2015-2016 McCormick Scholars Announced

Libby Koerbel and Dmitry Kopylovsky, both ’16, have been named the school’s McCormick Scholars for the 2015-16 school year.

Funded through a grant from the Chicago-based McCormick Foundation and honoring students planning careers in media management, Koerbel and Kopylovsky will receive full tuition for three academic quarters at Kellogg.

They join last year’s 2014-2015 McCormick Scholars, Lucy Xiao Cheng and Asheem Khondker, both ’15, as exemplary leaders in Kellogg’s Media Management Program. Cheng’s research continues to focus on how news organizations can develop new revenue streams by targeting enterprise customers, while Khondker’s focus has centered on crowd investing and digital distribution strategies for independent media.

Koerbel and Kopylovsky’s research plans for the media industry are equally as innovative:

Libby Koerbel ’16

Following her work as a consultant for BCG and an externship at Universal Music Group, Koerbel came to Kellogg with a clear goal of pursuing a media-focused career. “My passion for media derives from its critical role in shaping culture,” she wrote in her application. Currently interning at Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Koerbel’s investment thesis on digital media will expand into new territory as she explores the issue of personalization this summer at Pandora. She will intern with Pandora’s strategy team, focusing on how a content distributor approaches the issue of personalization, and what that means for the future of media.

Dmitry Kopylovsky ’16

Kopylovsky’s background as an analyst led him to Lionsgate Entertainment, where he directed sales planning and analysis. Putting his skills to work in the film industry unveiled his true passion, he says. After years of deep analytics work for industry decision-makers, he knew Kellogg’s media management program would allow him to transition into the role of becoming a decision-maker himself, before jumping back into the world of film distribution. As a McCormick scholar, Kopylovsky will generate an analytical model that compiles moviegoers’ individual data with movie industry metadata, with the goal of helping film distributors better understand their customers in the early stages of distribution planning and advertising. 

• 2013-2014 McCormick Scholars
• 2012-2013 McCormick Scholars