Alex De Moor '10 recently completed more than a month of field work in Namibia working on the Neoproterozoic glacigenic rocks of the Otavi Platform. Among other results of the field work were the collection and discovery of perhaps some of the earliest forms of animal fossils every found, that his team uncovered these unusual forms at the base of the Ediacaran section right above a prominent glacial layer known as a tillite.

Ashlyn Razzo ’11 loves working with children. A recent Hamilton graduate, Razzo knew that she wanted to spend her future working with underprivileged youth, giving back to the kind of community in which she grew up. Razzo will be serving as a 2011 corps member in Miami for Teach For America (TFA), the non-profit organization dedicated to ending educational inequality in the United States.

For Kevin Graepel ’11, a career in biomedical research is a goal that he has been working toward since his first year at Hamilton. Graepel, who graduated with a degree in chemistry last month, will take the next step in realizing his goal as he begins a two-year stint conducting research in Bethesda, Maryland, on viral pathogenesis and vaccine development for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Recent Hamilton graduate Caitlyn Williams ’11 is thrilled to be entering into a position with the  Community HealthCorps Program, a division of AmeriCorps later this summer as a school-based health center coordinator. Williams will be working with Open Door Family Medical Center in the medically underserved community of Port Chester, New York.

As hundreds of thousands of college graduates enter the workforce this spring, Amy Goldstein ’11 is one of many recent Hamilton graduates who is sitting securely with a job in the tough economy. Goldstein will be spending the next two years working as a federal analyst for Deloitte Consulting’s Washington D.C. office.

The New York Times’ current entry on the publication’s Civil War blog is the work of James L. Ferguson Professor of History Maurice Isserman. Titled “From the Playing Field to the Battlefield,” the article reveals that during the war, the majority of Hamilton students participated on both the Union and Confederate sides and that many perished.

Visiting Professor of Comparative Literature Julie-Françoise Kruidenier Tolliver '02 gave a paper at a colloquium held May 11-14 at Concordia University, in Montreal. The colloquium was titled Francophonies trans-océaniques: vertiges de la balkanisation, rêves de mondialisation.

Miners may be most comfortable underground, but that was not evident when Scott Hand '64 spoke on the Hill on April 27.  Hand, currently the executive chairman of the board of the Royal Nickel Company in Canada, previously worked for International Nickel and shared his views on Hamilton, the mining industry and the international economy.

Nearly 80 Hamilton students and alumni participated on April 8-10 in the first Hamilton Pitch Competition. The event, the brainchild of successful entrepreneur and alumnus Mark Kasdorf ’06, challenged competitors to pitch their best, most marketable business concept to a judging panel of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

Ann Silversmith, professor of physics, presented a lecture on March 29 at Ithaca College. “Synthesis and spectroscopy of rare earth based sol-gel glasses” reported results of work done with Kate Arpino ’10 and Andrew Beyler ’10. Silversmith also presented this work earlier in the semester at Davidson College.