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Located only 10 miles from Hamilton’s campus, Utica often seems a world away. The city is riddled with concerns of unemployment, environmentalism and historical preservation. Kevin Alexander '13 is the first Levitt Center-funded Rust to Green Civic Research Fellow and is dividing his time between an internship with the Rust to Green initiative and a research project with Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology George Hobor.

The Facebook group “Stand with Youth, Call for Obama's Leadership toward Bold Climate Action,” currently has 22,112 members. But how many of them called the White House in preparation for the UN Climate Change Conference? Activists who give their support but contribute little else are called slacktivists and are increasingly common with the growth of the Internet. Emily Gerston ’11, who received a Levitt grant, is learning how the Internet has affected political participation.

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.

When viewing our existence from a molecular level, one miniscule change can have enormous repercussions. Carbon dioxide, for example, is the natural waste product of our respiration; but carbon monoxide is toxic to us when inhaled. Similarly, a molecule’s orientation can also affect the way the body processes it. This summer, Cara Vennari ’12 is working under Associate Professor of Chemistry Ian Rosenstein to expand ring molecules that have three carbon atoms in them to contain five.

The Presidential Fellows Program, sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress (CSPC), encourages students to think about the U.S. president's role, and this past year Andrew Steele ’10 was the first fellow from Hamilton.

After our trash leaves our hands, we in the U.S. like to pretend it no longer exists. But to people in Mokattam, an informal settlement just outside Cairo, Egypt, sorting and recycling garbage is essential to their livelihood. Working with Assistant Professor of Government Peter Cannavo, Caitlin O’Dowd ’12 was awarded an Emerson grant to investigate the relationship between the waste system and social justice in Mokattam.

In 1600 B.C., during the Minoan civilization on Crete, Gournia was bustling with the activity of a small city, with construction of the enormous central palace underway. Working with John McEnroe, the John and Anne Fischer Professor in Fine Arts, Maeve Gately ’12 and Kiernan Acquisto ’13 are excavating the site to learn more about its ancient past.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication Heather Ferrara and Kate Northway ’11 are working on an independent research project exploring points of controversy surrounding the Ludovico Sculpture Trail in Seneca Falls, N.Y.

Four main forces govern the behavior of all matter in the world around us: gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear. Physicists believe that, at large enough energies, these four forces can be described by a single theory rather than four separate theories. Working for his second summer under Professor of Physics Brian Collett and Professor of Physics Gordon Jones, Edward Lamere ’11 is working on a project to increase the accuracy of an experiment that links the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces called aCORN.

In the forest, populations of rabbits and foxes change relative to one another. Mathematicians model these population fluctuations using differential equations. But mathematical predator-prey models have limitations; for example, the models do not account for rabbits and foxes traversing different paths from water to food source. Combining differential equations and network optimization, Louis Boguchwal ’12 hopes to improve these standard models with guidance from Assistant Professor of Mathematics Andrew Dykstra.