At �ֲ���ý Reunion in June, the Alumni Association gathered to present the annual Alumni Council Awards, recognizing the exceptional career and service achievements of five alumni.

“It is truly inspiring to witness the transformative power of our alumni as they engage in informed civic action and lead in diverse fields,” said Leah Elsmore ’12, president of the Alumni Association for the 2025-26 academic year. “This year’s recipients reflect the ardor and devotion — Amore ac Studio — that define the �ֲ���ý experience, serving as a powerful reminder of the potential within our entire alumni network.”

Peter R. Basiliere ’76 received the Alumni Community Service Award in recognition of his leadership and civic service in Milford, N.H., where he was elected town moderator and school district moderator. After retiring from a career as a leader in additive manufacturing, Basiliere, an active Rotarian, began serving as a volunteer with the American Red Cross. Since then he has joined disaster relief teams in California, Vermont, the Carolinas, and, most recently, Guam, where he oversaw the Red Cross’ food operations after a super typhoon hit the island. Basiliere’s commitment to service and strengthening communities around the country reflects �ֲ���ý’ ideals of purposeful work and responsible stewardship of the wider world.

Scientist Noah E. Petro ’01 earned the Alumni Professional Recognition Award in recognition of his career and leadership at NASA, where he has worked since 2007. Since 2017, he has been the lab chief of NASA’s Planetary Geology, Geophysics, and Geochemistry lab, which conducts research on Mercury, Venus, Earth, and their satellites. He is the project scientist for Artemis III, the 2027 mission that will bring astronauts to the moon’s surface for the first time since 1972. Petro’s work at NASA, both highly scientific and serving the general public, exemplifies �ֲ���ý’ mission of combining intellectual rigor with public good.

Physician Christopher B. Lanoue ’99, P’26 earned the Bruce Stangle ’70, P’96, GP’26 Award for Distinguished Service to the �ֲ���ý Community in recognition of his commitment to supporting �ֲ���ý students and alumni through their medical school journeys. An emergency medicine specialist with MaineHealth, Lanoue has worked closely with the Center for Purposeful Work, mentoring �ֲ���ýies pursuing medical careers, and done so with “generosity, warmth, and openness.” His leadership and service, emblematic of �ֲ���ý’ values, has touched countless people as they themselves prepare for a career of serving others through medicine.

Rachel Ebersole ’17 was presented with the Distinguished Young Alumni Award in recognition of her career as a museum educator and her leadership within the alumni community. Ebersole is the manager of teen programs at The New York Historical museum and library, where she also oversees a digital learning lab and makerspace. Ebersole is a dedicated leader within the New York �ֲ���ý Network, fostering alumni community and hosting events. Her volunteer service to the college is an inspiring example of the transformative power of the young alumni network.

Erica Seifert Plunkett ’86 earned the Helen A. Papaioanou ’49 Distinguished Alumni Service Award, which recognizes alumni who have given exceptional service to the college. Plunkett served as class co-president while at �ֲ���ý and, since graduating, as an Alumni Council member, a dedicated class agent, and a committee leader. Plunkett has also led an accomplished career in research; she spent more than 25 years at the Wellesley Centers for Women supporting research projects studying mental health literacy and mental health in adolescents. She is now a project manager at Brown University’s Hassenfeld Child Health Innovation Institute, working on projects related to adolescent depression prevention.

The Office of College Advancement also presented Kathryn (Kali) M. Brown ’21, Craig E. Comins ’81, and Meg W. Curran ’11 with �ֲ���ý’ Best Awards, which recognize dedicated volunteers who have expressed a passion and commitment for advancing the mission of the college.

“Our alumni continue to do incredible work in their communities and professions, and honoring this year’s award recipients is a privilege,” said Assistant Vice President for Alumni Engagement Sarah Cameron. “Every year, these awards remind us of the strength and reach of the �ֲ���ý network, and we look forward to seeing who our community nominates next.”

Want to nominate someone for a 2027 award? Nominating forms are available now. 

When Jonah Yaffe ’26 of Dallas got a serious concussion this spring, his activities were immediately limited. Luckily, he had a low-impact but very sweet new hobby that took up enormous amounts of time: boiling maple tree sap into syrup.

“I couldn’t do anything else,” Yaffe said. “I could just sit there. It’s a very passive activity.”

And Yaffe had a lot of sap that he needed to boil. This past winter semester, Yaffe and the �ֲ���ý Maple Syrup Club earned a �ֲ���ý Green Grant to bolster the club’s on-campus sugaring efforts. They produced seven caramel-colored gallons of maple syrup from �ֲ���ý trees and with �ֲ���ý people. 

Through the annual Green Grants program, the college offers grants of up to $2,000 to campus sustainability projects led by students, faculty, or staff. In addition to Yaffe’s project, four other projects earned Green Grants this year:

• An effort to revamp the college’s green bike fleet led by EcoReps — students who work to promote environmentally responsible behavior on campus — Liza Bell ’26 of Putney, Vt., and Greta Hendrickson ’28 of Duluth, Minn.
• A collaboration with the on-campus cafe Le Ronj to offer discounts for students who bring disposable cups, led by the �ֲ���ý Environmental Coalition
• An initiative to increase recycling education and materials around campus led by EcoReps Caroline Mayer ’26 of Wolfeboro, N.H., and Sarah Smith ’26 of Severna Park, Md.
• An initiative to install native trees around the �ֲ���ý Garden to prevent wind and noise pollution by Riley Baker ’26 of Northfield, Ill., and Yaffe

“What’s so unique about the Green Grants program is that it puts the stewardship of campus sustainability in the hands of the students themselves,” said Assistant Director of Sustainability Tom Twist. “They are empowered to be the project managers for their own sustainability ideas, and to see a project through from its original spark of an idea, through all the detailed minutiae, to its final completion. Having the students shepherd a project through this entire arc transforms not only the campus, but the student as well.”

The idea for the Maple Syrup Club originated from Yaffe’s work as a student groundskeeper and EcoRep. Yaffe, an environmental studies major, had spent many hours working in the �ֲ���ý Garden — a.k.a the PLOT — and began wondering if it would be possible to tap the garden’s dozens of maple trees. 

When he posed the question to Facility Services staff, whom he’d come to know well across his years working outside, they encouraged him to pursue the idea. Yaffe joined Jeremy Lavertu, a carpenter with Facility Services, for a University of Maine workshop on tapping maple trees to learn the basics of sugaring, then founded the club with Angus Carter ’25 during the 2024-25 academic year.

That first winter, the Maple Syrup Club collected 10 gallons of sap from 10 trees in the PLOT. But the club lacked the funds they needed to purchase the proper equipment for filtration and boiling, key steps of the sugaring process that turn sap, which is 98 percent water and 2 percent sugar, into syrup. Yaffe had to complete the boiling process in Vermont with a friend’s home evaporator, a wood stove that can filter and boil large quantities of sap.

Those 10 gallons of sap boiled down into two mason jars worth of syrup. The experience was fun, but Yaffe had his eye on something bigger for the following winter that would not only generate more syrup but also bring together students, faculty, and staff.

To achieve that goal, he’d need proper technology and machinery, hence his application for a Green Grant. He used the awarded funds to purchase an evaporator, taps for the trees, and buckets to collect sap. After extensive conversations with Facility Services and the City of Lewiston about safely installing the evaporator, the club installed the stove outside of Cutten Maintenance Center. 

Haskel McKee-Seegal ’29 of Honolulu, a friend of Yaffe’s from the Orange Whip Ultimate frisbee team, became Yaffe’s co-conspirator in this season’s sugaring efforts. The two of them, with the help of a dozen or so other dedicated club members, collected 180 gallons of sap from 30 maple trees behind Leahey Field, which they stored in metal drums outside of Cutten.

“The Green Grant really helped us get off the ground,” Yaffe said. “We couldn’t have done anything without it.”

Equally vital were community members. Mike Walsh, a project manager with Facility Services, helped students with logistical and scientific components. Having first learned how to tap trees as a Boy Scout growing up in Maine, Walsh now produces gallons of syrup each year on his 50-acre property in Poland, Maine. He donated 150 gallons of his own sap to the students, nearly doubling their supply. 

“I had extra this year,” Walsh said. “I could have boiled it myself, but they were having such a good time. I said, ‘You know what? I will just load it up in the truck and bring it in.’”

Wood for the �ֲ���ý evaporator came from Walsh and grounds and maintenance workers Ian Brownlie, Amy Ray, and Nate Calden. Projects like this help demonstrate to students the vital, sometimes unseen role that staff play on campus, Walsh said.

“We have a lot of our own talents, and a lot of us want to give back to the student base,” Walsh said. 

Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean of the Faculty Mike Rocque donated several gallons from trees tapped around his home in Litchfield, Maine. Sugaring was new to him, and he enjoyed learning alongside the students and staff.

“I really like that part of engaging in the �ֲ���ý community, where people aren’t in their silos, but we’re all together and learn about what people do across the different areas on the campus,” Rocque said.

After running those 300-plus gallons of pure tree sap through another piece of equipment called a reverse osmosis system, which served as a filter, the students were left with about 150 gallons of concentrated sap. Then, they boiled on the evaporator. And boiled, until all that sap was distilled into seven gallons of pure maple syrup.

“Haskel and I spent many a night in the very cold sitting by the wood stove, boiling sap,” Yaffe said.

Yaffe and McKee-Seegal, an earth and climate sciences major, put in the most hours beside the evaporator, but they weren’t alone. Other club members took shifts, and Facility Services staff often stopped by.

“They were all super, super interested, super excited to talk with us and learn about the process,” McKee-Seegal said.

In addition to bringing together the �ֲ���ý community, another one of the club’s goals was to help students engage with Maine’s nature and culture through hands-on learning. 

It worked.“You feel a different way after doing something with your hands all day rather than doing something on your computer,” Jaffe said

Each club member who spent time at the evaporator went home with syrup. Then, during the Short Term Earth Day celebration, Yaffe and McKee-Seegal gave away Commons ice cream cones drizzled with their very own �ֲ���ý maple syrup. The students also gave a couple of jars to Facility Services staff, who stored their stash in the Cutten breakroom for sweetening coffee. 

“That was one of my favorite parts, giving away the syrup and saying, ‘This came from �ֲ���ý trees,’” Yaffe said. 

After graduating in May, Yaffe headed to Hiram, Maine, for his summer job working at Ossipee Valley Music Festival. McKee-Seegal plans to spend the winter 2027 semester abroad. But the two say that Maple Syrup Club will keep sugaring next winter under the leadership of several other club members, continuing the club’s goal of bringing together the �ֲ���ý community while learning about Maine’s nature and culture. 

During Short Term, a number of �ֲ���ý community members received letters in envelopes marked only with the word “INVITATION.”

“Greetings,” each message began. “The time is almost here.”

The signature was mysterious: “ETTGS.” At the same time, containing those same five letters started making cryptic posts. Strange event invitations popped up on students’ Google calendars. A smattering of punch cards quietly appeared inside vinyl table displays in Commons.

Those who followed the clues all ended up in the same place: Olin Arts Center, home of the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art. 

For three days this May, the Olin lobby shape-shifted into a first for �ֲ���ý, a pop-up museum gift shop. Students in “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” a Short Term course taught by Visiting Assistant Professor of Art and Visual Culture Erin Nolan, created and ran the gift shop, with help from the VizLab, Post and Print, and the museum itself. 

In three-and-a-half weeks, the 13 students designed and brought to life a collection of products — including 3D-printed puzzles, laser-cut keychains, and posters — inspired by student works in the senior art thesis exhibition, “At the Table,” which was on display at the Museum of Art through May 31. 

“It’s clear that they’ve put so much work and thought into all the products and how they relate to the art,” said gift shop customer Jade Pierce ’27 of Dracut, Mass. “That’s super cool.”

Even though the gift shop attracted many customers, no money was exchanged. The purpose of the gift shop was never to generate revenue, Nolan explained. 

She originally had the idea for the shop when students in another course, “Decolonizing the Museum,” posed questions about commodification in museum shops. Nolan, who spent several years working in museums, wondered: Could she teach a course on museum gift shops? As a “microcosm” of a museum, a gift shop would be a fitting place, she thought, to interrogate many of the ideas her courses explore, including neutrality, accessibility, and power in museums.

“It was initially a joke,” Nolan said. “And then the more I thought about it, it seemed like a possibility, like a different kind of experiential, immersive class.”

With the senior art thesis exhibition on display at the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art, Nolan thought that Short Term would be the perfect time for the course. In order to encourage genuine engagement with the art and museum installation, the shop would sell at least one item inspired by each student in the senior thesis show, Nolan decided, and its currency would be stamps on punch cards, with customers earning a stamp each time they visited the senior thesis exhibition. Nolan derived the title from iconic and elusive street artist Banksy, who directed a documentary also named Exit Through the Gift Shop and whose work has often interrogated the relationship between money and art.

“I liked the idea of activating student work, especially living artists in the �ֲ���ý community. To celebrate studio practice and the department’s studio was exciting, but it was also necessary to  think about the responsibility and care that comes with dealing with student artwork,” Nolan said.

A lot of hands-on work would have to be done to make Nolan’s vision into a reality. Though “Exit Through the Gift Shop” was an art and visual culture course, she wanted it to function more like a scientific laboratory, where students leaned on knowledge gleaned from readings and classroom discussion to conduct successful experiments. The academic demographic of the class lent itself well to this; students represented three different class years and a variety of majors, including biology, psychology, music, physics, history, and theater.

Nolan spent months organizing the logistics of the course, and when Short Term began, she and her students hit the ground running. They visited the senior thesis exhibition, dove into texts on museums and gift shops, and brainstormed a flurry of products based on student artwork.

Then they headed to the VizLab, a makerspace in Coram Library with technology like 3D printing and laser cutting, to bring their ideas to life. The VizLab’s senior academic technology consultants, Branden Rush and Dale Rothenberg, supported their process, including helping students with computer-aided design and searching through online repositories for design templates. One of the VizLab’s goals, Rush said, is to be open and accessible to anyone on campus. 

“A lot of times they’re surprised about what’s even possible. … Even if they did 3D printing in a different institution or in high school or something, these are ways of modifying and getting creative that weren’t possible before,” Rush said.

The VizLab frequently collaborates with clubs and courses, especially during Short Term. Those collaborations sometimes result in students, like VizLab student worker Evan Boxer-Cook ’26 of Scarborough, Maine, spending years developing their technical skills in the lab. A classical and medieval studies major, Boxer-Cook enrolled in “Exit Through the Gift Shop” because he is interested in pursuing museum studies as a career. 

“This just seemed like a really nice opportunity to gain some practice translating museum objects into consumer goods,” Boxer-Cook said. 

Perched in front of a computer in the back of a VizLab room filled with colorful 3D-printed objects, Boxer-Cook digitally traced the shape of ceramic works by Jeremy Felton ’26 of Sebastopol, Calif. He then laser-cut stencils of the shapes onto thin sheets of wood, which students later used to spray-paint designs onto tote bags.

For arts and visual culture major Audrey Esteves ’26 of Cranford, N.J., 3D printing and laser cutting were new skills, though she had taken several courses with Nolan.

“I love her classes so much,” Esteves said. “I think they’re so engaging and make you think critically about so many different parts of the art world and institutions and education.”

While Esteves was excited to explore the blending of digital technology with physical art, she was particularly looking forward to offering her perspective as one of two students in the course who also had artwork in the senior thesis exhibition — the other being Ella Hannaford ’26 of South Portland, Maine, who designed the gift shop punch cards.

“I wanted to see how we could develop mine and Ella’s objects and others’ into physical reproductions and see where that could stretch to because I’ve never really thought about that with my work,” Esteves said.

Esteves creates oil paintings inspired by ideas of sleep and rest, which are dark and subtly textured. She knew it would be difficult to reproduce them through 2D products such as posters. Instead, with Rush’s help, she 3D-printed a miniature replica of a room in one of her paintings, featuring a bed, table, and lamp.

Hannaford, a photographer, had previously 3D-printed with the VizLab for another art and visual culture course. She had an ambitious idea to create a 3D-printed stereoscope à la the classic View-Master with miniature prints of her senior thesis photographs inside.

“I’ve seen a lot of change in the time that I’ve been here in utilizing these spaces [like the Vizlab] for the purposes of art,” Hannaford said. “What can be created multiplies exponentially when you start thinking about the possibilities that are available to you in concert with these spaces. I think that it’s a really wonderful opportunity.”

The stereoscope would expand upon themes of viewership and tourism in Hannaford’s senior thesis photography, which, inspired by her childhood growing up in coastal Maine, features a metal viewfinder at Two Lights State Park in Cape Elizabeth.

Hannaford printed replicas of her photographs onto transparency paper and glued the paper onto a film sheet she laser cut. She worked with VizLab staff to find an online template for a 3D-printed stereoscope, which she then printed and manually glued together before placing the film sheet inside. 

She wasn’t sure if it would work, but it did; she could place her face against the lens and, pushing the film sheet through the viewing device, watch her tiny photographs tick by. Hannaford ultimately printed six stereoscopes, which “sold” for the most expensive price on the table: 10 stamps.

“It made me feel excited about my own art again because I had been so close to it,” Hannaford said. “Then suddenly, I was having to relinquish some control and let it take on a new identity and a life of its own.”

Other 3D-printed products included a Rubik’s-like cube with colors pulled from a tunnel book by Grace Thomas ’26 of Bethesda, Md.; kits to put together miniature chairs modeled after a piece by Qwynn Kobertz ’26 of Framingham, Mass.; and LEGO-style sets modeled after a vase by Jeremy Felton ’26. The gift shop also sold stickers, posters, and postcards of student artwork, printed on campus by Post and Print.

“I thought this was such an incredible opportunity that teaches so many different skills,” said Abby Salkind-Foraker ’29 of Washington, D.C. She designed a laser-cut wood puzzle based on an embroidered tapestry by Bissan Kablawi ’26 of London. “You’re getting three-and-a-half dedicated weeks to devote yourself to the creation of this and working with the team and studying art.”

Operating on a tight deadline, the students had to carefully divide their time, especially because certain products, like the LEGO-style kit, took upward of five hours to 3D print and required some trial-and-error. But the gift shop opened successfully on May 19 without encountering any major logistical problems, said Caroline McCarthy ’26, an English and Hispanic studies double major from New Haven, Conn.

“It’s honestly been a smashing success in that regard,” McCarthy said as she worked at the shop. “I also have been liking the wide range of attendees we’ve been getting. It has been students, staff, and faculty.”

Students worked the gift shop in “shifts” with support from Nolan, who was always nearby to offer advice and support. Hoping to expand opportunities to connect with the senior thesis artwork, the students gave customers extra stamps if they arrived at the gift shop ready to share their thoughts on the exhibition. Making exhibition attendance the shop’s currency “was a genius move,” said �ֲ���ý Museum of Art Director Carrie Cushman.

“Museums can have a reputation for being unwelcoming and stuffy, which is the opposite of the environment that we are hoping to cultivate at the �ֲ���ý Museum,” Cushman said. “The students seemed to really understand the opportunity they had with this class to break down those barriers.”

The students were also in charge of publicity. They designed the mysterious, guerilla-style marketing campaign in the image of Banksy, known for sporadically creating public artwork under the cover of night. Students asked their �ֲ���ý community members to show up for them, and they did, with friends like Whitney Moore ’28 of South Lake, Texas, stopping by to shop or spray paint a tote bag with the stencils designed by Boxer-Cook.

“I was super excited to see what they would come up with, and it definitely exceeded my expectations,” Moore said. “They have a lot of beautiful stuff here for sale.”

Nolan’s hope was that students would walk away with a new appreciation for what an art and visual culture course could be like. “This provided an alternative to a traditional course where students used the museum, the VizLab, and the campus, more broadly, as a classroom,” she said. “The experiential and immersive nature of the class, hopefully, allows students to think about their own experience as consumers in the world.”

The students agreed: this course had a little bit of everything, teaching lessons in design, interpreting art history, working with a museum, and more.

“I thought this was such an incredible opportunity that teaches so many different skills,” said Abby Salkind-Foraker ’29 of Washington, D.C. She designed a laser-cut wood puzzle based on an embroidered tapestry by Bissan Kablawi ’26 of London. “You’re getting three-and-a-half dedicated weeks to devote yourself to the creation of this and working with the team and studying art.”

For seniors in the course, designing the gift shop was their final hurrah at �ֲ���ý. Hannaford — whose work as a photographer for the Portland Sea Dogs included an opportunity to photograph the Boston Red Sox — thought that the project was a fantastic blend of visual art and art history, her respective major and minor.

“This was the perfect way to wrap up my academic career at �ֲ���ý and so cool too that I get to work with my own art and keep kind of interrogating it on so many levels,” Hannaford said. “I’m continuing to think about it and think of ways to work with it, which I think will serve me really well even after I graduate.”

Since its founding in 1996, Lewiston’s Maine Museum of Innovation, Labor, and Learning (formerly Museum L/A) has engaged in a decades-long educational partnership with �ֲ���ý College. That’s no surprise, given that the museum called the �ֲ���ý Mill Complex home for the last 30 years.

In recognition of that relationship, �ֲ���ý is making a $75,000 gift to Maine MILL’s new, stand-alone building, which opens June 27. Visitors to the new museum at 1 Beech St. — housed in another mill, most recently known as the Camden Yarns Mill — will enter through the �ֲ���ý College Welcome Center.

“We are delighted to partner with Maine MILL as it starts a new chapter in its new home,” said �ֲ���ý President Garry W. Jenkins. “Both institutions share a commitment to education and access that makes this collaboration a perfect fit. And we love the thought that �ֲ���ý will be one part of the rich and complex Lewiston story that guests from around the country and the world will learn about during their visit to Maine MILL.”

The Maine MILL gift is the most recent example of the college’s investment in the region. Since Rachel Ferrante ’10 joined the museum in 2021 as executive director, the �ֲ���ý-Maine MILL partnership has only expanded.

“�ֲ���ý is an enormous asset for Lewiston, as Lewiston is an enormous asset for �ֲ���ý,” Ferrante said. “We’re thrilled that �ֲ���ý is deeply invested in the partnership with Maine MILL and connection to Lewiston.”

This partnership reinforces �ֲ���ý’ longstanding and deep commitment to Lewiston. For decades, the Harward Center for Community Partnerships has brought campus and community together to enrich the learning experience for �ֲ���ý students and the lives of our neighbors in Lewiston and Auburn.

“At �ֲ���ý, we examine what it really means to join — as equal participants — within a community’s self-led work, however the community is defining it,” says Darby Ray, director of the Harward Center. “This goes beyond superficial forms of place-based engagement. It’s not just, ‘We’re located here so let’s get involved.’ We are committed to doing the deep listening to understand what is really happening in the community and how we might join the community’s work. And we’ve tried to model that kind of accompaniment or presence over decades, which has fostered relationships of trust and accountability.”

The museum was founded in 1996 to preserve artifacts and stories from Lewiston-Auburn’s once-prosperous textile mill industry. When Associate Professor of History Joe Hall first took students to Maine MILL — then called Museum L-A — in 2003, there were weaving looms still threaded and covered with “dust fiber hanging like Spanish moss from trees,” Hall said. They sat exactly where they had been when the mill was operating. He quickly realized how valuable it was for students to physically observe the industries they were learning about in his courses. It was a way, he said, to show that history doesn’t just happen “in some imaginary cloud world.” 

Not long after, trips to the museum became a regular part of Hall’s “U.S. Environmental History” course. Numerous other �ֲ���ý faculty have also brought their students to the museum to supplement courses on everything from economics to Japanese textiles to Francophone history. 

“It’s been great as a way of grounding their learning, but also showing what it is that people here want to teach other people,” Hall said.

Students appreciate, Hall said, that the museum is led by a �ֲ���ý graduate. Ferrante oversaw the 2023 rebranding to Maine MILL, a name that aligns more closely with the museum’s subject matter and reflects the institution’s goal to tell more wide-ranging stories from the region. �ֲ���ý faculty have supported that effort; Associate Professor of Sociology Marcelle Medford, for example, led an extensive project collecting oral histories from Black Mainers, now included in the museum’s collection.

“We are focused on making sure that as a community history museum, we are telling the broadest version of our area’s history,” Ferrante says. “That also means what history has looked like here over the last 20 or 30 years since the mills have closed. Of course, Black voices have been incredibly important before that time, but are a huge part of Lewiston’s more recent history. Having that represented in the collection felt like a critical missing piece.”

�ֲ���ý also connects with the museum through student interns, like Tristan Seavey ’26 of Calais, Maine, who has interned at Maine MILL off and on since his first year on campus. During his last Short Term at �ֲ���ý, he completed a full-time internship at the museum funded through the Harward Center for Community Partnerships. A double major in history and German, Seavey is also Hall’s student. 

As an intern, Seavey has led museum tours, done archival and operations work, helped with event planning, and 3D-scanned the gallery. He developed a passion for telling stories about people who have been underrepresented in popular history, inspired by Ferrante and Hall’s work. 

The internship “changed the way that I approach history,” Seavey said. “Before �ֲ���ý and before working at Maine MILL, it was really just listing off dates and doing timelines. But working with Rachel and also working with Joe and doing my own research, I’ve really had this new perspective on how we tell history in a compelling way.”

Seavey’s senior thesis, which Hall advised, retraced the steps of a Black family living in his hometown of Calais in the mid-19th century, ultimately arguing that the impact of the Black community on that area was more important than previously discussed.

Hall watched as Seavey applied what he was learning at �ֲ���ý to work that needed to be done in the community, and then returned to the classroom, enriched by the experience. “It was really helpful to see how one person can use what they learn to offer new lessons to others,” Hall said.

Additional partnerships between �ֲ���ý and Maine MILL include the museum’s annual fundraiser, Soirée en Blanc. �ֲ���ý Dining, Conferences, and Campus Events handles catering for the events, and many �ֲ���ý dining staff members are from Lewiston-Auburn, Ferrante said, turning the fundraisers into full-circle moments.

“This museum is their museum, and what excites me is that they are helping make their own museum possible,” she said.

This year’s Soirée en Blanc will be held in the new museum building on Friday, June 26, the evening before the museum officially opens, meaning that �ֲ���ý will have a hand in welcoming the public to the new space for the first time. 

“One of the things that makes this place so special is the relationships and the community that exists here,” Ferrante said. “It’s a huge part of what drives what we do and why we do it and who we do it for.” 

With the breadth of Maine’s four seasons, �ֲ���ý’ campus is ever-changing throughout the year. 

But, even in the most extreme weather, a few things always remain the same — such as the Adirondack chairs dotting the Historic Quad. They stay put through winter blizzards, under colorful fall foliage, and during summer heat, like reliable friends waiting for company.

For Mia Wetzel ’26 of Mashpee, Mass., those chairs evoke a feeling of community representative of her �ֲ���ý experience. That’s why the biochemistry major, with a concentration in art and visual culture,  chose to depict them in her design for this year’s ivy stone, which features two empty Adirondack chairs surrounded by a cascade of falling leaves.

“The fact that they’re empty, it’s like: There’s an open chair, you never know who you’re going to meet, what’s going to happen,” Wetzel said. 

Since 1878, it’s been tradition for a graduating student to design a decorative stone to represent their class year. Any senior can submit an idea, and members of the senior class vote on the final design. On May 26, Wetzel’s stone joined the ranks of more than 130 stones dotting buildings around campus. In keeping with campus tradition, she helped Ron Tardif, a �ֲ���ý Facility Services mason, install the stone on the southeast side of Pettengill Hall. 

Though its design depicts an opportunity for new beginnings, the stone itself reflects not only the departure of the Class of 2026 but also the end of an era for Tardif, who has worked at �ֲ���ý since 2016. He is retiring later this year, making Wetzel’s stone the last ivy stone he will install.

“I feel blessed to have this job,” Tardif said. “�ֲ���ý is a generous employer. To be able to interact with the students is just one benefit. We have some really good kids here, and I enjoyed installing the ivy stones with them.”

For her design, Wetzel wanted to depict something that was personal but also specific to the Class of 2026. She remembered how, arriving at �ֲ���ý in 2022, she realized that her class would be the first since the COVID-19 pandemic to have a fully in-person campus experience.

“That’s when everything started returning to normal,” Wetzel said. “I used that as my inspiration — the idea of connection, reconnection, after being isolated or socially distanced.”

The Adirondack chairs came to mind as a fitting symbol of on-campus community. �ֲ���ý purchased the chairs in 2020 as a means to encourage socially distanced and safe ways to be together,  so they have always been a feature of Wetzel’s �ֲ���ý. She intentionally included two chairs in her design, representing the inherent connection in being a pair.

As for the personal side of the artwork, Wetzel arrived at �ֲ���ý ready to slow down and form deep connections after moving twice during high school — from Zimbabwe to the U.S., then from the U.S. to Germany — for her dad’s work with the Foreign Service. The chairs, with their wide, inviting seats and spacious arms, reflect the relationships she created on campus, including with her professors, who she said have been incredibly supportive, and friends she met through academics and extracurricular activities. Wetzel was the president of the Asian Students Association for two years, a violinist with the �ֲ���ý Orchestra, a Student Academic Support Center tutor, and, most recently, an emergency medical technician with �ֲ���ý EMS.

“Sometimes the people you connect the most with are the people you least expected to,” Wetzel said. “That’s part of what drew me to �ֲ���ý, knowing that there was a friendly atmosphere and that people can talk to whoever, and you might find a connection.”

Sixteen current and former �ֲ���ý students have been offered Fulbright Student international exchange awards for 2026–2027.

Award locations for this year’s grantees span five continents and 11 countries, including Timor-Leste, Germany, Cameroon, Australia, and Argentina. Four students have been offered research/open study grants, and 12 have been offered English teaching grants.

“I am enormously proud of this exceptional group of Fulbright recipients — and the dedicated faculty and staff who supported them throughout the application process and indeed their entire �ֲ���ý careers,” said �ֲ���ý President Garry W. Jenkins. “The Fulbright program has recognized that these 16 students are profoundly dedicated to learning, meaningful cultural exchange, and scientific discovery. I know that they will be wonderful ambassadors for �ֲ���ý, and the United States more broadly, in their scholarship year and beyond.”

Fulbright, the U.S. government’s flagship international exchange program, each year offers over 400 awards in more than 135 countries for U.S. citizens to teach, conduct research, and carry out professional projects around the world. Earlier this year, �ֲ���ý was recognized as a Top Producer of Fulbright Student awards for the 15th year in a row. The college’s longstanding elevated participation in the program is a direct result of the system of mentorship and support that faculty and staff have cultivated. 

�ֲ���ý students are introduced to the prospect of completing a Fulbright grant early in their college careers, and the Graduate Fellowships Committee, led by Director of National Fellowships and Lecturer in English Robert Strong, is eager to advise students as they explore Fulbright opportunities. Faculty across the college serve as mentors to students throughout the process, reading students’ application materials, writing letters of recommendation, and inviting students into research or study opportunities.

“Our office was thrilled to recommend so many accomplished �ֲ���ý students for Fulbright Student awards this year,” Strong said. “We could not be more excited for these 16 students to embark on their international journeys of cultural, language, and academic exchange, and self-discovery. To the extent that their contributions at �ֲ���ý have greatly enlivened our campus, we are certain that their research, study, and teaching efforts abroad will do the same in their various host countries.”

Blessing Ajayi ’26 

Blessing Ajayi ’26, a double major in German and biochemistry with a concentration in sound, who is from New Jersey, has been offered a Fulbright English teaching grant for Austria. 

Relevant Experience Includes: Semester-long study in Germany, advanced German study, tutor at �ֲ���ý’ Student Academic Support Center

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: Charles A. Dana Scholar, director of video games for the �ֲ���ý Discordians, co-president and co-founder of �ֲ���ý Food Friends, treasurer of Robotics Club, �ֲ���ý Star student worker for Reunion, IT Service Desk student worker, front desk representative and patient and tool transporter at St. Mary’s Hospital, employee assisting with reception, event set-up, tours, and archival work at the Maine MILL | Museum of Innovation, Learning and Labor

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Austria: Supporting school activities and events throughout the year

Plans After Fulbright: Attend medical school and become a physician

More About Ajayi: Ajayi grew up surrounded by multiple languages, with her family members speaking Yoruba and many of her neighbors speaking Spanish. She began learning Latin and German in high school and continued her German learning at �ֲ���ý, where language study became less about rote memorization and more about exploring various topics with the target language. Learning German has allowed Ajayi to explore various interests, and she is eager to continue doing the same in Austria. 

“There is so much I look forward to learning and experiencing in Austria. As a musician, I am interested in exploring Austria’s musical heritage and tracing the paths of Mahler, Mozart, Schubert and Strauss. I’m also curious to experience the Alps, where I would love the opportunity to go hiking, see one of the traditional Alpine cattle drives, and maybe meet a Krampus during one of the Christmas markets.”

Charles “Lee” Anderson ’26

Charles “Lee” Anderson ’26, a sociology major with minors in philosophy and psychology from Durham, N.C., has been offered a Fulbright English teaching grant for Brazil. 

Relevant Experience Includes: Semester-long study in Portugal, semester-long study in Brazil, volunteering as an English teacher at a high school in Brazil, tutoring with Playground Pals and Tree Street Youth in Lewiston, summer camp counselor, tennis coach

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: WRBC Radio Host, �ֲ���ý Sunshine Society, Robinson Players, club tennis, Meditation Club, volunteering with elderly residents at Blake Street Towers

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Brazil: Join or create an English or sports club to encourage conversational language learning

Plans After Fulbright: Pursue a career in education, nonprofit work, or international service, aiming to mentor students in their pursuit of global activities

What the �ֲ���ý Fulbright Committee Said: “Lee is a wonderful representative. He is a gentle one and a great listener. His deep love for Brazil is inspiring to see, and he has made a concerted effort, already, to begin preparing himself to serve as an effective ETA and cultural ambassador.”

More About Anderson: When he was nine, Anderson’s family moved from the U.S. to Costa Rica, where he was thrust into an entirely new environment marked by an unfamiliar language and culture. The adjustment wasn’t easy for a young Anderson, but once he became comfortable in his new home, he grew to appreciate and love the challenge of exploring a new, foreign place, as reflected by his multiple study abroad endeavors.

“Life has taught me that although stepping outside of my comfort zone may increase the potential for things to ‘go wrong,’ it also exponentially increases the possibility of things going right. Further, even when things do ‘go wrong,’ these times of discomfort are where I have learned the most about not just the world but myself as well.”

Maple Buescher ’25

Maple Buescher ’25, a politics major with a minor in English, was offered a Fulbright English teaching grant for Spain.

Relevant Experience Includes: Honors thesis analyzing nationalist rhetoric and changing understandings of nationalism in Galicia, Spain; advanced Spanish knowledge; semester-long study in Spain; Spanish teaching apprentice at the High Mountain Institute; AESOP leader; teaching assistant at an afterschool program for children from underserved populations in Spain; youth mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mid–Maine; mentor with Lewiston-based Playground Pals; camp counselor; swim instructor

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: Charles A. Dana Scholar, Ladd Library student access specialist, editor-in-chief of The �ֲ���ý Student 2023–24, Outing Club trip leader, club sailing team member, Phi Beta Kappa, �ֲ���ý chamber ensemble club and orchestra

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Spain: Join communities such as book clubs and hiking groups, join or create a creative writing group for children

Plans After Fulbright: Earn certification to teach Spanish as a foreign language and become a full-time educator in American public schools

What the �ֲ���ý Fulbright Committee Said: “Maple is a joyful and confident person who challenges herself to take the road less traveled. She led a group of first-year students on a three-day backcountry trip as part of orientation; she created such a supportive environment that the group continues to meet for weekly dinners.”

More About Buescher: Buescher has spent the past academic year working as a teacher and wilderness guide at the High Mountain Institute, a semester-long study-away program for high schoolers. As an educator, her “pedagogy is play.” Whether she’s teaching Spanish students the names of colors in English through “I Spy” or introducing teenagers on wilderness excursions to “Leave No Trace” principles through skits and songs, Buescher prioritizes creativity in order to meet students where they are at.

“Play isn’t magic, but it works. It is not incidental to learning; it IS learning.”

Jacqueline Coraci ’26

Jacqueline Coraci ’26, a French and Francophone studies major with a minor in teacher education from New York City, has been offered a Fulbright English teaching grant for Cameroon. 

Relevant Experience Includes: Semester-long study in France, semester-long study in Senegal, advanced French knowledge, Teaching English as a Foreign Language certification, full-time student teacher for three high school French sections at Edward Little High School, completed community-engaged learning fieldwork in Lewiston elementary school classrooms, intern at Women’s Global Education Project in Senegal, camp counselor, English tutor in France

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: Theater Club, theater carpenter, co-president of Arts Society, vocal performance

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Cameroon: Teach English through music, learn more about Cameroonian art and music, explore new artistic mediums such as painting, beadworking, creative writing, and dancing

Plans After Fulbright: Pursue a master’s degree and become a French teacher

What the �ֲ���ý Fulbright Committee Said: “Her integration while abroad in Senegal was impressive, including both homestay and work with a local education nonprofit. She is a very special fit for the Cameroon placement and we are proud to send her forward.”

More About Coraci: In addition to sharing her passion for the French language and French and Francophone culture, Coraci’s desire to become a teacher is also driven by her goal of supporting students who may be struggling mentally, physically, or financially.

“I feel that this is my life’s purpose. Teachers are the backbone of future generations, and I’m committed to helping form culturally aware individuals who value social justice and the diversity that shapes our world.”

Ganga Corsaro ’26

Ganga Corsaro ’26, a double major in environmental studies and Chinese from Saint Paul, Minn., has been offered a Fulbright English teaching grant for Taiwan. 

Relevant Experience Includes: Semester-long study in Taipei, advanced Mandarin knowledge, senior Chinese thesis exploring tourism and cultural identity in Taiwan through a case study of the Indigenous Tsou people and the Alishan region, AmeriCorps Teaching Fellow, literacy tutor at Lewiston Middle School, counselor at Nepali Indian Heritage Camp, campus ambassador for CET study abroad program

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: South Asian Student Association, Bollywood Dance Club, Outing Club, community outreach fellow with the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, summer fellow at Gather to Grow

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Taiwan: Become involved with school and community food systems, facilitate one-on-one tutoring or English clubs, engage in community projects 

Plans After Fulbright: Pursue graduate study and future work in community-based food and environmental education, with a focus on empowering youth through cultural exchange, food literacy, and stronger connections to community and sustainability

What the �ֲ���ý Fulbright Committee Said: Corsaro is a “super-smart, great communicator, [who] speaks with ease about her life journey and all she has learned. Ganga will be a wonderful addition to her school and community in any placement in Taiwan. Her curiosity and open demeanor are very winning, and she is a wonderful representative of the 21st century United States.”

More About Corsaro: Corsaro was adopted from Nepal as a baby and attended a Chinese immersion school throughout her elementary school years in order to connect with other adopted children. Her experience navigating her identity as an adoptee, as well as her desire to pay forward the opportunities she received thanks to her adoption, have bolstered her commitment to supporting connection across cultures.

“Growing up learning Mandarin alongside English shapes the empathy I bring to teaching. I know firsthand the challenges of navigating between languages and cultures, and I view students’ linguistic and cultural identities as assets rather than barriers.”

Eileen “Lean” Dockery ’26 

Eileen “Lean” Dockery ’26, an environmental studies major with a minor in rhetoric, film, and screen studies from Rye, N.Y., has been offered a Fulbright English teaching grant for Bulgaria, supported additionally by the America for Bulgaria Foundation. 

Relevant Experience Includes: Semester-long study in the Czech Republic, working independently in hostels in Latvia and Lithuania, AESOP leader, �ֲ���ý printmaking teaching assistant, painter with Lewiston public art project, Asian American Arts Alliance intern

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: �ֲ���ý Arts Society, �ֲ���ý Garden student worker, Southeast Asian Society, �ֲ���ý Musicians Union, WRBC radio show host, Snaggletooth literary magazine, Trashion Show, graphic designer for the Department of Theater and Dance, Lewiston Live Arts and Music Festival performer

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Taiwan: Facilitate the creation of a student-led mural through leading a visual arts club, plant a school flower garden through leading a garden club, lead community art courses

Plans After Fulbright: Work in a nonprofit space supporting recently immigrated individuals and families, developing curriculum enrichment programs that incorporate art and environmental stewardship

What the �ֲ���ý Fulbright Committee Said: “Eileen has a wonderful desire to learn about Bulgaria precisely because it is unfamiliar to her. She has visited the general region but has never been to Bulgaria, which is a draw for her. She is also attracted to the call from the America in Bulgaria Foundation to benefit her host community with specific initiatives, which we know she will bring a creative and productive approach to, given her wealth of arts, music, and writing experiences and skills.”

More About Dockery: An avid banjo player who can often be found attending folk music and dance events around Lewiston, Dockery looks forward to exploring Bulgarian culture by immersing herself in the country’s folk music scene. She’ll also use folk music as a way to help her students practice English and explore American culture; she’s planning an “Artists of the Month” project series through which students will research and report on American folk musicians.

“Folk music is rich with storytelling, allowing for students to engage with the multitude of histories and cultures that make up America. Music is also an accessible entry point into learning vocabulary and literary devices, making this activity approachable to students with varying levels of English proficiency.”

Alexander Duchin ’26

Alexander Duchin ’26, a biochemistry major with a concentration in English from Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., has been offered a Fulbright study/research grant for Australia.

Research Experience Includes: Senior biochemistry thesis comparing the chemical properties of sodium and lithium in the context of electric vehicles, research assistant studying lab techniques at �ֲ���ý, conducted metagenomic sequencing in the Androscoggin River, research assistant studying psychedelic-assisted therapy at New York University, clinical projects assistant at Solis Health, medical assistant at Medrite

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: AESOP leader, Athletics sports information assistant, mentor for two Lewiston elementary school students through Big Brothers Big Sisters, volunteer at Gather to Grow

Fulbright Research Purpose: Duchin’s project will examine the physical effects of psychedelic-assisted therapy on patients. In 2023, Australia became the first country to legalize psychedelic substances for use in psychiatric treatment, and while psychedelics have already proved useful in treating mental health disorders such as body dysmorphia and anorexia, few studies have examined the substances’ effect on physical health. That’s where Duchin comes in. He’ll be working with Professor Susan Rossell at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne to study exercise and activity patterns in patients with body dysmorphia or anorexia who have pursued psychedelic treatment. Duchin will also test their VO2 max scores, which represent the maximum amount of oxygen a person can utilize during exercise, and collect brain imaging data to identify potential neural changes before and after psychedelic treatment.

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Australia: Build a connection with local clinics to share research, mentor an elementary school student, connect to the community through music

Plans After Fulbright: Become a physician and combine clinical care with patient research through clinical trials

What the �ֲ���ý Fulbright Committee Said: “Our committee was very taken by Alexander’s ability to identify a key area of research in a field just beginning to open up in the U.S., establish contact with a leader in the global field abroad, and walk the fine line of building a project that can mesh seamlessly with ongoing research.”

More About Duchin: Working as a medical assistant in New York City, Duchin observed firsthand the struggle that many mental health patients face while trying to identify the best treatment for themselves. Conducting research about psychedelic-assisted therapy under NYU Clinical Professor Caroline Dorsen gave Duchin an idea of what to do about that problem, and he became passionate about pursuing psychedelic treatment as a way to transform the U.S. psychiatric healthcare system.

“Not having complete access to potential preventative care is proving to be very problematic in the U.S., and introducing country-wide psychedelic-assisted therapy could be an answer.”

Ava Elghanayan ’26

Ava Elghanayan ’26, a rhetoric, film, and screen studies major with a Hispanic studies minor from Katonah, N.Y., has been offered a Fulbright English teaching grant for Spain.

Relevant Experience Includes: Semester-long study in Spain, advanced Spanish knowledge, AESOP leader, teaching assistant for the �ֲ���ý Department of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies, Playground Pals volunteer, teaching assistant and volunteer at a center for immigrant families, high school English teaching assistant, camp counselor, staff writer and editorial assistant with Connect to Northern Westchester Magazine, summer community service trip to Costa Rica

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: TakeNote a cappella group, Jewish Student Union, Tea Club secretary, Robinson Players

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Spain: Volunteer with local theater groups to create workshops in English and Spanish, join a choir, take dance classes, offer English tutoring, oversee other school clubs

Plans After Fulbright: Potentially attend law school, pursue a master’s degree in library science, or pursue a career in the non-profit sector

What the �ֲ���ý Fulbright Committee Said: “Ava is a vibrant presence, confident but not outspoken; she is always looking for the creative angle in interactions, as was evident in our campus interview. She will be a wonderful Fulbright representative.”

More About Elghanayan: For two years, Elghanayan worked as a staff writer and editorial assistant for Connect to Northern Westchester Magazine, a publication covering her hometown of Katonah. Her love for and experience with writing are reflected in her approach to teaching. To connect with children who may struggle with English, Elghanayan encourages her students to write about their personal experiences and cultural backgrounds.

“I realize that integrating personal experience into lessons sparks engagement. I plan to bring this student-centered approach to Spain by working with lead teachers to incorporate projects on family histories and cultural traditions, and then linking these to lessons on American traditions.”

Kyra Chen Lie Friederich ’26

Kyra Chen Lie Friederich ’26, a politics major with an Asian studies minor from Munich, Germany, has been offered a Fulbright English teaching grant for Taiwan.

Relevant Experience Includes: Semester-long study in China, advanced Mandarin knowledge, Huayu Enrichment Scholarship to Taiwan recipient, two summer language immersion programs in Taiwan, teaching assistant with Maine Immigrant and Refugee Services, mentor at Lewiston High School, work-study at Tree Street Youth

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: Co-president of �ֲ���ý International Club, Student Affairs Committee, �ֲ���ý Southeast Asian Society, Center for Purposeful Work peer advisor, Residence Life and Health Education community advisor, member of search committee for �ֲ���ý vice president for student affairs, work-study at Trinity Jubilee Center

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Taiwan: Join Chinese pop dance classes or traditional Hakka folk dance groups, community service such as storytelling at the library, beach cleaning, visiting retirement communities 

Plans After Fulbright: Attend law school with a focus on international law and U.S.-East Asia relations

What the �ֲ���ý Fulbright Committee Said: “Kyra will be an immense resource and joy for her new school and community in Taiwan.”

More About Friederich: Friederich grew up speaking German and Indonesian, then learned Mandarin and English in school. One might imagine that learning languages comes easily to polyglot Friederich, but it was a challenging experience, she says. She’ll use her knowledge gained from testing a variety of different language learning methods, and her experience in multicultural and multilingual environments, to help her students in Taiwan learn English.

“Just as I learned to be patient with myself adjusting to new languages and environments, I am now equipped to support students to see growth as a gradual, non-linear process. … I want to meet them where they are because their path to learning doesn’t need to follow anyone else’s — it just needs to be meaningful and purposeful for them.”

Aiman Hasan ’26

Aiman Hasan ’26, a biochemistry major with a concentration in public health from Allen, Texas, has been offered a Fulbright study/research grant for Denmark.

Research Experience Includes: Conducted research focusing on food allergy at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, conducted research at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Cancer Center, two-time �ֲ���ý summer research fellow, participated in the Harvard Summer Immunology Program

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: STEM Scholar, AESOP Leader, Admission tour guide, volunteer at St. Mary’s Transfusion Center, mentoring a student at a Lewiston elementary school through Big Brothers Big Sisters

Fulbright Research Purpose: Hasan will be investigating the role of ZGRF1 — a type of enzyme called a DNA helicase that plays an important role in DNA replication — in proliferating treatment-resistant cancerous tumors. Mouse models have shown that removing ZGRF1 slows tumor growth, and high ZGRF1 expression in human tumors is associated with tumor growth. Under the guidance of Professor Michael Lisby at the University of Copenhagen, Hasan will look at how cancerous tumors respond when ZGRF1 is inhibited while therapeutic drugs that treat by damaging tumor DNA are introduced. This approach to cancer treatment would target the cancerous cells specifically, leaving healthy cells intact.

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Denmark: Volunteer at Mændenes Hjem, a Copenhagen organization serving homeless and vulnerable people through shelter, health clinics, and needle exchanges; join a run club; mentor STEM students.

Plans After Fulbright: Attend medical school with the goal of becoming a physician, mentor pre-med undergraduate students, and write about the role of global engagement in medicine

What the �ֲ���ý Fulbright Committee Said: “Deeply curious about improving health outcomes while simultaneously active in his community partnerships beyond the laboratory, Aiman will thrive in Denmark — a country he has come to love — and establish important bonds with Danish colleagues.”

More About Hasan: While working as a summer researcher at Georgetown’s Lombardi Cancer Center, Hasan began to see the big picture behind and potential impact of scientific research, a discovery that is shaping the trajectory of his future career and life.

“Research shifted from following steps to understanding why, how, and what happens when you tweak them. These experiences shaped my desire to work at the intersection of immunology and oncology, a unique area I hope to contribute to meaningfully.”

Katie Heumann ’26

Katie Heumann ’26, a psychology major with a Hispanic studies minor from Ann Arbor, Mich., has been offered a Fulbright English teaching grant for Spain.

Relevant Experience Includes: Semester-long study in Spain, advanced Spanish knowledge, AESOP leader, camp counselor, swim instructor, afterschool program volunteer and classroom intern in Lewiston schools

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: Women’s club water polo, �ֲ���ý Environmental Coalition, Small Ensembles Club, Jewish Student Union, community-based psychology honors thesis on civic engagement in early elementary school classrooms

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Spain: Join or create a hiking group, join a water polo team, prioritize language exchange

Plans After Fulbright: Pursue a child-focused career in social work and clinical psychology,

What the �ֲ���ý Fulbright Committee Said: Katie “pursued a course of study that is intensive in both study of the language and in Spanish-language literature and culture. We are impressed that she wants to be placed in a region of Spain she is less familiar with. Clearly, Katie is hungry to continue learning as much as she can about Spain and its people and culture.”

More About Heumann: Heumann has extensive experience in childcare and teaching, including work with children with learning differences at a camp for neurodivergent children and as a classroom intern with Lewiston’s Promise Early Education program. Passionate about early childhood development and educational psychology, Heumann has conducted extensive study about teaching that will serve her well in Spain.

“Whether in an urban or rural setting, my priority is to work with young learners. I have hands-on experience with children and have practiced positive reinforcement while collaborating with lead teachers and head counselors to support every child.”

Evelyn Marchand ’26

Evelyn Marchand ’26, an earth and climate sciences major with a minor in chemistry from Trumbull, Conn., has been offered a Fulbright study/research grant for Denmark.

Research Experience Includes: Senior earth and climate sciences thesis studying biomarkers in kelp, �ֲ���ý student researcher studying environmental geochemistry and salt marshes, summer geochemical research intern at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, independent study project in Iceland through the School of International Training, Climate Change and Global Sustainability

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: Vice president of Earth2�ֲ���ý club, track and field captain, earth and climate sciences teaching assistant, Athletics facilities assistant, course notetaker, Tree Street Youth tutor, high school classroom volunteer

Fulbright Research Purpose: Marchand’s project will center around studying blue carbon, the carbon captured by oceans and coastal ecosystems, in Arctic kelp. Her ultimate goal is to better understand modern Arctic environments in order to more accurately develop models of paleoenvironments, or ancient environments, that show how the Arctic has responded to changing climates over time. These models will be key in understanding how the Arctic is and will continue responding to anthropogenic climate change, to which delicate Arctic ecosystems are particularly vulnerable. Marchand will conduct her research under Professor Søren Rysgaard and Professor Dorte Krause-Jensen of Aarhus University. She will also be taking graduate-level courses in Denmark and Greenland through the university’s Arctic Semester program, supplementing her research with an up-close look at the Arctic environment.

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Denmark: Join the Mikkeller Run Club, volunteer to introduce students to climate change and earth sciences, join a journal exchange club to learn about a variety of local research

Plans After Fulbright: Pursue a master’s degree in geochemistry with a focus on paleoclimates

What the �ֲ���ý Fulbright Committee Said: “Her intentionality in planning this grant sequence has been impressive to watch, and we know she will arrive with excellent knowledge and even more curiosity.”

More About Marchand: Marchand became “engrossed” in her study of Arctic environments after learning through her �ֲ���ý coursework that these areas are the most dramatically impacted by climate change. Throughout her tenure as an undergraduate researcher, a passion for community engagement emerged alongside a commitment to scientific rigor.  Marchand has since embraced the opportunity to engage with the people whose homelands she studies, whether that be through experiencing local events with her host family in Iceland or attending conferences to converse with people from other Arctic countries.

“I have become a better researcher from learning from my community.”

Wilson Smith ’26

Wilson Smith ’26, a Hispanic studies major with a minor in mathematics from Seattle, Wash., has been offered a Fulbright English teaching grant for Spain.

Relevant Experience Includes: Hispanic studies senior thesis, advanced Spanish knowledge, semester-long study in Argentina, semester-long study in Portugal, semester-long study in Spain in high school

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: �ֲ���ý men’s soccer, Aspirations Club, Athletics graphic designer, volunteer soccer coach at Rosati Leadership Academy, volunteer at Lewiston Recreation clinics

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Spain: Volunteer and coach with sport organizations like Red Deporte, volunteer with organizations promoting food security like UNICEF España

Plans After Fulbright: Pursue a career in international education as a coordinator for gap year or study abroad programs, with a long-term goal of designing and leading programs that use sports as tools for global learning

What the �ֲ���ý Fulbright Committee Said: “Wilson is a wonderful representative. His mentoring and community work began at a young age — he worked with the Special Olympics throughout high school — and he continues apace with his outreach today. This spirit will come with him to Spain, where he will have positive impact on his school and community.”

More About Smith: Through high school and college, Smith traveled to six Spanish-speaking countries and Portugal. In every place he travels, he tries to do three specific things: play soccer with locals, cook and eat local food, and take a dance class.

“I find joy in connecting with and learning from people and cultures all over the world. I remember a day in San José, Costa Rica, where I joined a pick-up soccer game. We were sliding around barefoot in the tropical downpour, all of us laughing. The joy that it brought me and that I saw on the faces of the locals will forever stick with me.”

Lucy Sterba ’26

Lucy Sterba ’26, a biochemistry major with minors in Hispanic studies and art and visual culture from El Cerrito, Calif., has been offered a Fulbright study/research grant for Argentina.

Research Experience Includes: Senior biochemistry thesis, �ֲ���ý summer research intern sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and Maine INBRE program, summer research intern at Clarkson University sponsored by the National Science Foundation

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: Club ultimate frisbee, classical and ensemble pianist, wellbeing community performer, Museum of Art collections management and digital archives intern, Ladd Library access services specialist, course notetaker, Trinity Jubilee Center volunteer, math tutor for Lewiston Middle School student

Fulbright Research Purpose: Sterba will be investigating the development of age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of age-related blindness worldwide. She’ll look specifically at a common complication of the disease called choroidal neovascularization, which causes abnormal blood vessels to grow in the middle layer of the eye, leading to vision loss. The complication poses a serious public health threat to elderly Argentinians with about 15 percent of the 65-and-up population being at-risk. Building upon her �ֲ���ý senior thesis research studying mouse retina regeneration, Sterba will work with Professor Pablo Federico Barcelona, a researcher at the Center for Research in Clinical Biochemistry and Immunology Córdoba, to study the role of the protein receptor LRP1 in the development of choroidal neovascularization. 

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Argentina: Tutor students through mentorship and environmental education program Fundación La Lucena, join Unidos por la Música at the National University of Córdoba, explore the Argentinian visual arts scene, join sports teams

Plans After Fulbright: Pursue a Ph.D. in neurobiology

What the �ֲ���ý Fulbright Committee Said: “Both her parents were Fulbrighters, so she has already lived abroad twice in the capacity of ‘child of Fulbright ambassador,’ in Norway and Ghana. This is not just a quirky coincidence: Lucy has ingrained the Fulbright mission and displays it in her immense community engagement on our campus and in our community.”

More About Sterba: Sterba has long been passionate about the visual arts. In high school, she served as the student commissioner for her hometown’s Arts and Culture Commission, and at �ֲ���ý, she has led gallery talks and written blog posts for the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art.

“Argentina has particularly fascinated me for many years for its vibrant culture and dedication to the arts and music. My love for the visual arts serves as a core motivation behind my own research on the eye and its implications for restoring vision. As a student of art history, I am continually fascinated by communities that cultivate human connection and problem-solving through creative means. Argentina, and specifically the city of Córdoba, is a true champion of this practice.”

Sydney Wilmot ’26

Sydney Wilmot ’26, a psychology major with a minor in education from Jackson, Wyo., has been offered a Fulbright English teaching grant for Timor-Leste.

Relevant Experience Includes: Semester-long study in Denmark, ski coach, teaching assistant in Lewiston Public Schools

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: Nordic skiing team captain, course designer in the Department of Education, psychology research assistant

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Timor-Leste: Volunteer with female and educational empowerment organization Ba Futuru, volunteer at American cultural exchange center UmaAmerika

Plans After Fulbright: Potentially pursue a graduate degree in occupational therapy and become a pediatric occupational therapist

What the �ֲ���ý Fulbright Committee Said: “Sydney is a fantastic representative of the U.S. and Fulbright, as well as �ֲ���ý College. Along with her vibrant, confident presence with students, she has been elected captain of the ski team by her peers and conducts research … as a psychology major. Clearly, she is someone who not only enjoys interacting with others but who thinks deeply about their well-being and modes of existence.”

More About Wilmot: Wilmot has spent more than 100 hours working as a teaching assistant in Lewiston school classrooms, working with students aged five to 21 in English Language Learning, special education, and art courses. Her work with students with learning differences and who hail from different cultural backgrounds, along with her study of pedagogy as an education minor, has taught her the importance of developing diverse approaches to teaching.

“My work with students on the autism spectrum taught me to balance sociability and collaboration with respect for personal boundaries. These experiences reinforced my belief that lesson design must address both academic and emotional needs to create equitable learning spaces.”

Luciana Zaiet ’26

Luciana Zaiet ’26, a double major in German and English from Edgemont, N.Y., has been offered a Fulbright English teaching grant for Germany.

Relevant Experience Includes: Semester-long study in Germany, semester-long study in Scotland, senior thesis on German immigration to Brazil supported by a �ֲ���ý Barlow Grant, advanced German knowledge, �ֲ���ý German peer tutor, teaching literacy and learning support employee at Park Avenue Elementary School in Lewiston, ArtVan volunteer at Lewiston Public Library

�ֲ���ý and Community Activities Include: Staff writer for The �ֲ���ý Student, AESOP leader, German conversation table

Plans for Host-Community Engagement in Germany: Tutor English at community centers or nonprofit organizations, join local arts groups, take art courses

Plans After Fulbright: Pursue Graduate school in journalism or communications, while continuing to serve as a link between the U.S. and Germany

What the �ֲ���ý Fulbright Committee Said: “A regular member at the German table on campus, as well as an outdoor orientation leader at �ֲ���ý and a habitual art ‘sketcher’ of scenes and people, Luciana has a dynamic three-dimensional approach to engaging with new people that will make her popular with students and new neighbors alike.”

More About Zaiet: In high school, Zaiet took a family trip to Germany and was afterward motivated to study German. However, since her high school didn’t offer German courses, she enrolled in an independent German-language school. After driving her to the school, Zaiet’s father became interested in German and also enrolled. Zaiet’s self-motivated experience studying Germany helps her to connect with �ֲ���ý peers as a German tutor.

“When asked questions I could not answer, I was honest and invited students to learn with me using grammar books and online resources. Not knowing everything was not a failure, but rather an opportunity for mutual learning. Being vulnerable in this way helped me relate to students and their challenges as language learners to connect with them more authentically.”

Two �ֲ���ý students have been awarded 2026 Davis Projects for Peace grants to carry out individual humanitarian projects — one focused on expanding economic opportunities for women, and the other on safe menstrual waste disposal.

The grantees, Angel Guitcha ’27 of Accra, Ghana, and Vyshu Viju ’26 of Atlanta, will each receive $10,000 to complete projects in Ghana and India, respectively, this summer. Projects for Peace, which is based at Middlebury College, is funding 142 projects in 2026, taking place across 59 countries and seven U.S. states. 

Since its inception in 2007, Projects for Peace has funded more than 2,200 projects. The organization’s goal is to support student-led, community-centered, and scalable projects addressing pressing issues — anywhere in the world. To develop their projects, �ֲ���ý students work closely with staff from the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, including Daphne Comeau, associate director for center operations and Davis Partners for Peace campus liaison, and Director of the Harward Center Darby Ray.

Last summer, 2025 Projects for Peace grantee Axelle Tougouma ’27 of Fada N’Gourma, Burkina Faso, led the installation of an irrigation system and agricultural training for women refugees from Burkina Faso living in Ouangolodougou, Ivory Coast. 

Tougouma aimed to create an agricultural system through which refugee women could not only improve their food security but also support themselves financially. She led the three-month-long project virtually while also completing an internship in Boston. 

“It was definitely fulfilling,” Tougouma says. “It also made me realize that the small action we do can also contribute in solving problems. Because sometimes when I sit down and I read news about my country, about terrorism attacks, and [I see] those millions of people being displaced, I wonder, being abroad and not living in that situation, how can I give back to my community?” 

Tougouma hired an engineer to install the irrigation system, identified teachers to lead agricultural lessons, and gave financial literacy classes via WhatsApp. While managing the $10,000 project budget, she leaned on what she’s learned at �ֲ���ý as an economics major and math minor.

“We really needed to maximize our budget at some points, and that required giving up on some things,” Tougouma says.

Since the project’s conclusion, Tougouma has remained in contact with the refugee women — as has the irrigation engineer, who has offered ongoing consultation free-of-charge — and plans to pursue other grant and funding opportunities to continue her work in Ouangolodougou.

“[We are] making sure that they feel like we are still supporting them, and this is something that we really care about,” Tougouma says. “We are definitely ready to step in if other opportunities open up.”

2026 Davis grantee Angel Guitcha applied for Projects for Peace after learning about the opportunity from Tougouma. She will be completing her project, “Kayayei Artisan Initiative: Economic Empowerment for Women in Accra,” in Ghana, which borders both Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. 

In Accra, Ghana’s capital city, tens of thousands of women workers called “kayayei” make their living as porters, carrying heavy loads of market items in large baskets atop their heads. When Guitcha was growing up in Accra, she met a girl working as a kayayoo. The girl was desperate to earn a living after a rape made her a mother at only 12. Her circumstances were not unusual; many kayayei work for as little as a few dollars a day in unsafe labor conditions, sleeping on the streets where they are vulnerable to gender-based violence.

Talking with the girl, Guitcha became determined to organize a project to improve kayayei’s quality of life. 

“That conversation sort of radicalized me. … That was a very difficult conversation to have with someone at that age,” Guitcha says.

Guitcha will return to Accra this summer to coordinate a six-week workshop on craftsmanship skills for 50 kayayei, with the goal of fostering autonomy and economic empowerment. Women will learn how to make beaded jewelry and embellish Kente clothing, then how to sew reusable menstrual pads with fabric leftover from textile companies. In addition to teaching the women how to create products they can sell and keeping discarded fabric out of landfills, the workshop will also make it easier for the women to take care of their menstrual health, which they often don’t have the money or time to properly maintain. 

At the end of the workshop, Guitcha will host a graduation ceremony, during which the women will be able to sell the products they’ve made.

“I’m hoping that they leave their workshops feeling more empowered and more in control of their lives,” Guitcha says.

Guitcha, a biochemistry major with a math minor, volunteers regularly in the Lewiston community through the Harward Center and at St. Mary’s Hospital. She plans to attend medical school.

“I’m very passionate about community service,” Guitcha says. 

Davis grantee Vyshu Viju will head to India this summer for her project “Sustainable Cycles: Integrating Hygiene Equity and Waste Sovereignty in Chelannur,” which aims to improve access to menstrual waste disposal by installing trash incinerators specifically for menstrual waste.

The town of Chelannur, where Viju’s grandparents live, is known for its excellent trash management system. However, menstrual product waste is excluded from regular trash pickup because of health safety concerns. Residents are instead expected to dispose of it at a site two hours away, but many residents burn their menstrual waste at home, Viju says, which causes pollution.

“They’re supposed to collect [their menstrual waste] for two to three months and then throw it away,” Viju says. “But most people just find that to be a lot of work, and it just takes up too much of their time.”

Viju and her grandparents will together work to secure government approval for the incinerators, then purchase and install them around Chelannur. 

“I’m hoping it decreases pollution and creates a more sustainable pathway in the way that trash is done,” Viju says. The incinerators’ emissions from burning waste could also be harvested as an energy source, she says. 

Viju has long been passionate about issues related to reproductive justice and access; she volunteers with Maine Family Planning as a Harward Center Bonner Leader and hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in neuroendocrinology. She thought up the idea for the incinerators in conjunction with her grandmother, who is involved in a local feminist group called Kudumbashree.

Staff at the Harward Center were instrumental in helping the project come together, Viju says, including Comeau and Ray, along with Ellen Alcorn, associate director of community-engaged learning and director of student leadership programs, who initially connected Viju with Maine Family Planning.

Viju has also learned a lot about waste management while working as a landscape assistant with �ֲ���ý Facility Services, specifically from �ֲ���ý grounds and maintenance workers Amy Ray and Ian Brownlie.

“That’s been a very meaningful part of my �ֲ���ý experience, and I think it very much inspired this project,” Viju says.

Both Projects for Peace are scheduled to be completed by September.

Over the past year, �ֲ���ý’ 11 graduating studio art and visual culture students have spent countless hours working in their own favored media, each creating intricate paintings, drawings, photography, or sculptures for their thesis projects. 

On April 17, they’ll step outside of their Olin Arts Center studios to share their work with the world as At the Table: Senior Thesis Exhibition 2026 opens at the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art.

Creating the annual senior thesis exhibition is a big task, but one that brings students, faculty, and staff together in collaboration. The students write in-depth artist statements, sign contracts with the museum, and work with Visiting Assistant Professor of Art and Visual Culture and Lead Preparator at the museum Michel Droge to learn about framing and physically displaying their works.

“Art school students across the country are lucky if they get a week-long exhibition for their senior thesis work,” says Museum of Art Director Carrie Cushman. “A six-week exhibition in a professional museum is a truly remarkable opportunity for the students at �ֲ���ý — an opportunity that they live up to with equal parts professionalism and ambition. For our part, hosting the show is a highlight of the year as a time when the community gathers together to celebrate and learn from our students.”

The process takes place across two semesters; the fall course, taught by Professor of Art and Visual Culture Cat Balco, focuses primarily on rigorous research into various artistic practices, idea development, and the first stages of physically creating the art. That research includes not only learning about specific materials but also exploring how these materials are represented across various sociopolitical and cultural contexts.

The winter course, taught by Associate Professor of Art and Visual Culture Carolina González Valencia says, is about synthesizing those ideas into exhibition-ready works. 

“We as artists engage in research in many different ways,” González Valencia says.

The entire year-long process is intense, requiring students to leap from a place of boundless possibility and uncertainty to physical creation, with the willingness to redirect their paths when something isn’t working.

“I have a student this semester who is always asking, ‘But how do I know that this will work?’” González Valencia says. “I always tell her, ‘You never know,’ which is very scary, but very exciting. Seeing them struggle with the uncertainty is very beautiful because it’s in that uncertainty that they start finding themselves, finding their voice and trusting it to start building their ideas.”

The chance to display their work in a museum, which �ֲ���ý offers its graduating studio art students each year, is a fantastic opportunity, González Valencia says.

“That’s something very, very beautiful — that the students get to experience what it’s like to actually put it out there and have people experience it and have their own meaning about it,” González Valencia says.

The students worked together to brainstorm the name of the exhibition, which conveys their belief that each artist, with their unique collection of work, deserves to have their ideas heard — to have a seat At the Table. The exhibition opens with a reception at the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art on April 17 at 5 p.m. and will remain on display through May 30. Below, learn more about each student’s work, drawn from their artist statements.

Sam Bunar

With her charcoal drawings, Sam Bunar of Harwich, Mass., explores the way that releasing control can lead to artistic expression. She interrogates the self and the cosmos, and how the two interact, with self-portraits portraying her reflected in a mirror, surrounded by cosmic patterns.

“I draw inspiration from the inherently complex and uncontrollable nature of the cosmos, inexplainable forces that humans may never completely understand, yet remain profoundly beautiful,” Bunar writes. “In their vastness, they remind us of the infinitesimal scale of our existence within the boundless universe.”

The loose quality of charcoal drawing reflects this idea of relinquishing control, which Bunar wrestled with in her personal life after a physical injury forced her to release her all-encompassing identity as a soccer player. A double major in art and visual culture and physics, Bunar’s scientific interests also inform her work.

“I tell a story about embracing chaos as I visualize an accent toward metaphysical weightlessness and serenity. It is a conscious state of liberation that allows for intrinsic growth, unhindered by the need to control every parameter and outcome in life. My individual pieces come together to model the cyclic nature of my obsession, perfectionism, and fear of the uncontrollable.” 

Audrey Esteves

Audrey Esteves of Cranford, N.J., explores sleep — as a place of rest and warmth and also as a receptacle for exploring memory — through oil painting. She mixes wet and dry oil painting techniques to allow “figures and spaces to emerge” in layers of subtle, hazy definition.

“My body of work strives to imagine recurring moments of rest, wherein memory and meaning are distorted by darkness and lucidity,” Esteves writes. “I want to find warmth in what is unknown and unseen — in what happens when the light goes out.”

A double major in art and visual culture and American studies, Esteves looks to Expressionism and the Italian medieval and early Renaissance periods for inspiration about sleep’s eerie qualities and the narratives and images that the brain imagines in sleep.

“I employ repetition when painting these intimate moments of everyday life, skewing the perspective of sleeping figures, their bedrooms and their objects. This process helps me to answer the questions my body and brain have about what happens in the dark — both within dreams, and the liminal moments between sleep and consciousness.” 

Jeremy Felton

With his ceramic works, both art and vessel, Jeremy Felton of Sebastopol, Calif., interrogates the value of a piece.

“Each piece can and should be used, but I think of the visual and conceptual components of my work as valuable in themselves, beyond any functional enhancement,” Felton writes.

Felton, a double major in art and visual studies and philosophy, decorates his pieces with clay, wood, and rocks collected in Maine, imbuing each work with a sense of place. He completes the pieces in a kiln with soda firing, a process in which the draft of the kiln pulls a vapor of sodium carbonate across the pots, leaving dramatic marks of flames across the works.

“Raw clay is exposed when flame is blocked, each surface dictated by its context in the kiln. Many pieces are designed around this process — a ewer and its stand, or a teapot and its cups — each aspect working as negative or subject for its counterpart; a story only revealed when they’re separated.”

Aratrika Ghosh

Aratrika Ghosh of Mumbai, India, explores memory, distance, and culture by painting on top of saree — also known as “sari” — garments. Her piece in the exhibition features a harmonium painted across her grandmother’s white, pleated saree, exploring her now fading memory of the instrument she was trained in for 10 years. She paints from memory instead of photographs, employing various degrees of opacity and completion across her works to further illuminate the incompleteness of memory.

“The folds disrupt the image, partially obscuring it, paralleling my fading tactile memory of playing the instrument,” Ghosh, a double major in art and visual culture and mathematics, writes. “What once lived in muscle memory now exists as visual memory — fragmented, softened, and mediated through distance.”

An international student living far from her family, Ghosh uses her artistry to connect with her ancestors and culture, participating in the Bengali tradition of passing sarees down through generations.

“Across my practice, I use inherited textiles to bridge physical separation and emotional continuity. By layering my own memories onto fabrics that pre-date me, I create a dialogue between past and present, absence and presence, inheritance and authorship. The work becomes both an act of preservation and an acknowledgment of loss: a recognition that memory, like fabric, stretches, folds, and inevitably changes with time.”

Mia Goodwin

Mia Goodwin of Freeport, Maine, also explores memory through oil painting. She creates paintings, inspired by her grandfather’s photographs made on film, on large canvases that require bodily movement, mimicking the way that one moves through memories. 

“These photographs encapsulate familial memories, ones that my memory doesn’t directly live in, but still is physically and generationally tied to,” Goodwin writes. “Although these moments predate my own lived experience, they have been passed down through stories, images, and emotional inheritance, allowing them to feel both distant and deeply familiar.”

Playing with color, washes, and empty space, Goodwin, a double major in psychology and art and visual culture, explores how memory takes shape and is warped by time and distance.

“I hope my paintings give a feeling of lost time and space. These thinned areas of paint act as visual pauses, mimicking the moments memory cannot fully retrieve. Ultimately, the absence becomes just as meaningful as what is rendered. I hope they allow the onlooker to reflect on what was lost through time. My paintings function as sites of collective reflection, inviting viewers to project their own histories, absences, and emotional memories into the work.”

Ella Hannaford

In her self-portrait photography, Ella Hannaford of South Portland, Maine, is both art and artist. She photographs herself on the coast of Maine, where she grew up, incorporating elements of reflection such as mirrored tiles placed across her face in order to blur the lines between body and landscape. 

“I engage self-portraiture and performance as methods capable of confronting the boundaries of the body and landscape — where a body reads as terrain or a landscape behaves like a portrait,” Hannaford writes. “Here, looking becomes implicated, carrying intimacy and scrutiny at once.”

She primarily photographs during Maine’s off-season, challenging notions of how the coastline is defined and exploring “how a landscape shifts once it is no longer performing itself.”

“Control over my image is not given but produced through creative and embodied risk. Printing large-scale extends that negotiation outward, inviting a physical encounter in which viewers must register their own looking and position in relation to the image. The exchange holds intimacy and distance, recognition and uncertainty — held in suspension.”

Bissan Kablawi

With her mixed-media works combining oil painting, threadwork, sewing, fabric, gelatine, and layered surfaces, Bissan Kablawi of London expands the boundaries of tatreez, the centuries-old practice of Palestinian embroidery that she learned from her grandmother Badriyeh. 

Kablawi stitches and sews directly onto canvas and embroiders over oil paintings, “creating a dialogue between heritage and contemporary interdisciplinary studio practices,” she writes. “In the repetitive act of stitching, a historically feminised and unrecognised form of labour, I mirror and induct myself into the legacy of Palestinian women preserving culture and identity in diaspora.”

Kablawi explores the tension of diaspora, weaving symbols representative of traditional Palestine among fractured images representing her memory and imagination of Palestine. The slow nature of embroidery, she writes, is an “act of care, resistance, and identity-making.”

“My cultural preservation work represents more than tradition; it is testimony to our existence, perpetual and immemorial. In stitching, painting, and reimagining Palestinian art practices, I join Palestinian artists whose work asserts our presence and rejects our collective erasure.” 

Simon Klompus

In his pen drawings, Simon Klompus of Williamstown, Mass., combines anatomically accurate depictions of bones from different species to highlight the elements that unite all biological creatures.

“While we strive for fulfillment, financial success, and material goods, we often forget the raw, biological fragility that underlies and ties all organic things together,” Klompus writes. “I create drawings that allow me to play with the composition of differing species, often creating something illogical and awkward, though occasionally shockingly plausible.”

Through this “creative paleontology” practice, Klompus begins by creating drawings exploring each animal’s bones individually, then randomly selecting a group of the drawings and assembling them.

“The build up of something semi permanent through the use of thousands of small fine lines is reminiscent of our bodies’ construction. When viewed from further back, the intricacy disappears until what is left is form and shadow. Yet upon closer viewing, the form’s creation is nothing more than a great many lines.”

Qwynn Kobertz

Qwynn Kobertz of Framingham, Mass., uses coding and 3D printing to create interactive, sculptural, and participatory games. Kobertz’s work asks questions about how we interact with technology such as, “Do we all live in a hyperrealistic computer simulation? Does it even matter if we do?”

The 3D-printed sculptures are based on ecological features such as countershading, a color pattern animals use to blend into their surroundings. Kobertz’ thesis project is an interactive game in which participants stand in front of a projected live video of themselves and must move their body to fit into continuously changing outlines superimposed over the video, with at least 70% accuracy to advance to the next outline.

“In playing or engaging with the projector screen in some way, participants are moving around in physical space, but their behavior is being dictated by or following rules conceived in the land of ones and zeros. The ecology inspired sculptures enter into the same play area as the participant, and in doing so complete their lifecycle from digital conception to physical sculpture and then finally being brought back into a semi digital space by the player.”

Maia Schifman

Maia Schifman of Minneapolis, a double major in biochemistry and art and visual culture, crafts stoneware pieces from hand, forgoing a pottery wheel to instead meticulously pinch and smooth the pieces into shape.

“Stoneware is durable but not indestructible,” Schifman writes. “I like the idea of creating something with materials that will last centuries, like archeological findings displayed in museums hundreds, sometimes thousands of years after their original owners’ lifetimes.”

Schifman’s pieces reflect the textures and forms of nature, using Japanese glazes like celadon and shino that draw inspiration from nature. 

“These forms are practical containers to hold food and drink, but the goblet, or chalice, has a spiritual meaning as well: symbolically, the chalice represents the deep feminine capacity to hold complexity, intuition, and emotion. It is a vessel in which transformation occurs and is the physical embodiment of the part of the psyche that holds and nurtures creative and transformative energy.”

Grace Thomas

Grace Thomas of Bethesda, Md., creates tunnel books, crafted from a series of cut-paper panels placed atop each other to create an optical illusion of depth, painted with gouache. In her pieces, Thomas compares societal behaviors, such as excessive screen time, to cannibalism to evoke a sense of discomfort and disgust, reflecting on how we consume and are consumed.  

“The intense reaction and curiosity cannibalism brings out of people allows me to call attention to situations and experiences we have intense feelings for but have been numbed to,” Thomas writes. “These range from hegemonic systems, to interactions with material culture, to societal norms, and to the consuming nature of my own emotional and mental states, which I translate into images.”

Thomas draws inspiration from Hayao Miyazaki, beloved Japanese filmmaker of such animated classics as My Neighbor Totoro and co-founder of Studio Ghibli.

“I am not interested in creating gory or disturbing images,” Thomas writes. “Rather, I want to draw my viewer into my work through bright and interesting colors and then allow them the space to take in all the details.”

During the first-ever �ֲ���ý Curates event in March, faculty, staff, and students, and President Garry W. Jenkins, became “curators” as they gathered to select a new addition to the Museum of Art’s permanent collection.

Carrie Cushman, director of the �ֲ���ý Museum of Art, devised the idea for the event, which she hopes will be the first of many. 

“This program enabled us to start a conversation with the community about what it means to be a collecting institution in the 21st century,” Cushman said. “We were able to educate students, faculty, and staff on the strengths of our own collection and to build communal investment in its future.” 

The �ֲ���ý Curates event was centered around the museum’s recent exhibition Shellburne Thurber: Full Circle, which ran from October 2025 to March. Curated by �ֲ���ý Museum of Art Assistant Curator Samantha Sigmon, in collaboration with Thurber, the exhibition featured works from across the New England-based Thurber’s decades-long career as a photographer, primarily capturing images of homes and the people who occupy them.

“Thurber is known for crafting photographs of interior spaces that capture people’s personalities and presence,” Sigmon said.

Prior to the launch of �ֲ���ý Curates, museum staff had selected three works  — respectively titled “Phantom Limb: My Dresser Top at Night,” “Newtonville, MA: Blue Couch with Multiple Portraits of Freud,” and “Self Portrait Sitting on the Porch in New Hampshire” —  from the exhibition for potential acquisition, made possible by the Barbara Morris Goodbody Collection Endowment Fund, to the museum’s collection of 8,000-plus objects. But, they planned to purchase just one work — and that’s where the �ֲ���ý community came in. Cushman and Sigmon invited faculty, staff, and students to the museum for an evening to tour the exhibition and vote on which work they should select. 

“Everyone was visibly excited to take part in voting and hearing more about the artist and each of the three works,” Sigmon said. “The experience truly enlivened our galleries. I’m thrilled that we could lift the curtain regarding how our collections are built and include our audience in such an integral museum responsibility.”

Attendees were eager to learn more about the museum and offer their input on the selected photographs.

“�ֲ���ý Curates was an inspiring and creative way to connect the campus community with the art museum while showcasing its exhibitions,” said Krystie Wilfong, associate college librarian for collection management and scholarly communications. “Hearing Samantha speak about the identified works offered a fascinating behind-the-scenes perspective.”

The event was an opportunity to renew interest in the museum’s permanent collection specifically, while also “demonstrating accountability” to the �ֲ���ý community, Cushman explained. 

“I appreciated Carrie’s explanation that events like �ֲ���ý Curates were meant to be part of an intervention in the colonial practices that had shaped art collecting,” said Charles Nero, Benjamin E. Mays ’20 Distinguished Prof of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies.

Though each piece received a similar number of votes, attendees ultimately selected Thurber’s “Self Portrait Sitting on the Porch in New Hampshire.”

“Knowing that an artwork I voted for will become part of the permanent collection makes the experience feel especially meaningful,” Wilfong said.

Featuring the photographer herself on a porch, harshly lit by a bright sun, the photo is distinctively different from Thurber’s usual compositions of interior spaces.

“The artist sits on the porch of her family lakehouse, a place incredibly entangled with her life and work. … She is not looking directly at the camera, and we see her in an everyday moment that captures her in a way a more polished portrait might not,” Sigmon said. “To me, it is as if we are right there next to Thurber in mid-discussion. Thurber’s power to transport us into the photograph really draws people in.”

“Self Portrait Sitting on the Porch in New Hampshire” nicely complements the museum’s preexisting repertoire of artist self-portraits and contemporary photography, Sigmon said. It’s also a unique holding from Thurber, who has rarely displayed her portraits of friends, family, and herself despite capturing many throughout her career.

“It was an honor to display this work and her other portraits at the �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art,” Sigmon said. “As the curator, I love that we get to keep a photograph that sets us apart from her previous exhibitions elsewhere.”

Since her freshman year, Sheila Robledo ’26 of Alton, Texas, has spent a lot of time in �ֲ���ý’ Student Center for Belonging and Community.

“It’s just one of my favorite places on campus, to be honest,” Robledo says.

The SCBC is home to many of �ֲ���ý’ community-building events and programs, including the college’s first-generation student programs: Bobcat First, which all first-gen students are automatically enrolled in, and Kessler Scholars, a smaller and newer program within Bobcat First.

Robledo, a Bobcat First student, found community and support in �ֲ���ý’ first-gen programming. That mentorship program, through which older Bobcat First students mentor students who are new to �ֲ���ý, had a major impact on her, particularly as a first-year student when she turned to her peer mentor Belize Iteriteka ’23 for advice about adjusting to life at �ֲ���ý.

“Having a mentor was such a big deal for me,” Robledo says. “I hadn’t toured campus. I didn’t know what I was going to do, who I was going to be friends with, and it was just a whole new experience.”

Robledo wanted to offer other students the same support she received from Iteriteka, so she became a first-gen peer mentor her sophomore year and is now in her third year in the role. She is one of eight mentors for the 2025–2026 academic year, each of them hosting one hour of drop-in sessions weekly in the SCBC, where they field questions about everything from academics to internships to navigating the �ֲ���ý social scene. 

Misa Beltran-Guzman, director of first-gen student programs at �ֲ���ý, oversees the first-gen peer mentorship program.

“First-gen students are aware of the help and support they received to get to a place like �ֲ���ý, and they are eager to repay or pay forward the encouragement, community, and mentorship they received along their educational journey,” Beltran-Guzman says. “Peer mentorship and student-to-student support are core to what we do: it develops the mentors as leaders while providing mentees with an approachable and genuine source of support.”

First-gen peer mentorship extends beyond the walls of the SCBC. For mentor Ross Tejeda ’26 of Milton, Mass., and mentee Alex Rodgers ’29 of Lowell, Mass., some of their best conversations happen when the two track and cross country athletes are running dozens of miles together each week.

“If Alex ever has anything that he wants to talk about, he’ll bring it up there,” Tejeda says. “It’s just something we can chat about, and it always comes up naturally.” 

They had an early jump on the mentor-mentee relationship. Tejeda hosted Rodgers for an overnight visit when he was a high school student touring campus. They connected over similar childhood experiences, their shared home state of Massachusetts, and music — despite differing opinions on the Kendrick Lamar versus Drake drama.

“We have these shared experiences of things that we’ve gone through in the past, and it’s just good to be able to have someone to connect with,” Rodgers says.

When he was a freshman, Tejeda’s own mentor, Abraham Mieses ’23, took him “under his wing” and helped him learn to navigate social spaces at �ֲ���ý as a man of color.

“In these spaces that are predominantly white, it’s really easy for you to fall into a certain way of being and almost, at times, abandon who you really are to assimilate into these spaces,” Tejeda says. “He did a really good job of guiding me through that experience.”

Like Robledo, Tejeda is now paying it forward, supporting other students in the same way.

“It’s a good opportunity, once you learn the ropes, to share them with other people,” Tejeda says. “You have a duty or responsibility — at least me specifically, as a Dominican, first-gen student-athlete. I feel like I can really make a difference.”

Tejeda, who is a double major in economics and English, has guided Rodgers, who plans to major in economics, along his academic path. Robledo, a biology major, has done the same for mentee and biology major Andrea Alfonzo ’28 of Cary, N.C.

“Having a mentor shaped a lot of the way I navigate through school,” Alfonzo says. “I do have somebody to talk to if I need to.”

“It’s a good opportunity, once you learn the ropes, to share them with other people. You have a duty or responsibility — at least me specifically, as a Dominican, first-gen student-athlete. I feel like I can really make a difference.”

Ross Tejeda ’26 on the importance of first-generation peer mentorship

For Robledo, part of a mentor’s responsibility is affirming to mentees that while they may experience challenges in college, they will be capable of overcoming them — and they won’t be doing it alone.

“Of course, I cried when I failed exams,” Robledo tells her mentees. “I’ve stumbled, and I’ve fallen, but we all get back up, and I’ll help you get back up in those moments.”

Sometimes, through the process of reflecting on what mentees need, mentors gain new insights into themselves. When Shristi Tamang ’28 of Kathmandu, Nepal, advises her mentees to seek out help or tutoring if they need it, she’s reminded that as a first-year student at �ֲ���ý, she was hesitant to ask for academic support after never seeking out tutoring as a high school student.  Now, she confidently reminds her mentees that they don’t have to do everything on their own and that it is OK to ask for help — even if you are a mentor yourself.

“That shift feels like I’m growing,” Tamang says.

Tamang hopes to help other students navigate the imposter syndrome that students of color at a predominantly white institution may experience. �ֲ���ý’ first-gen student programs offer a safe space to explore this subject, Tamang says, which felt more taboo in high school.

“The program made me feel like it’s an identity that is celebrated rather than something that is hidden,” Tamang says.

When Margaret Ndirangu ’29 of Nyahururu, Kenya, arrived at �ֲ���ý, she found herself in a new educational system, unsure how to balance school with searching for jobs and internships. Tamang stepped in with advice and action; she helped Ndirangu secure a job at Ladd Library and showed her how to search for fellowship and internship opportunities.

“Having someone you can talk to who’s also a student and more like a friend … it has been helpful,” Ndirangu says. “I don’t know if I would be where I am, especially with my job and figuring out what I should do, if I didn’t talk to her.” 

First-gen programs at �ֲ���ý offer a suite of other support and programming opportunities, such as collaborations with the Center for Purposeful Work and the STEM Scholars program, which provides mentoring, coursework, and community to a select cohort of students, including those traditionally underrepresented in science and mathematics. 

Beyond formal programming, students gather in the SCBC for fun and food between classes and during weekly First-Generation Snack and Chats. Robledo has spent countless hours there with her Bobcat First cohort, from their �ֲ���ý pre-orientation to their senior year.

“I’m growing up with them,” Robledo says. “To think that I’ll be graduating with them soon in a couple of months, it’s a bittersweet moment.”

Even as the Class of 2026 Bobcat First cohort graduates, their wisdom won’t be lost. They have already passed it down to their mentees, many of whom will likely become mentors themselves and return the same favor to the next generation of �ֲ���ýies.