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The standard study abroad program usually means 10 weeks in Paris or Madrid and some fun pictures. But Anne Bowler, a rising senior from Dallas, Texas, had a very different experience: she spent part of her study abroad program living in a Zulu village. Before leaving, Bowler had received an Emerson grant to research the South African attitude toward a medical system which relies upon both traditional healing and Western medicine. She completed part of her fieldwork in Africa, but she will spend the summer conducting further research into what she calls a "universal desire for health."

The self-help industry can solve your problems, but at what cost? Melissa Kong ’08 (Sunnyside, N.Y.), who has an Emerson grant to study the self-help revolution, is particularly interested in the gendered assumptions behind our lively self-help culture. Working with the Elihu Root Peace Fund Associate Professor of Women's Studies Vivyan Adair, Kong will research and report on the cultural phenomenon of self-help through the lens of feminist, racial, and cultural criticism.

Cuttlefish, dogfish, and puffer-fish are not common household pets, but Genevieve Flanders '09 is getting up-close and personal with them this summer. She is spending the summer as an intern at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Massachusetts where she works with those as well as Hermissenda crassicornis sea slugs.

It’s a tricky job to decide whether an event is a riot or a revolution, but Douglas Paetzell ’09 (Madison N.J.) is ready to make the call. The event is the 1967 Newark riot, a six-day uproar touched off by a white police officer arresting and beating a black cab driver. Paetzell, a history and economics major, has received an Emerson Grant to research the effect of the riots upon the residents of Newark and investigate the federal actions which may have caused it.

Why do people faint? Travis Blood '09 (Pepperell, Mass.) might be able to tell you. As a research intern at the Integrative Cerebral Hemodynamic Lab in Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, a facility of Harvard Medical School, Blood works on several projects designed to ascertain why people feel dizzy and what parts of the body account for the process of brain blood flow.

The emergency departments in United States hospitals are under increasing pressure due to overcrowding. Tamar Nobel ’08 (Mamaroneck, N.Y.), a Hamilton student particularly dedicated to emergency care, takes this problem as her research this summer. Funded by a Levitt Fellowship and working with Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics Selcuk Eren, Nobel is studying the availability of insurance coverage and hospital emergency department visits for asthma patients.

Stephen Okin ’10 (New York, N.Y.) is fascinated with current foreign policy, a fascination which led him straight to the big problems. The U.S. relies upon a rhetoric of liberty and democracy, but there are times when the promotion of democracy abroad conflicts with the need to secure national interests. Okin, a rising sophomore, has an Emerson grant and is working with Assistant Professor of Government Ted Lehmann to research this contradiction as regards the “Venezuelan threat:” the current political situation in Venezuela and its conflicting implications for U.S. foreign policy.

Blake Hulnick ’09 (Richfield, Conn.) is anything but an average, errand-boy intern. Working in the office of the King’s County District Attorney in Brooklyn, N.Y., Hulnick doesn’t fetch anybody coffee; instead, he gets to do exactly the same job as the lawyers and paralegals beside him. He is in the Early Case Assessment Bureau (ECAB) Department, the part of the office which screens, categorizes, and arraigns every arrest that takes place in Brooklyn.

As traders moved back and forth along the Silk Road, they carried more with them than luxury goods. Art, concepts, beliefs changed hands during the trade – but how to track this part of the commerce? Liuhong Fu ’09 (New York City, N.Y.) is willing to try. This rising junior will spend his summer working with Professor of Religion Jay Williams and researching the development and change in early Christianity on the Southeast coast of China.

While other folks in tidal regions are eating shellfish this summer, Adele Paquin '07 (Northampton, Mass.) is dissecting hers. Paquin, a biology major specializing in marine biology, has an internship this summer with a graduate student at Sonoma State University in California. She is working on a project which compares the ability of different coastal sites to support populations of mussels and their predator seastars.