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The Community Luncheon on Wednesday, August 7, shared the spotlight with the first Employee Arts and Crafts Exhibition. Thirteen talented members of our community displayed an assortment of items ranging from bonsai trees to handcrafted wine.

Emma Laperruque ’14 is working the “internship of her dreams,” at The Daily Meal, a website catering to food enthusiasts.  With the tagline “All Things Food and Drink,” The Daily Meal mirrors her many culinary passions.  This summer, Laperruque will develop her journalistic skills while writing and publishing stories and recipes online.

“Precipitous decline in monarch butterflies linked to habitat loss in Midwest,” published by Environment & Energy (E&E) on Aug. 5, included an excerpt from an interview with Ernest Williams, the William R. Kenan Professor of Biology. The article also linked to a study he co-authored that examined the increasing risks posed by land development and extreme weather on the declining population of monarchs.

Eating fruits and vegetables can provide numerous health benefits, from improved vision to substantially reduced risk of cancer and strokes.  Some parents have trouble getting their children to eat leafy greens or vibrantly colored peppers, but Morgan Osborn ’14 is trying to change that by educating teenagers about how great produce can be.  As an intern with the Burlington School Food Project, Osborn is teaching children various aspects of farming and how to prepare meals with fresh ingredients.

It might sound surprising, but studying two neurotransmitters found in drosophila, a genus of small flies, may help us better understand human brain chemistry.  While most people may not regularly think about neurotransmitters in our brains, these chemicals are the stimuli behind our frustrations when stuck in traffic or our elevated stress levels when facing a seemingly never-ending pile of assignments. Ashley Perritt ’14 and Niko Wagner ’14 are studying tyramine beta hydroxylase (TBh) and TBh-Related (TBhR) neurotransmitter genes in drosophila to better understand their functions.

Four Hamilton students presented their research at the 12th Molecular Educational Research Consortium in Undergraduate Computational chemistRY (MERCURY) conference held July 25-27 at Bucknell University.

After attending a music concert, fans may not think about how much effort and planning went into the performance they just witnessed.  Between picking a location, agreeing to a contract and managing equipment, hundreds of details are involved.  This summer, Eli Davidow ’15 is learning the intricacies of record labels, booking agencies and performance venues.

Through our contemporary media, readers frequently hear about the decline of religion in America.  Alison Ritacco ’14 and Hannah Grace O’Connell ’14 are working with Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies Brent Plate and Assistant Professor of Art Robert Knight, to examine the realities of religious life in the Utica and Clinton areas, which may complicate that common conception. In their Levitt Group Summer Research project, “Religious Spaces in Transition,” they are focusing on how local religious institutions adapt to change.

In its quarterly Education Life section published on Aug. 4, The New York Times featured Bret Turner ’13 and his goal of interviewing every faculty member on campus about their research. According to the article, by the time he graduated, he had spoken with 200 of 223 faculty members, a half-hour to an hour each.

Five Hamilton students who plan careers in medicine are gaining valuable clinical experience working directly with patients at the Burke Rehabilitation Center in White Plains, N.Y. Julia Gelissen ’14, Allison Hall ’14, Allison Reeder ’14, Alice Grant ’14 and Jennifer Kim ’14 have been working as nurses’ assistants at the hospital since the end of May.