Two students from the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film have received prestigious internships this summer from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Foundation.
Ethan Seagren, of Elkhorn, graduated in May and will be working at Stargate Studios in Pasadena, Calif., in visual effects.
Stargate is a production company offering production services and visual effects to the film and television industry. Their credits include “The Walking Dead,” “Heroes,” “Mob City,” “Pan Am” and “24.”
Connor Huggett, of Overland Park, Kan., is a senior who will be working at Tremendous! Entertainment in North Hollywood, Calif., in post-production. Huggett has dual degrees in theatre, with an emphasis in film and new media, and advertising in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
The production company Tremendous! Entertainment is behind “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern,” “Epic,” “Ghostland, Tennessee” and “Off Pitch.”
The foundation’s summer student internship program provides more than 40 industry-wide internships to college and graduate students from across the country and is considered one of the top 10 internships in the country. The program gives students in-depth exposure to professional television production during an eight-week period in Los Angeles.
Seagren began his interest in film and technology in high school.
“We didn’t have any film classes, so I was just doing all the research I could online,” he said. “I came across Video Co-Pilot, which has After Effects tutorials, so I just started doing that. Then, in college, I realized that visual effects allowed me to combine my passion for film and technology into the same thing.”
Huggett, however, didn’t wait until high school to become interested in film. He said he got his first camera when he was six years old.
“I just made videos with friends growing up,” he said. “I taught myself how to edit. I could spend hours and hours behind a computer putting something together and not even realize it. I knew that’s what I needed to do.”
In addition to Seagren and Huggett, the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film had six finalists this year for the internships including Dylan Adams, Nathan Hansen, Derek Davidson and Drake Tucker.
Faculty
• Craig Munier, director of the office of scholarships and financial aid at UNL, was one of five recipients presented with the Allan W. Purdy Distinguished Service Award at the national conference in Nashville, Tenn. The award is one of the highest honors that the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrations bestows each year on the most deserving members of the financial aid profession. The NASFAA, a nonprofit membership organization, is the only national association with a primary focus on student aid legislation, regulatory analysis and training for financial aid administrators. During Munier’s tenure as chair of the NASFAA, he convened multiple policy task forces, including ones on consumer information, program integrity, public service loan forgiveness and professional ethics. Munier also served as a strong voice for all students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
• Mike Hopkins, a visiting professor to UNL, received the Frederic Esser Nemmers Mathematics Prize. The Nemmers Prize, given by Northwestern University, is among the largest monetary awards in the United States that recognizes outstanding achievement in mathematics. Hopkins earned the award for his contributions to algebraic topology, stable homotopy theory and derived algebraic geometry. The Nebraska native has been serving UNL’s department of mathematics since fall of 2012, but is employed as a professor of mathematics at Harvard University. The 2014-2015 academic year will mark the third and final year of the partnership.
Students
• Jason Nolan, a graduate student in Earth and atmospheric sciences, has won two awards, which include funding for his research, from the Geological Society of America. The first award was given by GSA’s Hydrogeology Division as a top-five graduate student research proposal. The second award, an Outstanding Mention, is given to the top 10 research proposals from more than 700 grant applications submitted to the society for funding. Outstanding Mentions are proposals of exceptional merit in conception and presentation. Nolan’s proposal, “Anthropogenically Enhanced Mobilization of Naturally Occurring Uranium in Drinking Water,” earned the awards, which will be presented at the GSA annual meeting in October.
• Anna Bellatore, a graduate student in sociology, recently earned the Best Student Article award from the American Sociological Association’s section on evolution, biology and society. Bellatore’s paper, “Contextual Predictors of Cumulative Biological Risk: Segregation and Allostatic Load,” was published in Social Science Quarterly.
• Donna Kunkel, a graduate student in physics and astronomy, won the Nottingham Prize at the Physical Electronics Conference in June. The Nottingham Prize is awarded to one student each year and recognizes the best student paper presentation at the conference. Kunkel presented part of her thesis research, which focuses on organic nanomaterials that possess useful electronic properties. This is the first time a UNL student has received the award, which comes with a $1,000 stipend.
This column is a regular feature of UNL Today. Faculty, staff and students can submit their achievements to be considered for this column via email to achievements@unl.edu. For more information, call 402-472-8515.
