Sylvia Dean (BA linguistics/TESL '20) was the winner of a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship Award to Taiwan for 2019-20. While the coronavirus pandemic cut her Fulbright experience short, she has fond memories of her experience.

“57 parents of Chinese students and young alumni worked together on purchasing and donating 8,000 medical masks to the UI Hospitals and Clinics. The masks were delivered to ’Love City’ yesterday,” Min Zou, mother of UI student Daniel Zhang, sent this message to a UI staff member via WeChat. ‘Love City’ is the Chinese nickname of Iowa City based on its pronunciation used by generations of Chinese-speaking students, alumni, families, and friends. 

After moving to Iowa from sub-tropical Taiwan, Ling-Ling Wang (MS actuarial science ’88) found herself enjoying Iowa’s four distinctive seasons. Enrolled in the UI’s prestigious actuarial science master’s program, Wang was no stranger to long hours of study, making her appreciate walking along the bank of the Iowa River to take a break.

Ghazi Kayali, PhD, MPH, is part of a global network of scientists dedicated to researching novel viruses transmitted between animals and humans. He earned his doctorate degree in epidemiology from the University of Iowa College of Public Health in 2008.

Davorin Kempf (MA music ’90) recently retired from the University of Zagreb Academy of Music where he served as a full professor in the in the Department of Composition and Theory of Music. In 2006 Kempf earned his Ph.D from Freie Universität Berlin (doctoral dissertation: Symmetrie und Variation als kompositorische Prinzipien: Interdisziplinäre Aspekte, supervisor: Prof. Dr. Albrecht Riethmüller). Two years ago he became a full member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. An award-winning composer, Kempf’s work has been performed at concerts and festivals in more than a dozen countries including the United States.

Since the COVID-19 lockdown in Wuhan, China, Can Zhang (BBA economics ’14, BBA management ’14), the owner of a local driver training business that he took over from his family in late 2017, has been conducting online meetings with his management team on a regular basis. During a recent online meeting, he decided the company would benefit from implementing a conservative strategy to reduce costs and build a cash surplus in 2020. “The COVID-19 outbreak is really hurting small and medium-sized enterprises. During this crisis, some companies went bankrupt because they didn’t have enough cash flow. My company is facing a similar problem. I am not going to start any new projects or make any aggressive investments this year. The impact of COVID-19 is likely to be repercussive, and a long-term conservative strategy might be needed for my business,” Zhang said. 

As an architectural designer at Studio Joseph in New York City, Shuo Yang (BSE civil engineering ’14; BA art ’14) mainly works on projects in pavilions, exhibitions, and public spaces, like educational facilities and museums. Yang says the solid interdisciplinary education he received at the University of Iowa (UI) opened the door to and prepared him well for his dream career.

Jennie Wonderlin, a Des Moines native, graduated in 2018 from the University of Iowa. She is now a community healthcare worker at Primary Healthcare, Inc. and she gets to put into practice what she learned during her college career.

UI alum and world renowned opera singer Simon Estes was awarded the 2019 International Impact Award as part of this special program of WorldCanvass.

The voice of Simon Estes is an example of music fostering humanity, opportunity and positive change on an international scale.

Brett Burk took his UI education to new heights, studying abroad, getting a Fulbright to Taiwan, and using what he learned to dedicate himself to helping others.

Phoobala Naidoo, who to Iowa from South Africa during apartheid, graduated from the University of Iowa in 1990, where he received his PhD in counselor education. He currently resides in Blair Athol, New South Wales, Australia, where he serves underserved and needy populations.