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The University of Texas at Austin

Previous Guest Speakers

The College of Liberal Arts has been honored to host these alumni through The Futures Initiative, a series highlighting how studying the humanities prepares students for public and professional lives of purpose.

Liberal Arts in Leadership and Innovation – A Conversation with Tim Taliaferro

UT History alum Tim Taliaferro shared how his liberal arts degree enhanced his success in a variety of leadership roles. Tim is the current Vice President of Strategy at Arrow Media. With Tim as the VP of Strategy, “We can really start to position ourselves and do the kind of work we really want, with the clients we really want, and that's a fun place to be.”

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Liberal Arts in Leadership: A Conversation with Associate Dean Mia Carter

Dr. Carter serves as the Associate Dean of Student Affairs for The College of Liberal Arts. Dean Carter began her career at UT Austin in 1991, where she taught English, won multiple teaching awards, and directed multiple on-campus programs— including The Center for Asian American Studies and the Mellon Engaged Scholar Initiative. Since taking on the role of Associate Dean in 2019, she has continued to focus on democratizing opportunities for all students in CoLA, including creating the Humanitas Student Well-Being Collective. Humanitas is a Latin noun meaning “human nature, civilization, and kindness,” and it expresses the sense of belonging, community, and collaboration that Dean Carter hopes to inspire among Liberal Arts students, staff, and faculty.

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Liberal Arts in Management: A Conversation with Monica Chartier

Monica Chartier is the Product & People Senior Manager, Global eCommerce Experience at Dell. Monica manages a team of 12 product managers. Prior to her six years at Dell, Monica worked as a Digital Tech Customer Engagement Team Intern at Whole Foods, Independent Consultant at Indeed, MBA Consultant and Project Lead at Civitas Learning, and as a Programs Manager at Liberal Arts Career Services. Monica received her B.A. in English and Plan II from UT Austin's College of Liberal Arts in 2011 and her MBA from UT’s McCombs School of Business in 2017. During her time as an undergraduate, Monica was involved in Liberal Arts Council and Shakespeare at Winedale, and she was also a Dean’s Distinguished Graduate.

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Liberal Arts in Criminal Justice Policy: A Conversation with Luis Soberon

Luis Soberon is a Policy Advisor at Texas 2036, a nonpartisan public policy think tank, where he is responsible for justice policy. He covers issues across the justice system from regulation of law enforcement, to the efficacy of state courts, through various reforms in prisons and beyond. Before joining Texas 2036, Luis spent six years working in key roles within the Texas Legislature. Luis received his BA in Government and Philosophy from UT Austin in 2011, his JD from UT Law in 2015 and his Master of Public Policy Studies & International Law from the LBJ School of Public Affairs in 2016.

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Liberal Arts in Leadership & Innovation: A Conversation with Tim Taliaferro

UT History alum Tim Taliaferro shared how his liberal arts degree enhanced his success in a variety of leadership roles. Tim is the current Vice President of Strategy at Arrow Media. He is excited about helping Arrow Media to grow. With Tim as the VP of Strategy, “We can really start to position ourselves and do the kind of work we really want, with the clients we really want, and that's a fun place to be.”

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Liberal Arts in Sustainability & Nonprofits: A Conversation with Kareece Sacco

UT Geography alum Kareece Sacco spoke to how her liberal arts degree helped her lead teams building sustainable clean water solutions in rural Kenya and start her own consulting practice providing comprehensive support and expertise in various aspects of nonprofit operations. Kareece is the former Executive Director of Well Aware, was nominated as an Austin Women Magazine Woman to Watch and supports and volunteers for multiple Austin-based nonprofit organizations.

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Mark Twain, Private Equity, and the Making of Modern American Entertainment: A Conversation with Cappy McGarr

Cappy McGarr is an Emmy-nominated co-creator of the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor as well as the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. He is president of MCM Interests and managing partner of United States Renewal Energy Group, and has been involved in the hedge fund and private equity business for the last 30 years. He is the author of The Man Who Made Mark Twain Famous: Stories from the Kennedy Center, the White House, and other Comedy Venues. McGarr received three degrees from The University of Texas: a Bachelor of Arts in 1973, Bachelor of Journalism in 1975, and a Master of Business Administration in 1977.

McGarr chatted with Director of Public Affairs Dan Oppenheimer about his wide-ranging career, the role of a liberal arts education in his success, and the secret to being funny.

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Liberal Arts & Community Impact: A Conversation with Parisa Fatehi-Weeks

Parisa Fatehi-Weeks is Senior Director for Global Community Impact at Indeed. Previously, she worked at Google on strategies to narrow the digital divide for marginalized communities. Parisa received her B.A. in Plan II Honors. She was the President of Student Government, as well as being an OA and RA. She earned her JD from UT Law and her master’s in Public Affairs from the LBJ School.

Parisa spent four years at Public Advocates Inc. in San Francisco, first as Equal Justice Works Fellow and then as Staff Attorney. There she led the organization's Climate Justice strategy. Parisa spoke about her efforts at Indeed to expand access to career pathways for people returning home from incarceration.

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Liberal Arts in Public Policy: A Conversation with Cristina Flores

Cristina Flores was appointed by President Biden as the Director of Scheduling for the U.S. Secretary of Education. She returned to the federal government after having served for almost six years in various roles. Cristina served as the public affairs officer for the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service; as associate director of Hispanic media under the Obama-Biden Administration; and as associate director of public affairs at the National Women's Business Council at the U.S. Small Business Administration. Most recently, she served as an associate manager on the U.S. Politics and Government Outreach team at Facebook. Since 2014, Cristina has served on President Biden's advance teams on domestic and international trips.

Cristina graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor's degree in Sociology and a Bridging Disciplines Human Rights and Social Justice Certificate. Cristina lives in Washington, D.C., however she will always call Weslaco, Texas, home.

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Liberal Arts in Machine Learning

Dr. Joern Klinger is the founder & CEO of biotx and UT Austin Linguistics PhD. Dr. Klinger talked about how his company uses artificial intelligence to transform drug development, including COVID-19 treatment. He shared how the skills developed in his Linguistics PhD prepared him for this important role.

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Writing Career Paths: A Conversation with Kelsey McKinney

Kelsey is a co-owner and staff writer at Defector Media, where she created and hosts the podcast Normal Gossip. Her debut novel God Spare The Girls was released in June 2021, and her reported features and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, GQ Magazine, Cosmopolitan, and many other publications.
Kelsey was a Plan II/English major. During her time at UT, she was the Associate Managing Editor at The Daily Texan. She also founded The Nocturnal Literary Journal and interned with The Alcalde Alumni Magazine.

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Liberal Arts in Energy & Sustainability

Zeina El-Azzi, President of Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) at Brightmark Energy, spoke with liberal arts majors interested in this industry. Zeina is excited to raise awareness of the work Brightmark is doing to transform organic waste into renewable natural gas and create innovative approaches to plastics renewal. She received her BA in Economics and Middle Eastern Studies at UT Austin.

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Liberal Arts in Marketing

Bill Kilday is is the VP of Marketing, Brand & Creative at Niantic. He was previously the Head of Marketing for Google's Geo division for three years, including during the launch of Google Maps and Google Earth. Mr. Kilday is a triple longhorn. He received his BA in Economics, his MPA from the LBJ School of Public Affairs and his MBA from the McCombs School of Business.

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Liberal Arts in Direct Digital Marketing

Mark Walker is the CEO and Founder of Direct Digital Holdings. DDH brings state-of-the-art supply-side and demand-side advertising platforms together under one umbrella company. Mr. Walker is responsible for DDH's financial, operational and sales and marketing structures. He has 20 years of experience in private equity, building relationships, and revenue generating operations for Fortune 500 corporations as well as start-ups. His experience and expertise involve strategic planning, management and execution while building and maintaining subscriber bases for utilities, marketing, and retail organizations. Mr. Walker has a bachelor’s degree in Economics from UT Austin.

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Liberal Arts in Big Law

College of Liberal Arts Economics alumna, Traci Lovitt, JD is the Practice Leader of Jones Day's Issues & Appeals group, one of the nation's leading appellate practices. She has argued before the Supreme Court, as well as numerous federal appellate and state courts.

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Liberal Arts in Public Health & Data Analytics

Paulina Sosa has worked for more than 15 years in public health, including advocacy, data analytics and communications. Her work has particularly revolved around infectious disease transmission and epidemic and pandemic preparedness, including influenza and COVID-19. She worked at the World Health Organization headquarters and at the Pan American Health Organization as the Lead Data Analyst on influenza until she transitioned into her doctoral program at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Public Health Informatics. She has since started working with the American Journal of Public Health as the Assistant Editor and at the American Public Health Association as part of the COVID-19 Response Team.
She is also currently the Chair of the Latinx COVID-19 Taskforce, a national coalition addressing health and economic disparities in Latinx communities during COVID-19, and is also the Founder and Director of Latinx Voces, a grassroots initiative aimed at uplifting Latinx stories, culture, and health.
Paulina received her B.A. in Philosophy and Psychology from UT Austin in 2013.

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Liberal Arts in Real Estate Investment

UT Economics alum John Blaylock has 20+ years of experience working in real estate investment. Mr. Blaylock is the Senior Vice President of Investments at Bell Partners and is responsible for transaction activity valued at $6 billion throughout the United States. Mr. Blaylock holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Texas at Dallas and a BA in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin.

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Liberal Arts in Investment Banking

UT Liberal Arts alum Devin Geoghegan is VP of Innovation at Wood Mackenzie. Devin graduated with a degree in History and English and went straight to Wall Street as an Investment Banking Analyst. During his 17 years in finance he managed $500 million portfolios. Devin talked about how his liberal arts degree help him succeed in Finance and sharedadvice with the next generation of Liberal Arts Longhorns regarding how to market your skills to corporate employers.

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Liberal Arts in Communication: A Conversation with Stefanie Scott

Stefanie Scott, Founder of Seismic Communications, talked about how her UT History and English degrees prepared her to provide public relations counsel and strategic communications services -- including consulting on media relations strategy and storytelling, media relations, public affairs, content publishing and social media -- to corporate and governmental organizations.

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Liberal Arts in Finance & Risk Management

Matt E. Johnson is VP and Chief Financial Officer, Global Retail Markets U.S. at Liberty Mutual Insurance. Matt and his team of 400 employees predict consumer behavior and forecast financial trends that feed directly into creating insurance policies. Matt shared how his UT Economics degree prepared him for an exciting career in insurance! As an alum himself, Matt is also eager to recruit more Liberal Arts Longhorns for Liberty Mutual’s Finance Development Program.

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Liberal Arts in Campaigns & Politics

Amanda Gnaedinger has ten years of experience working in politics, including as Legislative Director for the Texas House of Representatives, Staff Attorney at Lone Star Justice Alliance, and Elections Protection Training Manager at Common Cause. Amanda is a double longhorn. She received her B.A. in Rhetoric & Writing and Chinese Language & Literature from UT in 2012 and her JD from UT Law in 2016.

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Liberal Arts in STEM: A Conversation with Ali Llewellyn

UT Classics alum Ali Llewellyn shared how the communication skills she developed in her humanities coursework help her bring teams together as a Digital Strategist and Director of Coworking at NASA. Ali talked about why she encourages STEM employers to hire for curiosity rather than tech knowledge and why she's happy she studied what she loves. Rather than suffering from imposter syndrome, she encourages Liberal Arts students to believe in their own voice and value in the workplace.

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Liberal Arts in Data Journalism: A Conversation with Election Forecaster G. Elliott Morris

G. Elliott Morris is a data journalist at The Economist who lives in Washington, D.C. Elliott writes about American politics and elections, usually by engaging in a close study of political science, political polling and demographic data. He is responsible for many of the paper’s election forecasting models, including their 2020 US presidential election forecast. Elliott is also author of the book Strength in Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them.

Elliott began blogging about political statistics as a UT student in 2015. He also worked as a survey methodology intern at the Pew Research Center and produced statistical models for the election returns startup Decision Desk HQ between 2017 and 2018. He received his undergraduate degrees in government and history from UT Austin in May 2018.

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Liberal Arts in Economic Policy: A Conversation with Jackson Hole Economics Founder Larry Hatheway

Larry Hatheway is the co-founder of Jackson Hole Economics, an ‘action tank’ designed to provide considered opinions, policy proposals and concrete ideas to address the economics, political, social and environmental challenges we collectively face. Jackson Hole offers a global platform for a diverse group of authors to share views in clear, jargon-free terms across a range of important issues with no paywalls and no advertising – because ideas should be free. He has over 25 years of experience as an economist and multi-asset investment professional. Dr. Hatheway holds a PhD in Economics from UT Austin, an MA in International Studies from the Johns Hopkins University, and a BA in History and German from Whitman College.

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Liberal Arts in Advocacy: A Conversation with Ana López

Ana López is a native Austinite and proud 2019 graduate of the Plan II Honors Program. Nearly the entirety of Ana's college career centered around gun violence prevention activism-- she co-founded Students Against Campus Carry in the wake of the passage of SB11 and went on to help organize a massive protest on UT grounds. You may have seen her advocacy featured on the Daily Show! Ana has worked for Lloyd Doggett, James Talarico, Julie Oliver, Civitech and Airtable.

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Liberal Arts in Education: A Conversation with Dr. Choquette Hamilton

As Founder and CEO of RISE Child Development Center, Dr. Choquette Hamilton is in the process of building an anti-racist organization committed to ensuring all children have access to a transformative early childhood education. She has 15+ years of experience working in education and social justice with organizations such as KIPP Texas Public Schools, Austin Area Urban League and Teach for America. Dr. Hamilton received her BA from UT Austin in African and African American Studies and Sociology as well as a PhD in Education Policy Analysis.

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Using Your Liberal Arts Degree for the Public Good - A Conversation with Beto Altamirano

UT Government alum Beto Altamirano's interest in public policy and community involvement led him to work at the U.S. Senate, White House, and the Texas House of Representatives. Driven by his passion for technology and civic engagement, in 2017 he co-founded Irys. Irys developed an app allowing residents to find nearby COVID-19 testing sites with the shortest wait times, an app to find the shortest wait times at voting locations, and an app that works with cities to improve community engagement and public institutions efficiency. They recently raised over $1M in venture funding, and Beto has been recognized among the brightest entrepreneurs in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

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The Importance of the Humanities in the Corporate World: A Conversation with Vasu Raja

Vasu Raja, American Airlines Chief Revenue Officer shared how his humanities coursework prepared him to excel in the corporate world. Vasu received his BA in Humanities from UT Austin in 1998 and credits the liberal arts for his career success.

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Economics at Work Panel: Recruiting Advice from Recent Grads

Panelists:
Quincy Lee, May 2022 Economics grad and incoming Investment Banking Analyst at CIBC Capital Markets
Libby McFarland, May 2022 Economics grad and incoming Associate at Boston Consulting Group
Omar Rios, May 2021 Economics grad and Research Analyst at Welligence Energy Analytics
Samantha Uy Tesy, May 2021 Economics grad, former EPMP Peer Mentor and Product Management Analyst at USAA
Felix Clevenger, May 2019 Economics grad, Analyst, S & P Global Commodity Insights

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Liberal Arts in Tech & Data Analytics Panel

Panelists:
Orthi Rabbane, Research Data Scientist at Facebook
Barry Dauber, VP of Commercial Sales & Business Development at Primer Al

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Liberal Arts in GIS Panel

Panelists:
Kristen Jurica, GIS Specialist at Redwood National and State Parks
Amanda Rompala, GIS and Data Analyst at Williamson Central Appraisal District
Scot Friedman, Director, Geospatial Technology Services, Texas General Land Office
Marna McLain, IT Manager, Geospatial Technology Management, City of Austin

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