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Last fall, Alex Hodgens '09 (Syracuse, N.Y.) worked in a public health clinic during his off-campus semester in Nicaragua. "I realized there that working to reverse inequalities in healthcare is something I'm very interested in," the rising senior says. Once back at home, Hodgens continued to look for ways to work in public health, and was able to find an internship at Syracuse Community Health Center West, a primary care clinic that provides services to members of the community who might otherwise be excluded from healthcare.

Growing up in Eastern Europe, Ramunas Rozgys '09 (Naujoji Akmen, Lithuania) saw first-hand the economic changes taking place in a post-communist country. In particular, the privatization process has been a major influence on Lithuania's economic development. This summer, Rozgys traveled to several countries to examine the issue of privatization directly, and to determine how the creation of a private sector has affected the Lithuanian economy and public.

As an intern at Sotheby's Contemporary Chinese Art Department, Xin Wang '09 spent the summer using her talents to the fullest. In her 11-week internship with the international auction house, Wang helped to prepare for an upcoming auction of contemporary Asian art. Although her internship was unpaid, she received funding from the Joseph F. Anderson Internship Fund, given in honor of a 1944 Hamilton graduate who served the college for 18 years as vice president for communications and development. The fund in his name provides individual stipends to support full-time internships for students wishing to expand their educational horizons in preparation for potential careers after graduation.

After taking a Japanese linguistics class, Eileen Rivera '10 began to think about her own linguistic habits. In the process of studying Japanese, Rivera became familiar with the phenomenon of "codeswitching," where a person changes his or her style of speaking in different situations. Codeswitching can involve using entirely different languages, or it can mean moving within the same language between dialects or styles, which is also called "style shifting." After learning about codeswitching, Rivera began to notice it in herself, seeing differences between her speaking style at Hamilton and at home in New York City. "I started to notice the dichotomy between the person I am when I am in school and the person I am when I go home," she says.

Far from the heat and humidity of a Central New York summer, Alexander de Moor '10 (Wayland, Mass.) began his summer aboard the research vessel Lawrence M. Gould, spending three weeks in Antarctica doing geology research. After crossing the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica, de Moor spent five days conducting research with the Gould team, and then visited Palmer Station on Anvers Island before making the transit back to Punta Arenas in Chile.

After the year 489, early Christianity split into the Western, Catholic branch based in Rome and what is known as the Church of the East, rooted in the land east of the Euphrates. In 635, Alopen brought Christian teaching to Chang-An, the Chinese capital during that time. The Church of the East enjoyed a period of rapid development until around 845, but after the decline of the Tang Dynasty, Christianity completely disappeared on the Central Plain for almost 400 years, only remaining in Northwest China among some Uigur and Mongol tribes. However, during the Yuan Dynasty, beginning in 1271, the southeastern city of Quan-Zhou in Chinese Fujian Province suddenly became a center of the Church of the East overnight. This phenomenon begs the question: Where did these churches come from?

One summer of chasing lizards wasn't enough for William Caffry '09 (Lyme, N.H.). Caffry spent three weeks in Oregon last summer researching the escape tactics of Uta stansburiana, or side-blotched lizards, and this year he returned to the project, which is run by Lafayette College professor Peter Zani. Caffry spent five weeks during the summer observing a population near Hines, Ore., as well as monitoring two other populations, one in Oregon and one in Utah. His work is supported by Hamilton's Jeffrey Fund Science Internship, supporting full-time off-campus internships in the sciences at any organization that offers unpaid experiential opportunities.

A native of Shanghai, China, Xiaolu Xu '10 took the opportunity this summer to learn more about her hometown. Fu studied how architectural preservation has evolved in Shanghai, whose built heritage has been challenged by various developments in recent decades. Her research, a collaborative project with Assistant Professor of Government Peter Cannavo, was supported by a research fellowship from the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center. The Levitt Research Fellows Program is open to all students who wish to spend the summer working in collaboration with a faculty member on an issue related to public affairs. Students receive a summer stipend and spend 10 weeks in the summer working intensively with a faculty mentor.

"I read some comics when I was younger, but not too many," says Brendan Conway '09 (North Caldwell, N.J.) on his experience in the field of superhero literature. Now, however, he is spending the entire summer reading comics. After a friend recommended Watchmen by Alan Moore, one of the greatest graphic novels ever written, Conway started looking for other superhero comics that showed the same level of depth and complexity…"and one led to another," he says. "Eventually, I was knee-deep in superhero lore, and I was finding it fascinating."

Due to the limited capacity of the brain to repair itself, strokes are the leading cause of adult disability. Although physical and occupational therapy can encourage damaged brain circuits to recover by enhancing their activity, such strategies are hampered by patient participation, limited ability to increase the therapy "dose" and the labor-intensive nature of the methods. However, several new classes of drugs have recently been developed that stimulate brain activity after strokes, possibly leading to increased neural repair and recovery.