30 Under 30 – College of Arts & Sciences

Asher Elbein

June 19, 2018

As a freelance writer and illustrator not even four years into his career, Asher Elbein has already published multiple times with journalism behemoths including The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Smithsonian. Elbein knew when he came to The University of Alabama that he wanted to be a science journalist—after all, he’d been obsessed with drawing and learning about dinosaurs from childhood. But rather than pursuing a journalism major, he thought an interdisciplinary approach through New College would serve him […]

Xavier Neal-Burgin

June 19, 2018

Upstart director and storyteller Xavier Neal-Burgin is pushing to tell underrepresented stories in Hollywood. At only 28 years old, Neal-Burgin has already directed twelve short films, which have led him to become an HBO Film Finalist, a Sundance Lab Fellow, a Student Academy Award Semifinalist—and he has 60,000 Twitter followers to boot. Neal-Burgin says he is excited by his success and hopes he’ll see increased visibility for black directors, storytellers, actors, and other creatives. Thus far, he has focused his […]

Theodora Ziolkowski

June 19, 2018

Only 28 years old, Theodora Ziolkowski is a Best New Poet and Pushcart Prize nominee; she has been published in more than two dozen online and print journals and magazines; and early this year she published her first novella, On the Rocks, with Texas Review Press. “Theodora is a force of nature, impressive at any age,” said Kellie Wells, director of the UA creative writing program. “But what makes her especially remarkable is that she has published quite a lot […]

Tanesia Woody

June 19, 2018

Tanesia Woody says she’s stubborn. As she tells it, she only decided to become a cryptologic language analyst for the Air Force after the recruiter suggested that she shouldn’t try because roughly 50 percent of prospective linguists fail out of the program. “When he told me it was the program most people failed out of, I said ‘Cool, sign me up,’” Woody recalled. Woody served formally in the Air Force for six years, and though she medically retired in January, […]

Rue Beyer

June 19, 2018

The open sky and beautiful views of northern Nevada have a special place in Rue Beyer’s heart. They’re her office. “A mine, depending on several factors, can go from five years to 30 or 50,” Beyer said. “One of the productions I’m working on started in the 1980s and is still being worked on today—and it still has another 10 years left.” When she’s not mining, Beyer uses rocks as her playground as a mountain climber. Over the past four […]

Olivia West

June 19, 2018

“Five, four, three. . . And here he is once again—Jimmy Fallon!” The blue curtains on the Studio 6B stage fly open as Fallon, in a futuristic race car, zooms to center stage and challenges the studio audience to a race through New York. So begins Universal Orlando’s newest attraction, which UA alumna Olivia West helped to create as an intern in 2014. “That was my first big foray into an attraction that would actually come to fruition,” West said. […]

Olivia Bensinger

June 19, 2018

Since she was a child, Olivia Bensinger has strived to take care of the planet through advocating and recycling. Now, her goal is to save the planet through the law. Bensinger, a UA and Harvard Law School alumna, is an associate at Hughes, Hubbard and Reed—an international law firm that has been ranked No. 1 on The American Lawyer’s “A-List” and recently won multiple honors at the 2018 Americas IP Awards. “I wanted to get my feet on the ground […]

Michael Ward

June 19, 2018

As the director of east Oregon’s Umatilla Basin Watershed Council, alumnus Michael Ward is helping to preserve salmon species across the Pacific Northwest, and in the process he won the 2017 Water Resources Conservation Award for his work. Steelhead salmon, one of the species Ward works to protect, relies on access to mountain streams in order to spawn. The fish are born in these freshwater streams, and after they mature and travel downstream to the Pacific Ocean, they make […]

Michael Moore

June 19, 2018

Alumnus Michael Moore is about to disrupt the world of biopsies. As the CEO and co-founder of Med Kairos, Moore and his colleagues have created an algorithm-based camera that identifies and counts cancerous cells from biopsy samples—a process that was previously done manually. The camera is expected to save hospitals and their patients both countless hours and millions of dollars. “We were cued into the need for this technology from personal experience,” Moore said. “My dad had tonsil cancer back […]

Michael Luwoye

June 19, 2018

For most, being cast in a Broadway musical would be hard enough. Landing the lead? Practically impossible. But for Michael Luwoye, the star of the most-expensive and sought-after ticket in Broadway history, becoming Hamilton’s Hamilton was almost an accident. “I started out auditioning for the roles of Hercules Mulligan and James Madison,” Luwoye said. “I never thought of playing Hamilton. That was never in my mind.” Hamilton: An American Musical is a Tony Award-Winning hip-hop/rap sensation that relies on a […]