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This summer Emma Zanazzi ’15, a women’s studies major, is getting involved in some of the issues most important to her. Through funding from the Kirkland Endowment, she is interning with the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, a non-profit organization that works to endorse female candidates in political campaigns and elections.

Lydia Rono ’11 has been awarded the Samuel F. Babbitt Kirkland College Fellowship for graduate study. Rono will pursue a Ph.D. in organic chemistry at Princeton University in the fall. In addition, Haley Riemer-Peltz ’12, Jennifer Roberts ’14 and Jill Chipman '14 were recently selected by the Kirkland Endowment as 2011 Summer Associates. They will conduct research with faculty advisors and receive stipends for their work.

For the past 40 years, war and civil unrest have taken a toll on Colombia. Families were torn apart, crops were destroyed, innocent people became victims of a huge-scale conflict. But women, although not often talked about, may have suffered most of all. Kirkland Summer Research Associate Caty Taborda ’11 is investigating the past, present and future of women’s rights in Colombia.

Watching a Bollywood film in India is more like a screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show than a typical American viewing experience. Viewers participate: they yell, dance and sing along during the three-hour spectacle. But for Kirkland Summer Research Associate Jori Belkin ’11, her interest extends far beyond the theater; Belkin is researching the role and perception of women in Bollywood films.

A small but significant meeting takes place on a recent Saturday afternoon; it is the Safe Zone workshop. People often with limited exposures to the gay community attend the workshop to be updated on appropriate vocabulary and learn about their own biases regarding the LGBT community. Megan Bolger ’11 is ensuring that this essential form of student-driven education lives on at Hamilton.