Alex Duzik

As the very first graduate of the University Honors Program, Alex Duzik (‘04 B.S. in Computer Science) completed the first honors thesis after just three years at UNI and paved the way for hundreds of students to follow.  He says of the project, “I did my thesis on the subject of dynamic machine language translation.  It seemed like a fun, challenging project, but imagine my surprise years later when some of the principles ended up being useful in a work project.”

Alex recently reminisced about his honors experience, “On the very first day of the very first honors class, Humanities I with Dr. Brod and Dr. Lees, Dr. Brod gave us a spirited welcome by diving into the etymology of the word “welcome” itself. I knew instantly that I was in the right place.”  

With the holidays around the corner, Alex recalled Christmas at UNI in 2001; “we were all feeling a bit homesick and Jessica had the inspiration to put on a holiday party for us, so we all crammed into the tiny office the Honors Program occupied at the time and decorated holiday cookies and had some much-needed laughs. I always think of that around the holidays.”

After graduation, Alex moved to Des Moines to work as a consultant for Sogeti, and later as a software developer for Aviva. In 2011, he moved to Chicago and took a position as a software engineer at Quantitative Risk Management, where he manages applications that support some of the world’s biggest financial institutions.

Alex lives in Albany Park in Chicago with his partner, an emergency medicine pharmacist also named Alex, and their Very Good Dog Huckleberry Hound.