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Alumnus Peter Andringa has been chosen to affix the most recent cohort of Rhodes Students. He was one in all 32 Individuals chosen Nov. 21 for the celebrated Rhodes Scholarship, which funds research on the College of Oxford in England.
Andringa graduated in 2020 with levels in journalism from the Hussman School of Journalism and Media and pc science from the College of Arts & Sciences. He was additionally a Robertson Scholar, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a pupil consultant on College Council and a fellow on the Reese Innovation Lab.
“This unimaginable achievement is a testomony to Peter’s exhausting work and dedication at Carolina,” mentioned Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz. “The Rhodes Scholarship is likely one of the highest honors bestowed upon our college students, and I congratulate Peter on this chance to pursue his goals at Oxford.”
Andringa is UNC-Chapel Hill’s 50th Rhodes Scholar because the program was established in 1902 and the 15th Carolina pupil chosen since fall 2000.
“We’re so excited to have fun Carolina’s 50th Rhodes Scholar this 12 months. It’s a vital milestone in our nice college’s 227-year historical past,” Guskiewicz mentioned. “The extended success of our college students in prestigious worldwide packages just like the Rhodes Scholarship is an instance not simply of all of the excellent college students who attend Carolina, but in addition the world-class school and employees who mentor, help and encourage our college students.”
Highway to the Rhodes
As a highschool pupil at Thomas Jefferson Excessive Faculty for Science and Know-how in Alexandria, Virginia, Andringa aspired to have a profession in large tech. However as he acquired older, Silicon Valley’s shine started to fade, and he turned extra disillusioned by the business.
Regardless of the abilities and capabilities of huge tech firms, Andringa didn’t see them coping with the complexities of the true world and making constructive use of know-how. By his journalism programs at Hussman, he noticed a brand new avenue to faucet into his pc science expertise and use rising applied sciences to profit society.
“It offered a mannequin by which know-how was getting used to grapple with social issues and contemplate the human aspect of it,” he mentioned. “It was by no means know-how for know-how’s sake. It was at all times, ‘How will we use know-how to inform a narrative or make individuals really feel one thing or assist advocate for change?’ I actually loved that aspect of the J-Faculty.”
Andringa mixed normal journalism programs with design and consumer expertise lessons and joined Hussman’s Reese Innovation Lab, the place he labored with affiliate professor Steven King. He additionally carried out analysis to look at how social media is altering the way in which individuals work together with the information.
Further internships with The Wall Avenue Journal, NBC and The Guardian helped Andringa land a place at The Washington Submit, the place he at present works as an information visualization engineer on elections protection and initiatives that combine know-how into the Submit’s reporting.
As a Rhodes Scholar, Andringa will now take a short lived step again from the business to look at a few of journalism’s most urgent challenges.
“I’m actually excited about understanding the mechanics of belief on-line — how individuals belief the information, how individuals construct relationships with information manufacturers and journalists on-line, and the way digital merchandise have an effect on how individuals belief it or the way it’s shared,” he mentioned.
The shortage of belief within the media and its penalties, he mentioned, have been on full show through the pandemic.
“There’s a really direct hyperlink between misinformation and hurt within the pandemic,” he mentioned. “It’s a wake-up name that we have to discover methods to encourage belief within the kinds of media which are going to assist talk successfully with the general public.”
The Rhodes Scholarship will present Andringa with the chance to discover these subjects deeper earlier than returning to journalism.
“The factor that’s thrilling to me is the house to pursue these kind of analysis questions that I’m excited about and that steadily join immediately again to the issues I do at The Submit proper now,” he mentioned. “I’m hopeful the entry to consultants and the entry to extra time to actually dive into a few of these subjects round belief, design and digital information can switch immediately again into serving to information organizations construct wider audiences that belief them and finally disseminate extra truth than disinformation on-line.”
Andringa will pursue a grasp’s in social science of the web via Oxford’s Web Institute, an interdisciplinary middle that researches how the web impacts society. He hopes to work throughout numerous analysis fields to seek out solutions to among the largest questions dealing with journalism at present.
“It attracts on political science. It attracts from sociology. It attracts from media research,” he mentioned. “All of those research have to intersect and work collectively to have the ability to grapple with these points.”
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