All News

While traversing the scenic peaks of the Adirondacks or canoeing through quiet backcountry streams, few first-year students are thinking about algorithms and linear optimization. But these mathematical ideas are as much a part of Hamilton orientation trips as any pack or paddle: they ensure that incoming students have the most worthwhile experience possible.

Life-threatening diseases could become easier to detect thanks to a Hamilton student-faculty research team and its partnership with an internationally recognized biomedical research institute here in Utica.

Each year, a core of highly motivated Hamilton students can be found taking steps toward a career in healthcare. What are our pre-health students doing this summer? How did they land their internships, and what have they learned? And how does it all fit into what they envision for their futures?

For some students, summer is a time to relax and decompress; for others, it is a time to develop résumés and professional qualifications. For a few members of the Hamilton baseball team, it offers the perfect opportunity to improve their game — only a few minutes from campus.

“What happens when natural things — pollen in a gust of wind, a carnivorous pitcher plant, an armadillo’s thick skin — enter human history?” Thus begins the introduction to Natural Things in Early Modern Worlds, a new book conceived and co-edited by Assistant Professor of History Mackenzie Cooley.

When gun violence changed his life forever, Lelan O’Brien ’23 decided to take action. After interning with the Brady Campaign, which works to end gun violence, O’Brien served as a Courage Fellow for Giffords, a group led by shooting survivor and former congresswoman Gabby Giffords. This month, O’Brien attended a lobby in Washington, D.C., where he met Giffords and other lawmakers working toward a safer future.

As the spring semester wound down, there were many student accomplishments remaining to applaud. Check out what some of our students achieved in the last few months.

Growing up in the suburbs of Rochester, N.Y., Jackson Vogt ’23 was undecided between the University of Rochester and Hamilton College. “I had a lot of friends going to the University of Rochester, but it seemed a bit too close to home,” he said. Now, four years, two majors, and an Amazon internship later, Vogt has accepted a full-time position at Amazon Web Services.(AWS) as part of their web design and development team.

Oftentimes students feel as though there is a dichotomy between the sciences and the arts and that they must choose one or the other. Enter Shelly Cao ’23, an art and mathematics double major pursuing a combination of both through architecture and showing the paths that emerge from pursuing interdisciplinary interests.

During her time on College Hill, Merrill Storch ’23 has developed a passion for sustainability through her studies in physics and interest in mechanical engineering. Now, she’s taking her talents to Stanford as a graduate student, where she’ll study how mechanical engineering can be used to address climate change.