Madison Harland ’26: Learning From Imperfection

“Failure” has honed Harland’s career aspirations, reframed her approach to education as both a student and an aspiring professor, and inspired her to carve out space in disciplines she previously didn’t feel herself fit. This resiliency and adaptability will serve her well as an economics research specialist at Dartmouth College, where she’ll explore disparities in the criminal justice system and other public and labor economics issues under Hamilton alumnus Steven Mello ’11.

Harland’s thesis advisor Stephen Wu, the Irma M. and Robert D. Morris Professor of Economics, who taught Mello when he was an undergraduate, recommended her for the position. In a few years, Harland hopes to be at the start of a Ph.D. in economics and on her way to professorship — a full-circle moment for a student who was previously uncertain if she had a place in mathematics or economics at all.

Hamilton immediately felt like the right place for Harland, a who originally intended to be pre-med. But after being placed in calculus instead of the chemistry class she wanted, she discovered an unexpected love of math. An introductory economics course sparked a similar realization: “Oh shoot, I think I like this more than all of my other classes.” She ultimately declared majors in economics and mathematics, drawn to both fields’ quantitative approaches to understanding the world.

Yet, Harland occasionally felt out of place in her academics. Then, during her sophomore year, she attended a talk with Christopher “Kitt” Carpenter, a health and labor economist. “I didn’t know the words ‘queer’ and ‘economics’ could be in the same sentence until that moment,” she reflected. The event, in combination with her prior coursework on the economics of discrimination and the economics of inequality, kickstarted her focus in LGBTQ+ economics. She spent the following summer as a Levitt Summer Research Fellow studying “The Current State of the Lesbian Earnings Premium” with Assistant Professor of Economics Eliane Barker.

Harland later participated in the Fall 2024 New York City Program: Urban Inequality in Large U.S. Cities, interning at The Ali Forney Center, a nonprofit supporting unhoused LGBTQ youth. The experience reinforced her commitment to social impact through both service and research. During the program, she also visited Richard Bernstein Advisors, an asset management firm founded by Hamilton alumni. Though initially hesitant about finance, she accepted a summer internship there — turning down another opportunity more closely aligned with her interests. “I wanted to learn to look at things in a way I normally wouldn’t,” she said.

Her openness to new perspectives continued back on campus, where Harland worked as an audiovisual services manager, co-led the a cappella group Duelly Noted, and participated for several years in the Faculty Dance Showcase. As a SLAMS: Leader for Inclusion in the Math Department, she helped increase visibility and participation for underrepresented students in mathematics. She also designed an independent study with Professor Wu in fall 2025 to extend her research beyond a traditional one-semester honors project.

In Assistant Professor of Mathematics Erin Tripp’s student-led Senior Seminar in Optimization, Harland embraced the flipped classroom model. “Students know how students like to learn,” she said. Looking ahead, she hopes to create classrooms where students feel comfortable learning through failure rather than fearing it.