While all Laidlaw Scholars will be presenting their research at the Columbia Undergraduate Research Symposium in the fall, what are the more immediate expectations that you have for your research? Are you writing a paper? Will your research be part of a larger scientific study? Do you hope to produce an annotated bibliography that you reflect on down the line? Is your research now the first phase of a project you’ll continue to work on throughout the year, and/or next summer? Now that we are nearing the one month mark of the program, please write about your expectations for your research.

The goal for my Laidlaw Research this summer is to write and publish a paper. I'm really excited to use this opportunity to make a contribution to my field and discover even more aspects of my topic through the process of writing. Although this specific project will likely be limited to this summer, it has allowed me to develop a toolkit of resources and provided the time to read prominent literature in my field. This particular project has additionally raised a number of questions about patterns I've observed regarding the field of Classical Reception, which undoubtedly will inspire future research. I also anticipate that these questions and the aforementioned resources will orient me while writing my senior thesis, and I've started keeping a document of potential topics to look back on when the time comes.

Why does your research matter? Explain the significance of the question you are investigating, and why you are interested in it.

I firmly believe that the heritage of ideas matter. Although our political and constitutional thought has evolved since the time of the founders, their biases and ideas are still impactful in our modern day system and their intellectual heritage is just as important as ours. My research evaluates to what extent Classical ideas of expansion played into the Constitution, providing an alternative lens for viewing early American expansion into the West. This specific topic has not yet been examined by scholars of the founders' classical roots but is incredibly important to early American history, a trend in both fields that has sparked my interest.

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