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With a grant from Hamilton, Zachary Deming ’20 spent a summer immersed in an academic passion he expects he'll carry with him into grad school or whatever comes after College.

As a premed student Maya Amy ’20 has spent hours immersed in science research, including a summer of teamwork with Assistant Professor of Biology Cynthia Downs and other students. That resulted in Amy being listed among the co-authors on a scholarly paper. This summer, she’s working on research that requires a new set of skills.

Tessa Lavan ’20 spends most of her days in Lourdes, France, stationed at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, observing the people who pass through the Sanctuary and near the Grotto, a Catholic shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes.

When Abigail Henkel ’21 walks through the streets of Philadelphia’s Chinatown, she doesn’t rush through the neighborhood with her friends in tow, searching for a bowl of ramen, as she used to do. Instead, she takes her time, taking pictures of signs on bakeries, cafes, and other shops to later analyze. Rather than view the community with the brusque recognition of a tourist, she examines Chinatown with the eye of a deferential, thoughtful spectator.

Catherine Ryczek ’21 spent her summer in Germany working with Assistant Professor of Physics Kristen Burson and a team of physicists from around the world at the Fritz-Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin. During her internship, Ryczek collected and analyzed low energy electron diffraction (LEED) data, a process which enabled her and her fellow researchers to learn more about the structure of materials. She also worked to design and assemble a new ultra-high vacuum (UHV) system to allow for the closer study of thin films.

When most people read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness for class, they finish the novel, maybe write an essay about it, and leave it at that. Erica Ivins ’21, however, took the extra step and designed a research project around Conrad’s life, flew to England, and had a “one-on-one” with Conrad by examining his personal letters in London and Oxford.

For Ishan Mainali, researching the 1960s and ’70s hippie movement in Nepal isn’t just an academic endeavor, but a personal one as well. Having grown up in Kathmandu, Nepal, Mainali is familiar with the hippie movement, though he says, the movement “is something that is neither really visible in public spaces nor is it talked about much.” Mainali hopes to start the conversation with his Emerson research project.

Assistant Professor of Computer Science Thomas Helmuth ’09 recently presented two papers at the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference in Prague.

What happens if Generative Adversarial Networks are linked and given the opportunity to work together, like trees in a forest? Ian Nduhiu ’22 and Kenny Talarico ’22 are pondering that.

Ravena Pernanand ’21, Rachel Pike ’21, and Abigail Roller ’21 spent the past couple months learning about local climate patterns, analyzing local climate projections, and promoting climate justice.