Know Thyself Series

Kiki Yang ’00 has never stopped learning. It’s been the one constant in her career. As a senior partner at the consulting company Bain & Company in Shanghai, she said, “Every day is about thinking. Clients come to me with issues they can’t solve, and we have to understand their problems. It’s never easy.”

Charlotte Ameringer ’88 works small. As chief conservator at the Portland Art Museum, she recently spent nine months ever so gently removing varnish from a painting in Monet’s famous “Waterlilies” series.

Bob Halligan, Jr. ’75 has written over 1,100 songs, 200 of which have been recorded by such artists as Cher, KISS, Michael Bolton, Blue Oyster Cult, Kathy Mattea … the list goes on. But to his classmates, Halligan is perhaps better known for his performances with the campus band Steak Nite.

They arrived with curiosity, drive, and a sense of possibility — and now Hamilton’s Class of 2025 is stepping boldly into what’s next, with graduation canes in hand and valuable lessons learned. What shaped them during their four years on College Hill? Which moments, mentors, and courses stand out?

Anti-ageism activist Ashton Applewhite K’74 is 72 and she’s good with that. The Decade of Healthy Ageing, a U.N. collaboration with the World Health Organization, recently honored her as one of its Healthy Ageing 50.

Among Dan Small's ’66 rich and varied life, there’s one thread that weaves through all seven decades. In fact, that thread — fishing — is cinched to his earliest memory.

Philip O’Neill ’73 gets around. His senior year winter study at Hamilton took the Soviet studies major to Uzbekistan, a Muslim republic then part of the U.S.S.R. There, looking at the distant mountains, he asked a local what was on the other side.

Getting sent to the principal’s office in eighth grade might have been the best thing that ever happened to Dyan Finguerra-DuCharme ’92. Her offense? She stood up in class to defend a student who was being treated unfairly.

Working to pay rent in New York City, Ondine Jean-Baptiste ’17 took a job as a real estate receptionist. As she fulfilled her duties, Jean-Baptiste also armed herself with the tools and mindset of an ambitious journalist.

A classics and archaeology major, Kayley Boddy ’22 initially thought she’d one day be working in a museum dusting off artifacts. Today, you’ll find her in the weathered orange landscape of Utah’s Arches National Park where she works as a backcountry ranger.