Alumni
Bill Melton (1964) was recently named the “Track Official of the Year,” by the Southwestern Association of USA Track and Field. Melton has announced the Texas Relays at UT for the past 35 years. Melton was also one of five lions to have been inducted into the Texas Lions “Hall of Fame” in June. Melton has announced two presidential inaugurals, the Olympic Games, and three Super Bowls.
Gary Laufman (1973) has been a freelance photographer in San Francisco, California for the past 25 years. His work can be seen at www.garylaufman.com.
Michael Zinberg (1977) received the Director's Award for 2007 from the Caucus of Writers, Producers and Directors this November. The caucus is celebrating its 25th year of presenting achievement awards to members of the TV industry.
Robert Abelman (1982), professor of communication at Cleveland State University, has been honored by the Mensa Education and Research Foundation with a 2005-06 Award for Excellence in Research. He was recognized for his research on gifted children and his contributions that help define what we understand about intelligence.
Adrian Bernal (1982) is an award-winning producer with 5 Emmy nominations and 3 Gold Promax awards. His company, Adrian Bernal Creative, Inc., develops television programs, documentaries, and feature films. Adrian occasionally fills in at the assignments desk for CNNenEspanol.
John B. Moore (1990) was named an Outstanding Young Texas-Ex for 2007. Moore is a photojournalist for Getty Images, covering South Asia and the Middle East. He won the Pulitzer Prize in Photography in 2005 in the Breaking News Category as part of a team of eleven AP photographers covering the Iraq War. Moore won 1st prize in the 2007 National Geographic Best News Photos of the Year for his coverage of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
Anthony Tenczar (1996) was recently promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at the University of New Hampshire. He teaches digital video production, motion picture aesthetics, media programming and documentary in the Communication Arts Program on the Manchester campus.
Jennifer Proctor (1998) recently completed her MFA in video production at the University of Iowa and joined the faculty of the School of Communication at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, MI as a visiting professor in Film and Video.
Beatrice El-Hakam Schreiber (2000) won a Los Angeles area Emmy for Outstanding News Editor of Los Angeles. Schreiber has been working as a video editor for CBS2 News in L.A. for the past four years.
Heather Courtney’s (2000) “Los Trabajadores/The Workers” was broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens series. She recently won funding for a new documentary from ITVS, one of the most prestigious and competitive grants, for a film on a unit of the Michigan National Guard being sent to Iraq.
Karen Skloss (2001) was an editor on Margaret Brown’s Townes Van Zandt documentary, “Be Here To Love Me,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Laura Dunn’s (2002) MFA documentary “Green” was nominated for a student Academy Award. Her first feature documentary, “The Unforeseen” (executive produced by Robert Redford and Terrence Malick), about the clash between developers and environmentalists over Barton Creek, premiered at Sundance last year.
Diane Zander Mason’s (2002) thesis documentary film, “Girl Wrestler,” was broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens series.
Alejandro Gomez Monteverde (2002) directed and co-wrote the nationally-released “Bella,” winner of the 2006 Toronto Film Festival People's Choice Award, the 2007 Heartland Film Festival $100,000 Grand Prize for Best Dramatic Feature Crystal Heart Award, the Smithsonian Institute's “Legacy Award,” and Tony Bennett's Media Excellence Award.
Quan Tran (2003) won the 2007 AICE (Association of Independent Creative Editors) Award for Best of Dallas for his commercial “Yellow Ribbons,” which became part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Television and Radio located in New York and Los Angeles. Tran also has joined Reel FX Creative Studios in Dallas as an editor.
P.J. Raval (2004) was the cinematographer on the documentary film “Trouble the Water,” about Hurricane Katrina. It won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this year.
John Fiege’s (2006) MFA thesis film, “Mississippi Chicken,” about Latin American immigrants working in poultry plants in the South, was an official selection at the 2007 New York International Film Festival presented by HBO.
Laura Howard (2007) has joined the University of Texas Development office as a development associate in Endowment Services and Compliance.
Hussain Pirani (2007) won one of two Audience Choice Award's at the 2007 48 Hour Film Project for his film “Incognito,” which was directed and produced entirely by a team of UT students and graduates of the Department of Radio-Television-Film.