About Kayla

Hometown:
Austin, TX

University Partner:
UNC Chapel-Hill

Degree:
B.A. in Journalism and Religious Studies, expected 2009

Grant Partner:
Bloomberg News

Senior Mentor:
Tom Keene, Editor-at-Large

"Steamboat is different from other internship opportunities available to students at UNC because it is so much more than just an internship at a top-notch company. You become a part of the Steamboat family, learn from talented peers and meet leaders from different fields. It teaches you to reflect on where you're going and where you've been while propelling you toward your career goals. Steamboat taught me the value in listening in order to mold myself into a better version of who I want to become."

Scholar Background

After a creative writing independent study course and the student newspaper sparked her interest in writing during high school, Kayla went to UNC on the Johnston Scholarship, awarded to 60 incoming freshmen based on outstanding high school record, leadership potential, and financial need. Kayla wrote for The Daily Tar Heel, UNC’s campus newspaper, for three years, serving as editor of one of the paper’s news desks. Kayla spent past summers as an intern at The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, a statewide newspaper based in Little Rock, and at Austin Monthly Magazine, an entertainment news magazine. In 2007, Kayla received the James L. Morrison Award for Excellence in Mass Communication History after working with a professor to perform research about newspapers during the Civil War. During her junior year, Kayla worked on a semester-long project about Latino-owned farms in North Carolina for the journalism school’s Latino Project website. She studied abroad in Madrid during the 2008 Fall semester, taking classes in Spanish and working in product research for a local bakery company. Kayla graduated in 2009 from the UNC-Chapel Hill with a degree in journalism, a minor in Spanish, and an outside concentration in Religious Studies. She also earned a certificate from the Carolina Business News Initiative and was awarded the AT&T Business News Award for excellence in business journalism.  

Internship Highlight

At Bloomberg News, Kayla worked as a reporter on the media news team, covering major newspaper, film, print, and entertainment companies. During the summer, she produced more than 50 bylined articles about company SEC filings, press releases, and media industry trends. Kayla also interviewed the chief executive officers of several companies and covered a China media company’s initial public offering. Kayla did two months of reporting for a longer story on political advertising spending at Spanish-language networks during the election; this story was later printed in The L.A. Times.

Where are the now?

Kayla is currently living in Boston where she performs public policy research for the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network, a statewide association of nonprofit organizations.