pianist, singer, educator, conductor, and composer. 

This “Virtual First Fridays” series, founded by the department in collaboration with Arts Everywhere, is featuring music by underrepresented voices this semester. You can tune in to the free performance on October 2 through the department’s website or Facebook page, and it will be available anytime following the original air date.

Sanya is a neuroscience and music major with a minor in chemistry. The scholar is working to launch a music medicine group through the Alpha Epsilon Delta Pre-Health Honor Society (AED) with the aim of providing patients with the healing benefits of music. The junior is also a member of the UNC Opera and the Carolina Ukulele Ensemble.

On your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed.

Catalyze is hosted and produced by Sarah O’Carroll for the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on Twitter or Instagram at @moreheadcain or you can email us at [email protected].

The music for this episode is by scholar Scott Hallyburton ’22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul. 

Andrew Powell ’15 and Sasha Seymore ’15 (as well as UNC alumnus and former football player Tommy Hatton) are the co-founders of Learn to Win, a mobile learning platform that uses a content creation engine and data analytics suite to build and deliver training materials for instructors, coaches, and teachers of all kinds. The two alumni worked on building the startup as undergrads at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and later as master’s students on the West Coast.

Learn to Win has collaborated with athletic departments at Carolina, as well as at the University of Michigan, University of Texas, and University of Notre Dame, among other universities, sports organizations, and government and enterprise clients. The company is also partnering with Special Olympics USA to train athletes for the 2022 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Kazan, Russia. The organization will use the platform to improve coaching instruction and competition preparation.

Over the summer, Learn to Win hosted nine Morehead-Cain Scholars as interns: Olivia Bell ’22, Naomi Burns ’23, Luke Buxton ’21, Alexandria Chadwick ’21, Varun Jain ’21, Helen Johnston ’22 (who interned as part of a Women in Sports Tech fellowship), Krupa Patel ’22, Olivia Romine ’22, and Jackson Stone ’23. The current Learn to Win team includes Luke, a member of the marketing and design team, and Olivia (Romine), a strategic projects analyst who helped drive the Special Olympics USA parternship. In May of this year, Learn to Win hired Morgan Howell ’17 as the director of engineering and Jack Turner ’20 as a product manager and the People Operations Lead.

On your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed.

Catalyze is hosted and produced by Sarah O’Carroll for the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on Twitter or Instagram at @moreheadcain or you can email us at [email protected].

The music for this episode is by scholar Scott Hallyburton ’22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul. 

To launch our fall season, we spoke with John Sides ’96, a professor and William R. Kenan, Jr. Chair in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. His research focuses on comparative and American politics. The alumnus is co-author of the book, “Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America.” John is also co-founder, former editor-in-chief, and publisher of The Monkey Cage via The Washington Post.

Learn more about John’s work.

This episode is the first of our two-part series on civic engagement. The following episode features activist Greear Webb ’23, the co-founder of Young Americans Protest (YAP!) and the NC Town Hall.

On your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed.

Catalyze is hosted and produced by Sarah O’Carroll for the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on Twitter or Instagram at @moreheadcain or you can email us at [email protected].

The music for this episode is by scholar Scott Hallyburton ’22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul. 

For our second episode of our two-part series on civic engagement, we spoke with Greear Webb ’23 of Raleigh, co-founder of Young Americans Protest (YAP!) and the NC Town Hall. At Carolina, the scholar serves on the Commission on Campus Equality and Student Equity and as co-chair of the political action committee for the Black Student Movement (BSM) at UNC-Chapel Hill. This summer, Greear was selected by Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education to participate in the Making Caring Common program as a Voter Mobilization Ambassador. 

If you haven’t already, you’ll want to catch our previous episode on voting, featuring John Sides ’96, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University and a publisher for The Monkey Cage via The Washington Post.

On your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed.

Catalyze is hosted and produced by Sarah O’Carroll for the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on Twitter or Instagram at @moreheadcain or you can email us at [email protected].

The music for this episode is by scholar Scott Hallyburton ’22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul. 

Before March of this year, Laurel Wamsley ’06 covered stories for NPR focusing on cities, technology, policy, and criminal justice. Now, the Washington, D.C.-based alumna covers the coronavirus which, of course, has impacted all aspects of society.

In between filing stories, Laurel spoke with Morehead-Cain from her home in the Columbia Heights neighborhood to share what the past two months have been like, how NPR has changed its approach to reaching Americans, and her thoughts on the impact the pandemic will have on public trust in local media and national news organizations. 

Morehead-Cain has also been gathering stories from alumni on their efforts to help those most affected by COVID-19 outbreaks throughout the world, support health care workers, increase access to research, and so much more.

Here are just a few of them: 

• Norton Tennille, Jr. ’62, founder of the nonprofit South African Education and Environmental Project (SAEP), is raising funds to buy and deliver grocery packages and vouchers for families in Cape Town, South Africa.
• Natalie Feingold ’15, a global account executive at Flexport, is helping coordinate logistics surrounding the supply of emergency equipment to healthcare workers worldwide through the Frontline Responders Fund.
• Josh Lee ’04, the founder of Green Top Farms, is helping manage a program to feed food-insecure families by partnering with pantries and shelters in New York City.

You can access the full list on the “COVID-19 Response” page on the Morehead-Cain Network. 

The intro music for this episode is by scholar Scott Hallyburton ’22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul. The ending song, entitled “Morning Light,” is by Jakob Hamilton ’19, a keyboardist and composer. You can find more of his recordings on his YouTube channel.

On your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed.

Catalyze is hosted and produced by Sarah O’Carroll for the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on Twitter or Instagram at @moreheadcain or you can email us at [email protected].

These are strange times to be living in, but it’s also a very busy time for Morehead-Cain, so we wanted to get everyone up to speed.

Last Thursday, we announced the Morehead-Cain Class of 2024. We want to wish a warm welcome to the 70 new scholars who are joining the Carolina community.

This week, we’re launching our Virtual Morehead-Cain SEVEN Speaker Series, starting with Shilpi Somaya Gowda ’92. The bestselling author will offer advice and encouragement about getting started as a writer. Her talk begins at 7:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 29.

Next Wednesday, Tom Thriveni ’10, a staff writer for The Late Late Show with James Corden on CBS, will speak about overcoming self-doubt. You can learn more about the virtual series and upcoming speakers on the Morehead-Cain Network.

We’re also rolling out the 2020–2021 Morehead-Cain Mentoring Program. Rising juniors and seniors, if you want to be matched with an alumni mentor, fill out the scholar survey form on the MCN by June 1st.

Some shout-outs 

Congratulations to seniors Daniel Malawsky for receiving the Churchill Scholarship and the Gates Cambridge Scholarship to study medical genetics in England, Wesley Price for receiving the Luce Scholarship to pursue policy research in Indonesia, and junior Mina Yakubu for receiving the Truman Scholarship to study immigration reform in law school.

We also had eight Morehead-Cains receive Chancellor’s Awards this semester. Congratulations to the following scholars for the recognition, and thank you or your positive impact at UNC.

2020 Chancellor’s Awards Recipients

• Agnes Ezekwesili ’20
• Evelyn (Evie) Morris ’20
• Megan Raisle ’20
• Ruth Tomlin ’20
• Uzorma (Ozzie) Owete ’20
• Wesley Price ’20
• Donald (Don) Fejfar ’21
• Sean Nguyen ’21

Lastly, we want to congratulate all of our scholars—but particularly our graduating seniors–for finishing a tough semester, to say the least. Wishing you all best of luck with your final exams this week. You got this.

Our featured Morehead-Cain for this episode is Corrie White Conrad ’02, the VP for social impact, sustainability, and inclusion and diversity at Sephora. We spoke in early March when Corrie flew from San Francisco to Chapel Hill for Final Selection Weekend. The music for this episode is by scholar Scott Hallyburton ’22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul. 

On your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed.Catalyze is hosted and produced by Sarah O’Carroll for the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on Twitter or Instagram at @moreheadcain or you can email us at [email protected].

Morehead-Cain called Bruce Gellin ’77, president of global immunization at the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington, D.C., to get a better understanding of what would need to take place before a coronavirus vaccine could protect against the next global outbreak.

We also asked scholars to share their coping strategies amidst the pandemic (thanks to Nina, Drew, Lauren, Cameron, Lizzie, Michael, Cho, Grayson, and Luke for sharing their creative ideas). You’ll hear their responses at the end of the episode. The music for this episode is by scholar Scott Hallyburton ’22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul.

On your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed. 

Catalyze is hosted and produced by Sarah O’Carroll for the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on Twitter or Instagram at @moreheadcain or you can email us at [email protected].

The Catalyze podcast returns with Season Four, headlining with Niki Shamdasani ’15, the co-founder and CEO of Sani Designs.

People told Niki and her sister, Ritika, that they were “delusional” for aspiring to break into the fashion world with South Asian formalwear. But in the past two years, the sisters have proved the naysayers wrong in big ways.

Sani recently launched a partnership with Rent the Runway, a fashion subscription service for luxury items, to increase access to Indian occasion wear for women across the globe. In between business trips, Niki stopped by the Foundation in Chapel Hill to share the news and what’s next for the startup.

Niki graduated with a political science major and business administration minor from Carolina.

You can learn more about the company on their website or Instagram, and you can shop Sani’s styles on Rent the Runway. The Sani Fashion Show, previously scheduled for April 5 as a benefit event for UNC Children’s Hospital, has been postponed to this fall due to the expanding COVID-19 pandemic.

The music for this episode is by scholar Scott Hallyburton ’22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul. 

On your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed.

Catalyze is hosted and produced by Sarah O’Carroll for the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on Twitter or Instagram at @moreheadcain or you can email us at [email protected].

This past month has been unlike any that Carolina—that the world—has ever experienced. We know that many of you have had your lives upended by the impact of the coronavirus. We want our scholars, from the incoming class to our graduating seniors, our alumni, and everyone else in the Morehead-Cain community, to know that we are here for you.