By housing the initiative in historic Old North – the oldest academic building on the Hilltop – the university is symbolically and formally recommitting to, and celebrating, the humanities. Since the university’s founding in 1789, the humanities have been central to a Georgetown education. 

Today, they offer students an entry point into interdisciplinary research that pushes the boundaries of knowledge and facilitates journeys of personal growth.

“The humanities will broaden a student’s perspective of the world around us through a deeper understanding of the human condition and cultures,”  said Toni Boucher, (P’98, ‘00, ‘04), one of the initiative’s founding donors. “The skills developed through the humanities include communication, writing, evaluation of ideas, problem-solving and critical thinking skills, which are essential in any profession.”

Getting Into the Gilded Age

Davis Fellow Melinda Reed (C’25) spent the summer bringing the humanities into her personal passion project, a novel set in the Gilded Age. 

“I wanted to turn a novel I’d started as a teenager into a historically accurate, textured work that I could send to literary agencies,” said Reed, a justice and peace studies major and creative writing minor. “In service of that specific personal goal, my alien-in-the-archives mentality worked—it allowed me to be curious and to approach my research with the mind of an artist as well as a historian.”

Reed began working on the book when she was 16 during a summer writing camp at Georgetown.  

“We went to the National Gallery of Art and were supposed to write something based on a painting,” said Reed. “So, I picked a painting, “Study of Lilia” by Carolus-Duran, and started writing what would become my first novel that I finished in quarantine. Fast forward five years and I started building an academic project around my creative writing, realizing that there were a lot of gaps in that novel because originally I was writing it for fun and not for historical accuracy.”

The book begins the same year Carolus-Duran painted his piece: 1887. A bildungsroman, it follows 19-year-old Lilia Daley from her sheltered rural life through an unplanned pregnancy and a clash of cultures as she begins working as a maid for a wealthy family on the New England coast. 

Reed cites several faculty and staff members at Georgetown as being instrumental to the completion of the project, including creative writing professor and historian , who helped point her in the right direction when she began doing research. Outside of class, Reed worked as a student employee at the Center for , where the  staff were able to help her reframe her creative project as a piece of academic research. 

Reed began her summer in Rhode Island, where she conducted formal research and informal exploration of one of the settings in her work. 

“I’d visited Newport when I was a kid and I remembered these mansions that are typically associated with the Gilded Age and the incredible amount of wealth that certain families had to have these summer homes on the coast,” said Reed. “I was there looking at the current experience and talking to anybody who would talk to me–all of the tour guides were lovely and would talk about the period and help me get a sense of the physical space that the story was set in.” 

Once Reed was back home in New Jersey, she began commuting into New York City to do archival research. There, she looked through journals and letters from the Gilded Age to get a firsthand look at how her characters should speak, act, and think. 

“I got so invested in the stories of the people that I was reading about–reading very personal documents that they probably never intended for anyone else to look at,” said Reed. “I was very aware of that kind of privilege and that distant violation of privacy–to be able to read these documents and meet people who had lived so long ago and had all these emotions and feelings that they put on the page. I honestly felt honored to get a glimpse into their lives.” 

“After doing the research, I realized how much work the book needs in order to make it something I’m willing to send out. Now, I have a clearer sense of what I want the book to look like. 

“Research, broadly defined, is the process of discovery,” said Reed. “But in our attempt to define it more specifically, we’ve narrowed our understanding of what research can be, creating laws and a locked gate professing that only the qualified are allowed to enter and discover for themselves.”

Reconstructing Paradise in the Humanities

Inspiration struck Alex Wang (C’25) during an introductory English literature course when she first read John Milton’s Paradise Lost. 

“All the texts we were reading were canonized—that’s why they’re in a survey course,” said Wang. “I read Paradise Lost and it was such a long, dense, and incredibly beautiful text. It was so good and so amazing, but in many ways it didn’t provide a foundational story that was relatable to me, personally, and to the community that I identify with.”

Wang, who also received a Davis Fellowship to pursue her humanities research over the summer, scripted a one-act theatrical adaptation of Paradise Lost. At the end of the summer, she marked the completion of her script with a reading staged and attended by her close friends.

“I sought to create a world, a paradise, that I wish to live in,” said Wang. “Even with minimal tech, I attempted to envision a coherent space. Having been a director and designer, I often see a world on stage more vividly than I can on paper—and that’s where the audience comes in.”

Wang is a double major in English and political economy with a minor in theater and performance studies. 

“Paradise Lost can establish aesthetics often aligning with mainstream productions, I sought to create a world, a paradise, that I wish to live in. Even with minimal tech, I attempted to envision a coherent space. Having been a director and designer, I often see a world on stage more vividly than I can on paper—and that’s where the audience comes in.

“Universal might not be the right word, but I believe that the script reflects a queer experience that is not just Chinese or only related to one religion,” said Wang. “I hope this work is the first step toward creating more intersectional and cross-cultural projects.”  

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As part of my research, I analyzed Viveros Hermanos, or Sister Nurseries, a regional reforestation project that supports communities to create nurseries for the endangered trees native to each ecosystem. I conducted an analysis on the impact of their project on the communities that they work with to understand how environmental organizations can empower communities to accomplish their goals through environmental conservation. 

The three parts of my analysis were interviews, observation and personal experience. I traveled to different communities in the region to interview community members that were part of the Viveros Hermanos project. 

Alongside this investigation, I was a volunteer at their nature reserve, Reserva Jaguar del Carrizal, where I worked with other international volunteers to support FEBB’s projects.

FEBB purchased the land for the reserve in 2019 and it was completely deforested. In only five years, the entire ecosystem has transformed. The trees they planted now reach between 10 and 30 feet high, the insects came back, there are squirrels, birds, monkeys and butterflies of all colors that flutter around this enchanted forest. 

I like to think of the reserve as a forgiving forest, the newborn forest in the heart of the world. The heart is always the first to forgive and love again. With just a little love, care, dedication and sacrifice, the magic came back. The earth, like I, like us, began to heal. 

Working with FEBB for six weeks, I was able to observe the influence of their work on the environments and communities they worked in firsthand. My personal experience from this research was nothing short of a loving metamorphosis to be better in tune with my environment, myself and my community.  

At the reserve, everyone worked three hours a day, five days a week on projects like bioconstruction, caring for the tree nursery, planting trees, deep cleaning and brainstorming sessions for their new project: a cultural community center. Each person was also responsible for cooking the three daily meals for the group once or twice a week with a partner. 

My decision to research in Colombia was not purely academic — it was also ancestral. My father and our ancestors have indigenous roots to the Caribbean coast of Colombia, specifically to Barranquilla, the sister city to Santa Marta. So this trip was also about reuniting with my ancestral land and connecting with the culture my family lost in migration to more profitable opportunities. 

Exploring the research opportunities at Georgetown turned out to be a bigger vehicle for my long-term career goals. Throughout the whole process of this investigation, I fell in love with participatory research and decided that my goal is to be a research professor who works with communities that are organizing around environmental conservation. This project felt like the first step in this process.

This trip has forever changed the way that I experience the world. I have learned that peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of care, love and collaboration. We heal ourselves as we heal the earth. 

Cover photo by Phil Humnicky.

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The program, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1953, is one of the most prestigious fellowships available to American students, providing an opportunity to pursue a graduate education in the United Kingdom for up to two years. Since the program’s inception, the only institutions to receive five or more scholarships in a single year are Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Princeton and, now, Georgetown.  

“I see this scholarship as the realization of a massive amount of work,” said Greenberg. “Work from the scholars ourselves, but also from our professors, advisors and peers who helped along the way.” 

Synthesizing Science and Style

Through the fellowship, Greenberg will pursue two master’s degrees: one in systems and synthetic biology at Imperial șŁœÇÂÛÌł London and another in science communication and public engagement at the University of Edinburgh. 

“The unique combination of my degrees will give me a valuable perspective and an ability to predict and explain both the short-term and long-term consequences of gene editing,” said Greenberg. “Ultimately, I aspire to lead a research lab to advance the field while being aware of a broader, non-scientific audience.”

Greenberg’s interest in genetic engineering, when humans alter an organism’s DNA, began during an internship at the National Institutes of Health. Working in the lab of Takashi Akera, who studies chromosome dynamics and evolution, Greenberg observed the phenomenon of natural gene drives in mice, where some genetic traits become overrepresented through intragenomic conflict during meiosis. However, according to Mendel’s Law of Segregation, that shouldn’t be possible – two alleles of any gene should have an equal chance of being transmitted.   

“The experience of seeing a real gene drive system in action at the NIH was pivotal for me,” said Greenberg. “Witnessing firsthand an exception to the so-called ‘laws’ of genetics turned my theoretical interest into a practical one, and ignited my motivation to become a gene drive researcher.”

In Greenberg’s eyes, genetic engineering is likely here to stay and that means creating scientific consensus around the morals of the issue and communicating to the public what it means and why it is important. 

“Gene drive technology is the future, but conducting research and raising awareness about it is the present,” said Greenberg. “The field of genetic engineering is both exciting and risky. I want to be someone who works at this frontier with a socially conscious and responsible perspective.”

Greenberg on the Hilltop

Throughout her time as an undergraduate, Greenberg has not only conducted research into molecular biology, molecular genetics and evolutionary genetics, but explored other passions both on the Hilltop and beyond. 

“Naomi is a special scholar – some are good at generating questions and others at working toward their answers. And then there is Naomi, who is unusually good at both,” said , a teaching professor in the who mentored much of Greenberg’s research. “It’s going to be fun over the next few years to watch as she makes the most of these opportunities. I feel like we’re at Cape Canaveral here, watching a scholar launch.” 

In addition to her time at the NIH, Greenberg spent a summer conducting research for the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, where she worked in neurobiologist Erin Schuman’s lab to optimize research experiments and learn molecular biology techniques. This research was supported by a Royden B. Davis Fellowship.

A biology major and journalism minor, Greenberg has sought to unify her love for research and communication. She interned on the communications team at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, where she penned articles for their Ocean Portal website and Smithsonian Magazine. 

On campus, Greenberg spent all four years involved with The Hoya, working as a copy assistant, copy deputy and copy chief. She then founded and led the publication’s science section, which shines a spotlight on science-related news on the Hilltop and beyond. 

In the spring, Greenberg was awarded the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship, one of just 413 recipients in the entire country, for her research in theoretical evolutionary genetics. Established by Congress in 1986 to honor U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater, the scholarship provides up to $7,500 to sophomores and juniors who are pursuing research in the fields of mathematics, engineering or the natural sciences.

For Greenberg, faculty mentorship and guidance has been a highlight of her time on the Hilltop. 

“Practically every professor I have had at Georgetown has been supportive, encouraging and inspiring,” said Greenberg. “Professor Manus Patten, my research mentor, has always gone above and beyond to help me feel supported, yet independent and capable of my own research. In addition, Professors Sarah Johnson and Ronda Rolfes have given me incredible mentorship and career advice. They are amazing role models as I look ahead to a career in research and teaching.” 

After completing her degree programs in the United Kingdom, Greenberg plans to return to the United States and pursue a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology to further explore genetic conflict and how it informs genetic engineering. 

“Naomi’s talents are rare and impressive: she is an erudite and broad-thinking scientist, as well as an immensely talented writer,” said , a professor in the Department of Biology. “I have no doubt that she has a long and impactful career ahead of her.”

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Nami Bolat (C’25), who is double majoring in French and theology and religious studies and minoring in Japanese, spent the past few months researching the Nabis. Bolat spent the summer on a Davis Fellowship, digging through the lives, beliefs and paintings that the Nabis left behind, first in the United States, then in Japan and, finally, in France. 

For Bolat, who has been fascinated by artists of the period since high school, the flow of religious and philosophical ideas from East to West, drew her to the project. 

“I have always been abstractly interested in the interplay between the East and West, especially when it comes to spirituality and religion,” explained Bolat. “Time and time again, it seems like the West has looked to the East for inspiration that they can’t seem to find in their own religions.”

Uncovering the Nabis

The name that the group took, Nabis, comes from the Hebrew word Nebiim, meaning a prophet, enlightened one or seer. 

“The name was coined by the poet Henri Cazali,” said Bolat. “He noticed a similarity between the way the brotherhood of painters sought to revitalize painting and the way the ancient projects had restored Israel.”

The name, and the additional mystical and philosophical trappings of a secret society, stuck. For the Nabis, the ancient prophets of Israel were just one part of a vast network of holy men whose teachings they wanted to uncover and digest. 

“Many of the artists were fascinated by occultism, esotericism and Theosophy,” said Bolat. “Theosophy claimed to be a synthesis of all world religions, a movement that sought the ‘ultimate truth’ expressed by all religions and world views that was very popular in the period amidst a rapidly secularizing France and ever-increasing global communication and exchange.” 

According to Bolat, the Nabis, though secluded by choice, were emblematic of a larger cultural trend, wherein Western thinkers and artists dabbled broadly, sucking in philosophical and religious ideas from the East.  

In her research, Bolat documents how the Nabis were importing more than just a piecemeal assembly of religious ideology, but were also drawing on Japanese art, including ukiyo-e, a genre that flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries and which was popular in Paris at the time. 

“JČč±èČčČÔ±đČő±đ ukiyo-e woodblock prints had a profound and instantaneous impact on European artists,” said Bolat. “It rose in popularity as Western art of the mid-nineteenth century struck an impasse, ensnared by naturalism and sterile academicism.” 

The synthesis studied by Bolat traveled along ideological, religious and artistic avenues. By traveling to Paris and Tokyo, she was able to directly examine artwork from prominent members of the Nabis, including Paul-Élie Ranson, Paul SĂ©rusier, and Maurice Denis. 

“My research has uncovered that Theosophy seems to have been the most prominent religious influence on the group while the Japanese influence was mostly an aesthetic one,” said Bolat. “Theosophy’s attempts to amalgamate or find commonalities between all religions and world views are fascinating, a bit frightening and another example of how the West interacted and continues to interact with the East, both positively and negatively, on the spiritual and religious plane. 

The World as a Classroom

Bolat’s travels and research were funded through a Royden B. Davis Fellowship. Every year, the șŁœÇÂÛÌł of Arts & Sciences awards undergraduate students fellowships between $1,000 and $5,000 to explore “transformative educational experiences.” 

Given in honor of Fr. Davis, Dean of the șŁœÇÂÛÌł of Arts & Sciences from 1966 to 1989, the fellowship empowers students to pursue avenues of interest that extend beyond the boundaries of the classroom, encouraging the curiosity that is at the heart of a liberal arts education. 

“In any situation, one should always leave room for the unexpected and the unseen,” Fr. Davis said in a 1985 commencement address. “In order to do this, we must employ the imagination
 One gains through the imagination a freedom of action, and ability to be ready for fresh choices.”

For Bolat, her summer experience not only expanded her horizons, but allowed her to connect her personal identity, interests and area of study. Bolat, who has relatives in France and Japan, was able to reconnect with family while studying the Nabis. 

“I began my travels afraid I was about to face a tremendously lonely journey, worried that my subpar Japanese wouldn’t be enough to feel close to the family I’ve left behind there, worried to be all alone wandering around Paris,” said Bolat. “I was proven completely and utterly wrong.”

, an associate professor in the , sponsored Bolat’s research and mentored her throughout the process. 

“Nami’s project is an exciting and interdisciplinary one that has allowed her to combine all of her academic areas of interest in important and wide-ranging ways,” said O’Neil-Henry. “Using her Japanese and French language skills, Nami was able to access different international archives and museums and in the process discover connections among history, art history, culture and religion.”

Throughout her travels and archival research at home, Bolat was able to better understand the Nabis and herself.  

“Every single day brought something new and exciting,” said Bolat. “Even during the month before I left, I was immersed in research and there were so many times when my jaw was on the floor at what I was reading.”

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Given in honor of Fr. Davis, the Dean of the șŁœÇÂÛÌł from 1966 to 1989, the fellowship strikes at the center of a liberal arts education – a commitment to curiosity and growth. 

“In any situation, one should always leave room for the unexpected and the unseen,” Fr. Davis said in a 1985 commencement address. “In order to do this, we must employ the imagination
 One gains through the imagination a freedom of action, and ability to be ready for fresh choices.” 

The 2022 cohort of fellows boasted 24 undergraduate scholars, each of which embodies the best of the șŁœÇÂÛÌł. 

Winni Zheng (C’23)

The Davis Fellowship enabled Winni Zheng (C’23) to stay in Washington, DC over the summer and continue her work with , a professor in the . 

“The Davis Fellowship allowed me to not only work in person, but grow closer to Professor Barr over the summer,” says Zheng. “I was able to come into the lab every day, get feedback, ask for input, and focus on research without any outside distractions.” 

Barr’s lab, the (ELP), explores questions of social and cognitive development in childhood. The “” research that Zheng worked on during the summer examined how grandparents and grandbabies stayed connected via video chat during the pandemic. 

“In an era of social distancing, how do parents, grandparents and infants keep in touch with each other?” asks Barr. “We asked parents and grandparents across the country about their use of video chat during the pandemic and obtained recordings of video chats between grandparents, their new grandchildren and the child’s parents.” 

The showed that frequent, short video visits enabled grandparents and grandchildren to form emotional bonds during the pandemic despite physical separation. For Zheng, a senior majoring in economics and following a pre-health track, the project allowed her to be involved in the research process from inception to publication.  

“I first began working on a protocol for coding the video chats – figuring out how to describe the ways children react to their grandparents and vice versa,” Zheng says. “Then, I was able to actually code the recordings for the research team’s analysis.”

Zheng’s hands-on experience comes with skills that can’t be acquired in a classroom. For Barr, it’s important to foster undergraduate research opportunities. More than a dozen undergraduate students participate as ELP team members and are engaged in real-world research.  

“Undergraduate research gives students an opportunity to participate in a process that results in entirely new knowledge,” Barr says. “Students not only develop research skills, but learn about  teamwork and build science communication skills.” 

The chance to conduct research under Barr’s tutelage has informed Zheng’s post-college plans. 

“I began this fellowship with the intention of applying to grad school right after graduation,” Zheng says. “Professor Barr connected me with several ELP alumni and I’ve come to realize that I still have a lot to learn about myself and my interests. I am incredibly grateful to Professor Barr for her guidance and advice.”

After working with Zheng for the majority of her undergraduate career, Barr is confident she’ll land on her feet no matter what path she chooses to take. 

“Winni is an excellent researcher – intelligent, conscientious and curious,” Barr says. She learns quickly and she always follows through.” 

Reina Lau (C’25)

For Reina Lau (C’25), the Davis Fellowship allowed her the freedom to explore a future career. Over the summer, she landed an internship in the Criminal Court Bureau at the Office of the Richmond County District Attorney. 

“Criminal Court is the only unit placed in the Staten Island Supreme Courthouse,” Lau explains. “I was able to attend arraignment court daily and sit in on certain hearings. It was an incredible, eye-opening experience.”

A sophomore majoring in economics and government with a minor in psychology, Lau has long been interested in pursuing a legal career, but the pandemic prevented her from acquiring experience through in-person internships. 

“Since I was 15, I have planned on going to law school and becoming a criminal prosecutor. That was the plan,” Lau says. “I had the opportunity to intern with the District Attorney’s Office in high school, but then the pandemic hit. And the only opportunity available was a once-a-week Zoom seminar.”

With in-person internships once again available, Lau secured a position in the Criminal Court Bureau, which is usually reserved for legal interns. This gave Lau the chance to see firsthand the career she’d always wanted.”

“Every day, I got to be in the Staten Island Supreme Courthouse,” Lau says. “I prepared case files, redacted documents and drafted certificates of compliance. I really saw it all.” 

That experience led Lau to a big realization – the career in criminal prosecution she’d imagined back in high school didn’t exactly match up with the reality she saw in the courtroom.  

“All in all, this internship was an incredible experience because it allowed me to really see

what being a prosecutor entails and opened my eyes to other possibilities in the field of law as an attorney,” Lau says.

That doesn’t mean she’s abandoned the law school plan, however. Lau is still pursuing a pre-law track in her studies, but wants to explore other doors that a J.D. could open. 

“Because of the Davis Fellowship, I am not only looking to expand my academic pursuits into different fields, especially with economics and science, but also eager to pursue other experiences or internships, such as politics on the Hill or private firms,” says Lau. 

Applications for the 2023 Davis Fellowship open on January 9, 2023 and will be due by March 14, 2023. Students in the șŁœÇÂÛÌł with questions should write to the chair of the Royden B. Davis Fellowship Committee, Dr. Bernie Cook, at cookbj@georgetown.edu. 

Founded in 1997 to protect its namesake monkey, Colobus Conservation is a nonprofit dedicated to the coastal forest habitat of eastern Kenya. Today, the organization’s mission spans far beyond the Colobus monkey and encompasses a slew of programs organized around animal welfare, ecology, conservation and eco-tourism. 

From the Classroom to the Coastline 

During the spring semester, students designed an educational visitors center for the conservation center with two audiences in mind: both local schoolchildren and tourists drawn to the coast. The materials they designed were created to both augment local educational efforts and to inform visitors about the ecology of their vacation destination. 

“As a biological physics major and environmental activist at Georgetown, my academic trajectory met a crossroads through this program,” reflects Victoria Boatwright (C’22). “I was able to see how scientific fieldwork and environmental knowledge connected to local conservation efforts and mitigation of human impacts.”

Before journeying across the Atlantic, the team outlined their goals for the content of the space. They wanted the information contained in the educational wing to consider the biodiversity of the local ecosystem, the challenges facing that biodiversity, what the conservation center has already done to combat those challenges and what visitors can do to help going forward. 

“We really emphasized the final section to incite grassroots conservation that spreads through the community based on the message they take away from the exhibit,” explains John Katial (C’25). “We used the to make primate cutouts and QR codes, brainstormed graphics and wall displays that would help us convey ideas in a meaningful and informative manner, decided on murals for the four walls and planned out the logistics of the space.” 

During their three weeks in Kenya, the team took up the physical labor of realizing the space, including painting walls, drilling, sanding, hanging informational panels and general construction work, alongside the executive work of ensuring that the center’s managers and stakeholders are well-equipped to incorporate the educational wing into their regular programming. 

Studying Primate-Human Interactions 

The team also collected data for a study of primate-human interactions at coastal hotels in the Diana Beach area. 

“Ongoing primate interactions not only pose health risks to humans, but often lead hotel managers to take aggressive actions against animals whose habitats have been overtaken by tourist developments,” explains Katial. “To better understand these interactions, we spent many afternoons and mornings collecting data on the frequency and nature of these interactions as well as the general primate behavior on hotel premises.”

One of the conservation center’s fledgling missions was to tackle the issue of the deaths of Colobus monkeys along a heavily-trafficked thoroughfare through the community. These primate-human interactions pose risks to both humans and monkeys. 

“It was eye-opening to interact so closely with the monkeys of Diani,” says Boatwright. “We saw firsthand how much humans have encroached into their habitat, and what we can do to mitigate our negative impacts on wildlife.”

Alongside the data collection, the team assisted conservation center staff with general day-to-day activities – food collection for animals in the reintroduction program, upkeep of facilities and assisting veterinary teams with monkey rescues. 

The group included Annie Maines (C’22), Alexa MacKinnon (C’22), Greg Latronica (C’24), Jane Doherty (C’23), Shelby Benz (SFS’23) and Kathryn Fouss (MSB’23). The trip was led by , and . Three students — Boatwright, Katial and Doherty — were members of the 2022 Class of Royden B. Davis Fellows . Each year, as part of its expansion of support for high impact learning opportunities, Georgetown’s șŁœÇÂÛÌł of Arts & Sciences awards summer research and experiential learning fellowships in honor Fr. Davis, who served as Dean from 1966 to 1989. 

Funding and institutional support for the project came from the , , and the . 

Researching a Better Response

Goldstein first became interested in computer science due to its practical applications. An aspiring entrepreneur, Goldstein hopes that learning the technical skills behind computer science will help him start his own company. 

At the end of his first semester at Georgetown, Goldstein reached out to the head of the InfoSense Lab, Professor , an expert in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and information retrieval (IR).

After their meeting, Yang invited Goldstein to sit in on her graduate course Experimental Artificial Intelligence and later agreed to oversee Goldstein’s summer research project where he will assist a graduate student in experiments on building a novel, large-scale neural index to retrieve passages that contain answers to questions being asked. 

At the InfoSense Lab, members research topics on artificial intelligence, information retrieval, machine learning (ML), and privacy. The mission of the lab is to study how people seek and process “information” and make “sense” out of it, with the assistance of AI and potentially in a privacy-preserving manner. 

“We work on a broad range of projects, from dialogue systems, search engines, AI games, virtual reality, to self-driving cars”, Yang says, “Justin brings new life to the lab and is always energetic, curious and full of ideas. Although he is still a junior researcher, the project he works on involves cutting-edge deep representation learning and is very challenging.” 

Specifically, Goldstein will design a new indexing method for retrieving passages that contain answers to questions being asked by a user. This project uses neural networks to improve answers to a user’s search. Neural networks are a series of algorithms that attempt to recognize underlying relationships in a set of data through processes that mimic the way the human brain operates. 

Though passage retrieval by neural networks is slow, Goldstein and his fellow researchers aim to increase the efficiency of passage retrieval by moving most of the heavy computation offline so that the answers are much easier to retrieve when the user makes their search. 

Goldstein says that his work on this project “has given me great insights into how my course work can be applied.”

“It also gives me perspective on how I might shape my computer science education at Georgetown in the years ahead,” Goldstein says. “AI and Information Retrieval will likely continue to be important in the next century as people rely less on memorizing facts, and more on the tools they use to find facts. This research has allowed me to develop an interest in this subject area and it has shown me how much work there is still left to do.”

Campus Activities

In addition to his work with the Infosense Lab, Goldstein is also the leader of the Special Projects team for Georgetown Disruptive Technology and a Google student developer lead for Georgetown Disruptive Technology. He also serves as a project manager for TAMID’s technical consulting chapter.

Pursuing a Policy Path

Paterson, a government major, was chosen as a Davis Fellow in May of 2020. The program helps to fund service learning, community-based work and unpaid internships which are meaningfully connected to a student’s academic interests. Davis Fellows can also apply for funding to support summer lab work, field work and independent inquiry under the guidance of a faculty mentor.

In the spring of 2019, Paterson interned for Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), who recently sponsored a bill encouraging states and localities to use ranked voting. This system of voting ensures that winning candidates always receive a majority of the vote rather than the plurality by allowing individuals to rank their choices, which is especially helpful in races with more than two candidates. 

“Majority rule is one of the core principles of our democracy, but recently candidates have been able to win elections with less than 50 percent of the vote, sometimes by a little as 20 or 30 percent, which means a majority of voters actually opposed that candidate,” says Paterson. “Ranked choice voting ensures that everyone can vote their heart without worrying about “splitting” the vote to third party candidates, because you can rank your choices. This isn’t important just for presidential candidates, but also for state and local races, which are just as important in shaping policy.”

Through her work with Rep. Raskin, Paterson became interested in electoral reforms and came across FairVote, an organization based in Takoma Park, Maryland that had supported Raskin’s bill.

“I was drawn to organizing and community engagement and knew that I wanted to continue to do that in future career opportunities,” says Paterson. “The aspect of FairVote that I really enjoyed was that it allowed me to focus on individual communities, instead of just the national sphere.”  

After she was hired for a virtual internship, Paterson drafted short- and long-form blog posts for the organization and assisted with social media audits. She found learning about the voting process in depth the most rewarding.

“After working at an electoral reform organization, it is easy to see how the current system does not accurately reflect individual voting preferences,” Paterson says. “Voters worry too much about “electability” and not enough about who actually represents their values. Sometimes it’s not even the fault of the candidates, but the system itself that encourages and creates suboptimal outcomes. 

Looking Ahead

Paterson realized she wanted to pursue a career in policy after her 2019 summer internship with Giffords – an organization founded by and named for former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords – that is dedicated to fighting gun violence. 

In her role on the engagement team for Giffords, Paterson worked to build fellowships for youth activists and organized rallies to call for funding to study gun violence for the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institute of Health (NIH).

Now in her senior year, Paterson is writing a thesis centered around Asian American and African American group dynamics that will investigate whether the anti-Asian political rhetoric during the COVID-19 pandemic led to increased support of the Black Lives Matter movement by Asian Americans. 

Paterson said that her internships served as a catalyst to further study the dynamics of political systems so she can one day influence and write policy for a better election process.  

“My biggest takeaway from my time at FairVote is that we cannot take the systems that shape our world for granted,” Paterson says. “It is imperative that we not only study the outcomes of the systems, but the systems themselves so that we can improve the structures that determine our lives.”

Gibbons-Shapiro was first drawn to this opportunity through the because she wanted to do work that combined her with her concentration, a new program directed by . With the aid of this fellowship, the Davis Fellowship Program, and the Disability Studies Learning in Practice  Fellowship, Gibbons-Shapiro traveled to Kazakhstan to conduct research on the .

Working to End Disability Discrimination

Founded in 2017 by  Nazarbayev University undergraduate Maulen Akhmetov, the Kunde Social CafĂ© is a coffee shop that primarily employs individuals who have an intellectual or mental disability, such as autism or schizophrenia. The goal of the cafĂ© is to give these persons jobs and pay regardless of their educational backgrounds. On a deeper level, Akhmetov wanted to provide assistance for these employees and their families, but also normalize people with these types of disabilities in the workforce. 

During her two month stay in Kazakhstan, Gibbons-Shapiro worked on a social impact assessment of Kunde Social CafĂ© to determine how well these goals were being met. She was given full control of the project and oversaw its design and implementation. 

Gibbons-Shapiro interviewed each of the beneficiaries and their family members about various aspects of the program and its effects on the lives of the participants and those around them. With the assistance of Audrey Zhou (MSB’21), data was compiled into a 20 page report that found that those who worked in the cafĂ© had seen improvements in their lives. 

“Before Kunde CafĂ©, many of these people were social outcasts and did not have friends or a network outside of their family,” says Gibbons-Shapiro. “But the cafĂ© has given them a community and a sense of belonging. Many of them are friends outside of work.”

The café workers are not the only ones who have felt the positive impacts of the program. Due to the stigmas surrounding mental disabilities, family members of these individuals are frequently isolated. Now, they participate in monthly meetings with families of other café members, and can spend more time focusing on other aspects of their lives. The program has contributed to better relationships for the participants in many ways.

“Beyond just giving these people a job, the cafĂ© has helped give the employees a sense of self-worth and improved their relationships with their families,” says Gibbons-Shapiro. “They are now empowered and have something that is theirs that they can be proud of doing.” 

Next Steps

Due to Gibbons-Shapiro’s findings, Akhmetov will use the study to apply to grants in the hopes of expanding the cafĂ© to other locations. Gibbons-Shapiro hopes to continue to do work of this nature in the future.

“I really enjoyed sitting down and talking to people about their lives,” says Gibbons-Shapiro. “I was able to implement the theories that I have been learning in class regarding care, intersectionality, and community in a positive and impactful way. Specifically, this has encouraged me to orient my professional life towards the intersection of health and social justice using disability studies.”

Change for the Better

Oyinlola originally applied to do a homestay and internship with a packaging business in France to utilize her double majors in Economics and French. She was ultimately placed with the Centre de Communauté Arques in Arques, France after applying to the Davis Fellowship.

“This experience taught me that as much as one prepares for an endeavor, things do not always go as planned and we must adapt accordingly,” says Oyinlola. “Looking back this was the best thing that could have happened. I was able to learn from the community in a way I never would have been able to otherwise, and this will help me immeasurably as I move forward.”

Working in Arques

Arques has limited external growth. Many individuals do not have jobs despite recent economic development, and people rarely leave. Through her work at the community center instructing children in English and working with members of the town, Oyinlola was able to research ways to improve programs by interacting with the community members. She soon realized that many of Arques’ problems were rooted in economic difficulties.

“As I dug deeper, I realized that without a proper economic development strategic plan, Arques would likely be unable to thrive because of the scarcity of the requisite exposure that breeds innovation,” Oyinlola says. “In collaboration with my colleagues and the center’s partners, we developed different programs to drive economic development in the community.”

She spent a great deal of time developing the existing programs further by researching trends, conducting a comparative analysis of the region, and looking holistically at the implications of mobilizing the Arques community. 

Oyinlola also researched and created a report that outlined various ways that the center could become a social enterprise for Arques.  

She was able to develop suggestions for improving existing programs due to her time working directly with members of the community as she was able to learn directly what they needed.

“I could really see the gaps that existed in this community by immersing myself in it,” says Oyinola. “It is important to develop ideas and theories, but the hands-on groundwork is essential for the success of any project like this. That and listening to what those individuals were telling me.”

Going Further

Since she was a junior in high school, Oyinlola has been interested in economic development. After gaining first-hand experience in Arques, she hopes to take all that she has learned and apply it to countries in Africa.

“Eventually I want to go into development economics specifically in Africa to help resolve some of the challenges confronted by these nations,” says Oyinlola. “Through this experience, I feel more confident in my own skills and more confident to take what I have learned beyond this one experience to my work after my time at Georgetown.”