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Danielle Burby ’12 knows that the editor always has the final say. So when she secured an internship at Square One Publishers for the summer, she did not expect to have much flexibility. For the most part, she assumed that she would be confined to marketing and minor, superfluous tasks. But during the first week, she took an editing test, and found that she had underestimated her power there – her supervisors loved her ability to tidy up almost any piece of prose and wanted to hire her to edit a book in need of revision. With the turn of a page, Burby’s unpaid internship spawned a paid opportunity.

Assistant Professor of Africana Studies Nigel Westmaas published an opinion piece in Georgetown, Guyana’s newspaper, Stabroek News, titled “Corruption, criticism and political culture in Guyana” on Aug. 3. The article addressed Guyana’s “lack of objective oversight standards” and offered ways to prevent and fight against corruption.

Max Currier ’10 is looking for a way to increase the effectiveness of political restructuring in Afghanistan – as long as it works, and works well. He supports Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), joint civil-military teams designed to extend the Afghan Central Government from Kabul (the capital) to Afghanistan’s 32 provinces. His goal this summer is to examine the role and efficacy of PRTs in Afghanistan.

Assistant Professor of Physics Natalia Connelly published an article in the Astrophysical Journal titled "An Evolutionary Paradigm for Dusty Active Galaxies at Low Redshift." With co-authors from the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell and Caltech, Connelly considered a number of mid-infrared spectra of active galaxies obtained with the Spitzer Space Telescope.

When Clair Cassiello ’11 was younger, she wanted to work for the FBI. The psychological twists excited her – she liked that criminal investigators sometimes analyze how a person thinks as opposed to what crime he has actually committed. Although her ambitions have changed, she still is interested in the profound effect the mind has on actions. This summer, Cassiello is learning more about psychology through an eye-tracking bias project with Visiting Professor of Psychology Mark Oakes.

The paper "Stable Homology as an Indicator of Manifoldlikeness in Causal Set Theory" by Associate Professor of Physics Seth Major and collaborators David Rideout (Perimeter Institute, Waterloo, Canada) and Sumati Surya (Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, India) was published Friday, Aug. 14, in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity.

Associate Professor of Government Sharon Werning Rivera has published an on-line version of a simulated election campaign exercise with Congressional Quarterly Press. The simulation, titled “Elections in West Europa,” is designed to teach students about party systems, campaigns and government formation in established democracies by using active learning strategies.

Adirondack Adventure (AA), Hamilton's eight-day outdoor program for incoming students, and its sister program Urban Service Experience (USE), welcomed 246 members of the class of 2013 on Aug. 14.

The environmental studies major with a focus in the humanities is not based on geology or biology. Rather, it highlights the philosophical and historical aspects of nature’s wonder. Julie DiRoma ’10 is channeling this interest in environmental theory into a potential career in policy or education. Although a scientific mode of thinking is ideal for some students, DiRoma prefers to discuss the human angle on nature. This summer, she attends environmental sustainability councils as a part of her internship with the Syracuse-Onondaga County Planning Agency (SOCPA) in the Onondaga County Government.

Physicists are often forced to work through tedious preparations only to take quick measurements and arrive at small, sometimes inconsequential conclusions. Therefore, much of modern research consists of trying to find ways to increase efficiency without sacrificing quality results. Lauren Vilardo ’11 and Valerie Hanson ’10 are developing a faster, more accurate measurement of the absolute polarization of 3Helium (3He). This summer they're collaborating with Professor of Physics Gordon Jones and Associate Professor of Physics Brian Collett to do so.