Eli Hornstein won first place in the 2014-15 Carolina Global Photography Competition for this photo, titled “Modernity,” taken in central Mongolia.
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Eli Hornstein ‘09 doesn’t just specialize in science, or the humanities. He has spent years finding ways to bring disciplines together in exciting, and sometimes unexpected, ways. Hornstein, who graduated from University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill in 2014, was recently highlighted by the university for his work to conserve the environment while pursuing his study of languages.
Hornstein (the son of NCSSM Dean of Science Amy Sheck) was a Robertson Scholar. He majored in linguistics at UNC and received a distinction in biology from Duke University. His more recent work includes award-winning photography taken on an ecotourism trip to Mongolia, where he later served as a Fulbright Fellow, studying the conservation efforts of parks and conducting research on a Gobi desert plant species that could be used for land restoration. As he says in an interview with UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, he loves finding the connections between disciplines. “With linguistics, you obviously have to travel to get exposed to multiple languages. With biology, at least the things that interested me at the time, took place in other countries.”
Hornstein is back in the United States and would like to continue working in conservation.