by
May 8, 2025
Student Experience
Quentin Messer ’26 was awarded the highly competitive Harry S. Truman Scholarship. A world politics concentrator who is studying in Cameroon this semester, Messer plans to pursue a J.D. and master’s degree in public administration (MPA) following graduation. The Truman Scholarship is awarded to college students in their junior year who demonstrate strong leadership potential, a commitment to a career in government or the nonprofit sector, and academic excellence.
Geoscience majors and close friends since their first year at Hamilton, Andrew Fredericks ’25 and Charlie Haberstock ’25 each received a 2025 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, a national $40,000 grant to pursue a one-year passion project anywhere in the world. Fredericks’ project, “Finding Connection With Nature Through Human Evolution” will take him to Brazil, Kenya, Georgia, and Germany. Haberstock will explore “Remote Economies in an Urban Age” in Canada, Finland, the United Kingdom, and Greenland.
Yuxuan Xu ’26 has been named a recipient of the prestigious Barry Goldwater Scholarship, a national award that supports students intending to pursue research careers in the sciences, mathematics, and engineering. Xu is a neuroscience major from New York, N.Y.
Sabina Feder ’25 and Brianna Padilla ’25 each received Hamilton’s Bristol Fellowship, which sponsors projects “based on strong personal interest and commitment” and that “exhibit a spirit of inquisitiveness and a seriousness of purpose.” Feder will travel to New Zealand, the Bahamas, the Netherlands, and Sweden to work alongside farmers, humanitarian organizations, dumpster divers, and advocacy networks to better understand the causes and solutions to food waste issues. Padilla plans to work with shark restoration organizations in Mexico, Australia, Indonesia, and Greece through her project, “Fins for the Future: Global Shark Restoration.”
Naval Lappalainen ’25 and Xavier McMahon ’27 have been awarded Critical Language Scholarships (CLS) to study Russian this summer. Lappalainen, a double major in history and Russian studies, will study in Kyrgyzstan, while McMahon, a double major in world politics and Russian studies, will be based in Daugavpils, Latvia. The CLS Program funds immersive programs for U.S. undergraduate and graduate students to learn languages of strategic importance to U.S. national security, economic prosperity, and engagement with the world.
Three students will study abroad thanks to Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarships. Gabrielle Guerra ’27 will study in Italy this fall; Tzu Han “Annie” Huang ’27 is bound for Taiwan in spring 2026; and Darian Torres ’27 will study in Costa Rica this summer. Gilman Scholarships enable American students to gain proficiency in diverse languages and cultures, skills that are critically important to their academic and career development.
Chayti Biswas ’27, an interdisciplinary major from Woodhaven N.Y., was honored at the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities’ (CICU) annual meeting as the 2025 CICU HEOP Ambassador of the Year. Recognized for her leadership on Hamilton’s campus and within the Opportunity Program, Biswas was presented the award by Opportunity Programs Director Aaron Ray in front of an audience of college and university presidents, as well as government relations staff from across New York State.
A passionate advocate for HEOP, Biswas has played a vital role in legislative efforts, including participating in advocacy postcard initiatives and appearing in the organization's I Am Opportunity advocacy video. Through her dedication, she has helped amplify the voices of more than 4,400 HEOP students statewide.
Annie Huang ’27
Annie Huang ’27 and Kevin Martinez ’27 will serve as policy and nonprofit leadership interns for SHECP this summer. Huang is a world politics and mathematics major from Chino, Calif., and Martinez is a sociology and government major from Las Vegas. Both will be working with the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution, which aims to shape the policy debate to improve global economic cooperation and fight poverty and sources of social stress.
Kevin Martinez ’27
These internships offer an opportunity for undergraduates to gain experience in public policy and nonprofit leadership while addressing issues of poverty in communities. Interns obtain a greater understanding of the dynamics of organizational leadership and the creation of successful anti-poverty policies by drawing on their direct experiences, insights from courses, and contacts with community partners involved in anti-poverty activities.
Eight students have been awarded international summer research funding through a fellowship program designed to support Hamilton students who wish to conduct research in diverse settings outside the U.S. Recipients are:
Bakir Husremovic ’26 presented his research, Calibration approach for a frequency tunable microwave photon source and detector using a double transmon coupler,” at the Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, Calif., in March. He worked on the project last summer at the Air Force Research Lab at the Innovare Advancement Center in Rome, N.Y. Samuel Marash ’26, Dan Campbell ’08, and Assistant Professor of Physics Viva Horowitz are co-authors.
Several students attended and presented at the American Chemical Society annual meeting in San Diego over spring break. Joe Kubofcik ’25 discussed a project he has been working on since summer of 2023 in collaboration with Khanh Ha from the Masonic Medical Research Institute (MMRI) in Utica, N.Y. They are conducting groundbreaking research to help fight atherosclerosis and heart disease. Dasomie Kim ’25 also works at MMRI for her senior thesis. Madeleine Boger ’25 presented a poster of organic/medicinal chemistry research she has been doing with Associate Professor of Chemistry Max Majireck.
Eight philosophy students and professor Russell Marcus attended the Kretzmann Undergraduate Philosophy Conference at Cornell University in April. Ashley Scheichet ’25 was selected for one of only three presentation slots and spoke about her essay, “Cultural Appropriation as an Activity of Care.”
Four students were accepted for a poster session:
Also attending were Julian Arky ’25, Amanda Scholz ’27, and Jaden Valencia ’25.
Art history concentrators Will Kretz ’26 and Alexander Levine ’25 presented at the SUNY New Paltz undergraduate conference in April.
Their papers were based on the research papers they wrote in Nadya Bair’s Visual Culture and the Jewish Experience class on the photographer Lee Friedlander and the painter Helen Frankenthaler.
The goal of the assignment was to have students conduct primary and secondary source research to make an argument as to whether the fact that the artists were Jewish made a difference in their work or career trajectory.
“From my perspective, this is a great taste of graduate-level work: it entailed writing a conference paper abstract which was screened by panelists for acceptance, as well as distilling the argument and research of a 15-page paper into a 10-minute presentation, which is very similar to the work we as scholars do at the professional level,” Bair said.
“Another Voice: Nuclear energy is New York’s key to a clean energy future,” an op-ed by Chase White ’25, was published in the Buffalo News on March 9. “Moving forward, New York must consider nuclear power as a baseload energy source that will lay the foundations for a sustainable future and help protect the environment for generations to come,” White wrote.
Two students were published in Hobart and William Smith Colleges’ most recent issue of The Aleph: a journal of global perspectives. Shraddha Datta ’25 published a poem and photo, and Tinashe Manguwa ’25 contributed an essay about study in London as well as several photos.
Anna Yankee ’25 won first place in the Oral Communication Center’s annual Three Minute Thesis Competition. The environmental studies major’s topic was Scaling Sustainability: Collaborative approaches and multidimensional scopes of responsibility at Starbucks and Forno Brisa.
Economics major Jennie Weisbrot ’25 took second place and the People’s Choice award with her thesis Pharma Takes a Dive: Comparing Patent Cliffs of Biologics and Small Molecules. Neuroscience major Abigail Lowder ’25 was awarded third place for Modeling Glioblastoma Angiogenesis in Drosophila melanogaster Larvae
The first, second and third place prizes were determined by a panel of judges from the Clinton and Utica area; the People’s Choice Award goes to the speaker with the most audience votes.
Read about what Hamilton’s faculty and staff members have been working on since the beginning of the academic year — research grants, published books, delivered papers, positions at national organizations, and more.
Faculty & Staff News
Kudos! is a roundup that highlights noteworthy student, faculty and staff news, including awards, published scholarly work, presentations at regional or national conferences, upcoming or recent media appearances, and other accolades. To be considered for the next edition, please send pertinent information to pr@hamilton.edu.
Lappalainen ’25, McMahon ’27 Awarded Critical Language Scholarships
Naval Lappalainen ’25 and Xavier McMahon ’27 have been awarded Critical Language Scholarships (CLS) to study Russian this summer. Lappalainen, a double major in history and Russian Studies, from Wilmington, Del., will study in Kyrgyzstan, and McMahon, a double major in world politics and Russian studies from Louisville, Kentucky, will be based in Daugavpils, Latvia.
Bristol Fellows Aim to Minimize Food Waste, Maximize Shark Populations
Sabina Feder ’25 and Brianna “Bri” Padilla ’25 both received Hamilton’s prestigious Bristol Fellowship, which sponsors projects “based on strong personal interest and commitment” and that “exhibit a spirit of inquisitiveness and a seriousness of purpose.”
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