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Zunfeng “Jeff” Chen ’08 (Brooklyn, N.Y.) and Jonathan Stults ’07 (Woodstock, N.Y.) are at Hamilton for summer research into mathematics. They have abandoned the topic they originally chose (“difference equations, differential equations, and Simpson’s paradox”) and moved to the study of n by n (square) matrices. “We’re counting all n by n matrices in Z mod p with all or no eigenvalues in Z mod p.”

David Hamilton ’09 (Middleton, Mass.) is spending his summer in the lab working with chemicals. The rising sophomore has returned for the second year of his STEP/Dreyfus grant and is working under Ian Rosenstein, associate professor of chemistry. Hamilton’s project is to synthesize free radical precursors to study the transition states of the cyclopropylcarbinyl radical ring opening reaction.

Danna Klein ’07 (Fort Lee, N.J.) is hard at work in the New York soup kitchens this summer. The public policy major has a Levitt Fellowship to investigate the efficiencies and inefficiencies of food-related services in the non-profit sector. Advised by Rick Werner, the John Stewart Kennedy Professor of Philosophy, Klein will be studying a range of food services which operate in the East Harlem area of New York City. Her goal, she explains, is “to evaluate and to make recommendations based on inefficiencies in the public and private sectors in addressing social justice issues.”

While the large MERCURY conference was going on next door, another, smaller group of students also met at Hamilton for a science conference. This was the Colgate-Hamilton Organic Group conference, the creation of four professors at the two institutions for their organic chemistry students.  

Erica Fultz ’08 (Carlisle, Pa.) is a foreign languages major. But in her case that does not only mean that she can say, “two beers, please,” or “where’s the bathroom?” in three languages; for Fultz, her major gives her a chance to investigate the underpinnings of those languages. A former Freeman recipient, Fultz returns to campus this summer on an Emerson grant to work on a project entitled “A Generative Linguistical Approach to Japanese Verbal Nouns.”

Those in the Science Center last week (July 26-28) will have noticed the elegant tables set out in the atrium and a number of students in dress clothes or the distinctive bright blue “Shieldslab” shirts. Wednesday through Friday, Hamilton played host to the fifth annual MERCURY (Molecular Education and Research Consortium in Undergraduate Computational Chemistry) Computational Chemistry conference.

Heather Parker ’07 (Cherry Hill, N.J.) is on the Hill this summer for astrophysics. She will study pulsating variable stars; stars which change their brightness over a given period. Parker plans to take pictures of her chosen stars with a CCD camera and measure the change in light output, as well as trying to understand why and how these stars pulsate. She will be advised by Peter Millet, the Litchfield Professor of Physics.

This summer Daniel Griffith ’07 (Sidney, N.Y.) is back in the lab of Associate Professor of Chemistry Ian Rosenstein to continue two projects which could contribute to an eco-friendly pesticide. “I was kind of getting my feet wet last year,” says Griffith. “Now I know where I’m going.” His two projects center on obtaining a better understanding of the insect-specific neurotransmitter octopamine.

Kathleen Donahue ’08 (Flushing, N.Y.) and Robin Joseph ’09 (Watertown, Mass.) are spending their summer working with Karen Brewer, professor of chemistry. In their projects, they are synthesizing calix[4]arenes, which are chalice-shaped molecules with four aromatic rings. They coordinate rare earth metal ions with calix[4]arenes, then embed the resulting compound in sol-gels which can be processed into glasses. The students examine the light that is absorbed and emitted from the glass.

It’s rare that an Emerson recipient will confess that their proposal was inspired by a pulpy movie with pretty actors, but Rebecca Wagner ’07 (Lyman, ME) gamely admits to just that. The rising senior English major first encountered the story of Tristan and Isolde in her medieval literature class because it was the only part of Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur that they did not cover. Later, Wagner saw a recent film adaptation of the legend and became curious about the story. Still curious, she applied for and received an Emerson grant to study the evolution of the Tristan and Isolde story through a historo-feminist lens.