“I think in between all of the sorrow, you know, for the loss of life in the area and everything going on in western North Carolina,” Krantz-Avy said. “It ended up being a really beautiful day."
Having Thornburg be a part of their wedding as an officiant was special for them.
“I wrote him a thank you note from us,” Krantz-Avy said. “I wrote like, ‘Thank you for being there for us during not just one, but two crazy acts of God.'”
He had helped them through COVID-19 and Hurricane Helene.
Professor Marc Hetherington met professor Suzanne Globetti at the University of Texas at Austin, where both were pursuing their PhDs and met through a mutual friend.
The duo came to UNC after Hetherington was offered a position as the Raymond H. Dawson chair in political science. At UNC, both specialize in American Politics, teaching classes about American government, public opinion, mass media and other subjects.
“I think one of the terrific things is, you know, we are able to connect with each other's work and help each other,” Hetherington said.
Globetti is also recognized for having the best teaching evaluations from students in the political science department, so getting the opportunity to tap into that expertise on how to connect with students is an enormous advantage, Hetherington said.
“She's also just the sort of sharpest critic of my scholarship too,” Hetherington said. “Which is, you know, just always managed to help me make my work better.”
Jade Kandel and Angelos Angelopoulos, doctoral students at the UNC computer science department, met at Kandel's orientation, and they bonded over something that they were both incredibly passionate about: recursive fractal algorithms.
“For some time, I felt a little bit like an outsider with these extracurricular activities and interests, so having this person who immediately not only knew what it was, but did art projects with it as well, and I just felt understood,” Kandel said.
Kandel specializes in data visualization and augmented reality systems for health care, while Angelopoulos studies automation, robotics and artificial intelligence. While they both specialize in different areas, they help each other a lot in their academic work.
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“We don't collaborate necessarily,” Angelopoulos said. “I do help her, though, in her work, because she does do a bunch of coding, so I am good at that.”
Kandel, who had a liberal arts background and was newer to computer science, was able to assist Angelopoulos with his writing.
Through stressful times, the two are also able to rely on each other, keeping each other grounded by reminding one another that solutions are always present.
“Having that person to remind you [that] these challenges are natural, and we're going to get through them together as a team, and you're not alone is — I think — [it] transformed my experience through the PhD,” Kandel said.
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