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The founder of the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) was Marian Wright-Edelman, a leader in the civil rights movement. She was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s friend and legal counsel, and Megan Bumb ’10 was a guest in her home for a barbeque this summer.

"Nature's designs can be so stealth!" Alyssa Kanagaki '10 said. Diseases spread so quickly that it is hard to believe that something as small as a bacterium could cause so much harm. Kanagaki's internship this summer with Dr. Suckjoon Jun gave her the chance to explore these microscopic marvels more closely. Dr. Jun, a physicist who has recently turned to biology, wants to know how one cell becomes two cells. It's not a simple question, nor does it have a simple answer. He and his team at Harvard University’s FAS Center for Systems Biology study this and other details of a cell's life.

Xiaohan Du ’12 is proud of her Chinese culture, but has some qualms about its philosophy on education, especially in museums. “The Chinese people don’t get enough from the museums as they should,” she said. Du describes the labels and audio guides that resemble those in American museums, but also mentions that there is a staggering lack of activity outside of these merely informative aides. “It’s pretty passive,” she noted. This summer, she did a comparison of American and Chinese educational methods in art museums. Her research was funded by the Emerson Foundation Grant program, which was created in 1997 to bolster student-faculty relations through collaborative research projects.

Born in Harlem, educated at Hamilton then Harvard, civil rights leader Dr. Robert P. Moses’ life is an inspirational story in the style of 19th century Horatio Alger novels. He graduated from Hamilton in 1956 and founded The Algebra Project (AP) in 1982 as a means to advance public school education, especially in mathematics, for every child. He and the people at The Algebra Project feel that every child is entitled to a proper education in order to succeed in an increasingly technology-based society.

Hamilton graduate Oren Root (1803-1885) was the first to find igneous, volcanic rocks known as kimberlites in New York State. In 1881, he retired as Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Mineralogy and Geology at Hamilton, and left a legacy of sage and introspective research for future students and faculty to imitate. This summer, Alexandra Hutchison ’10 and Lisa Feuerstein ’10 are expanding on the study of kimberlites across Central New York and the eastern states. They are working with Associate Professor of Geosciences David Bailey to determine why kimberlites exist in certain places and where they came from. Their projects have slightly different aims, but both revolve around the effort to discern the more reliable theories from those with not enough evidence.

Yinghan Ding ’12 is an international student at Hamilton, and so are some of his friends. When it comes time to head home for winter break, they might want to heed his advice about buying airline tickets.  By the end of the summer, Ding will be practically an expert on the topic. In the spring, he received an Emerson Grant to study price fluctuations in the airline industries. Because the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 eliminated most of the U.S. government’s interference in the economic standing of airlines, Ding is curious to see whether or not the government needs to become reacquainted with airline regulation in order to achieve stable prices that will benefit both consumers and the industry.

Journalism is the world’s transcript – the records accumulate but never disappear, even if we persistently try to ignore them. Julia Mulcrone ’11 says that in this way, journalism is “extremely important because it is the medium through which people learn about the world—it’s hard not to care about.” This summer, in preparation for a career in journalism, she is interning for Today’s Chicago Woman magazine, which has a target audience of women in their 30s to 50s. They offered her an unpaid position, however, so she applied for and received a stipend from the Joseph F. Anderson '44 Internship Fund, which helps students who have full-time, unpaid internships cover outside expenses.

The debate over health care is not solely bound to the United States. Neither is it confined to migration via land – medicinal issues wash ashore on continents like Africa. In the spring, Caroline Davis ’11 and Laura Gault ’11 were awarded a Davis Peace Project Fellowship program grant amounting to $10,000. They spent it on a research project titled “Empowering the Hadzabe as Agents of Peace: Health for Cultural Preservation.” Its goal to devise a strategy to improve healthcare in the Hadzabe communities of Tanzania. They believe promise lies therein for mobile health care labs and improved ambulatory care during pregnancy complications.

A written assignment can be deceiving. Even if the finished product is immaculate, the student might have put in many hours of work in order to get it to that point. On the other hand, holes in a student’s argument indicate that he either rushed through that portion of his analysis or toiled over its synthesis for longer than necessary. Matt Russell ’11 sees this as a problem for educators who are trying to help their students understand classroom material. If they cannot see what areas on which their students are spending an inordinate amount of time, they cannot help them improve. This summer, Russell worked with Associate Professor of Computer Science Mark Bailey to design a computer program that will visually represent the time spent on certain aspects of computer programming. 

Pablo Abreu ’10 describes an “awakening” that occurred during his junior year. Up until that point, his heart was set on working with people in the health care industry. But after speaking to Daniel Custódio ’00 and Sandra Revueltas ’05, he decided to shift the course of his ambitions. Now he wants to pursue a career in business, which will give him a similar sense of direct contact with people. This summer, he is interning at Wunderman, the largest direct marketing agency and one of the top 10 direct and digital agencies in the world.