Alumni

UCA alum David James was  a member of the “Student Dust Counter” team at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

He worked with the physics department in the early 2000s with a revolving team of up to 20 students to create the SDC, which is being used on the New Horizons spacecraft mission to Pluto.

 

The Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter is an instrument aboard the NASA New Horizons mission to Pluto, launched in 2006.

As it travels to Pluto and beyond, SDC will provide information on the dust that strikes the spacecraft during its fourteen-year journey across the solar system.

These observations will advance our understanding of the origin and evolution of our own solar system, as well as helping scientists study planet formation in dust disks around other stars.

A 2005 graduate of the University of Central Arkansas appeared on ABC’s “Shark Tank” at 7 p.m. April 24, 2015

Brittany (Jones) Hodak and her business partner, Kim Kaupe, pitched their company, ZinePak, on the show.

“For months, my business partner and I couldn’t tell anyone we even filmed an episode, because there was no guarantee it would air,” Hodak said.

The company is located in New York City in a coworking space called WeWork. Hodak said other entrepreneurs from WeWork, along with some New York City media and about 150 of the company’s clients will attend a watch party to view the show live.

“There is so much anticipation!” she said. “It’s really exciting, but intimidating at the same time! We’re really looking forward to finally seeing it.”

The Fort Smith native got the idea of ZinePak while a student at UCA. She was working as a college marketing representative for Warner Music group. National staff at that company often discussed declines of compact disc sales. It was then that Hodak said she envisioned a solution.

“If you want people to buy a physical music product, it should be superior to the same offering digitally,” Hodak said. “That’s where the idea for ZinePak came from, although I didn’t put it into action for several years later until I met my co-founder, Kim, at an advertising agency in NYC.”

ZinePak partners with celebrities and brands to create deluxe entertainment packages for super fans. The company has worked with artists such as Katy Perry, KISS and Luke Bryan and brands such as Unilever, MillerCoors and American Express. Since its founding in 2011, the company has grown into a multimillion dollar company with 10 full-time employees and several freelancers.

While at UCA, Hodak majored in communication, concentrating in public relations with minors in honors and marketing. She was a Presidential Scholar and UCA Academic Excellence Award Recipient all seven semesters. She graduated summa cum laude in 2005. She also led a group of students in setting a Guinness World Record for the world’s largest Christmas stocking.