In a chemistry lab, Eric Kuenstner ’12 and Jack Trieu ’11 place a round-bottom flask on an instrument called a rotovap. With a push of a button the flask begins spinning, making the solution flow from the flask through coiled tubes. “It always makes me feel like a mad scientist,” Kuenstner laughs, and Trieu nods agreement. But the result of this seemingly diabolical processing is hardly sinister; the students are looking to find the most favorable conditions for a [2,3] sigmatropic rearrangement to occur. More ...

When you tell people you are spending the summer on an archaeological dig, those who have any experience with excavations begin to tell you how it will affect your daily life. More ...

In researching and experimenting with magnetic properties, scientists use beams of neutrons with all the same spin. They ensure that the neutrons are all polarized the same way with the help of an apparatus called a helium-3 polarizer. Jake Zappala ’12 is engineering a helium-3 polarizer test system for researching the diagnostic tools used in the polarization process. More ...

For Olivia Wolfgang-Smith ’11, the “slush pile” of unsolicited manuscripts is only barely a metaphor. Working at the literary magazine The Missouri Review, Wolfgang-Smith pores over 30 manuscripts per week, evaluating their quality. With an Emerson grant and guidance from Associate Professor of English Tina Hall, Wolfgang-Smith is learning the production process of a highly-respected literary magazine. More ...

Despite the constant quest to live a happy life, people in today’s complicated world are finding happiness increasingly elusive. Past philosophers have proposed how to be happy, but each suggestion is radically different. Advised by John Stewart Kennedy Professor of Philosophy Richard Werner, Jesica Lindor ’12 is analyzing philosophies on happiness through modern psychology through an Emerson grant. More ...

Armed with her pipette and sterile gloves, Danielle Lashley ’13 carefully transfers the solution from her test tube to the petri dishes in front of her. But the solution she so cautiously maneuvers is store-bought Juicy Juice, used to attract flies so she can work with their embryos. Lashley is attempting to clone and catalog the development of two gap genes of the common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, in embryos. More ...

Long thought to be the most objective of artistic mediums, film is slowly being acknowledged as subjective, the camera impacting its subject matter like in any other art. In conjunction with an Emerson grant and advised by Visiting Professor of Art History Scott MacDonald, Cameron Breslin ’11 is analyzing early ethnographic documentaries to determine how accurately and objectively they portrayed their anthropological subject. More ...

Observed from the West, Hinduism appears as a complex, heterogeneous, polytheistic amalgamation of religious practices. But just below its multifaceted interior lies a concept that Westerners understand only too well: the control of colonization. Through an Emerson grant and the guidance of Associate Professor of History Lisa Trivedi, Kate Harloe ’12 will spend the summer investigating the roots of Hinduism as well as its contemporary incarnations in Indian society. More ...

Jason McGavin ’12 observes the organic balls that seem to be bleeding dye into the surrounding liquid. But what caused the destruction? In this microscopic game of Space Invaders, it is the destructive entity that is the aggressor: piscidins, a type of bacteria-killing protein found in fish. McGavin is looking at two specific piscidins and attempting to relate their destructive function to their chemical structure. More ...

Rapidly becoming a cult classic, Mean Girls gives its viewers more than a wildly entertaining movie experience: it offers a front row seat to the effects of relational aggression. Initially thought to be present mostly in middle- and high-school girls, relational aggression has been found in almost all demographics. Working under Professors of Psychology Gregory Pierce and Penny Yee, Liz Chapin ’12, Carolyn Dopp ’11 and Danielle Mortorano ’12 have been testing new ways to measure relational aggression. More ...