Second Summer Laidlaw Scholars, Summer 2023

Below you will find a series of questions that correspond to the 6 weeks of your Laidlaw project. Please plan to respond to one question each week, and please also reply to the post of another Laidlaw Scholar as well. Photos, video and multimedia are always welcome!
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Week One:
As you set out on your research or community engagement project, do you find yourself experiencing any worries or insecurities about saying something that’s already been said? How do we as researchers and/or volunteers learn to address or set aside those insecurities or, better yet, to use them to our advantage?

If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer’s project influenced your project this year, and if so how?  If your project is different, what tools have you developed to help you work on this project?

Week Two:
If your project connects with your research from last summer, explain the ways in which it picks up on themes, issues, or questions that are important to you. How are you expanding on your project from last summer? How is your understanding of this topic evolving?

If you are doing a leadership-in-action or community engagement project, how do you interact with community members, and what kind of conversations are you having? How do you connect with this community of people, and what common cause do you find?

Week Three:
What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!

Week Four:
What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

Week Five:
What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

Week Six:
For your final post, upload a video presentation or create a written or photographic narrative in which you discuss your project: why did you become interested in this project, what was the goal of the project, what was its significance or impact (real or potential). How did the project evolve or change over the course of these six weeks? Finally, please consider how your understanding of leadership (curiosity, empathy, teamwork, resilience, etc.) has informed your work or been deepened by your work.

Things to keep in mind if you are posting a recording: do not speak too quickly! Try to record in a quiet space with minimum background noise. While you should not read from a sheet of paper, practice your speech a few times before recording. Also, be sure that you describe your project in a way that is accessible to viewers who are not experts in your field, and who may not be familiar with your project. Your video should be relatively short–2-5 minutes is ideal!

Please answer these questions by creating a post of your own each week! In addition, please plan on responding to another student’s post that you find interesting. Scroll down to the bottom of the entry and hit “Leave a comment”. Leave your reply in the box provided.

Remember: you should post your own responses by Thursday. You should respond to another student’s response by Friday. 

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Go to the profile of Sylvi Stein
10 months ago

Week 1:

If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer’s project influenced your project this year, and if so how?  If your project is different, what tools have you developed to help you work on this project?

I am already on my third week of working in at the American Library in Paris, and so far, I have been mostly using my research from last summer to talk with the American visitors about the arts of Paris versus the arts of NYC. I'm working here because Jacqueline Yu, a Laidlaw scholar in the year above us, worked here last summer, and she told me about this organization. My job here is mostly to do research on various potential donors and authors in Paris in order to invite them to library events. The American Library in Paris is the largest English language library in Europe (or so they claim) and they are a non-profit, so a large part of my work is dedicated to helping the fundraising team. I am also called on at a lot of events to "inject youth" into the large donor groups (which consist of an older generation of patrons) and I have found that my art historical research from last year has helped me to become quite knowledgable about the contemporary art scene in general. I have also been reading a lot since I arrived, because I spend so much time on the Metro (also I don't have any homework to distract me yet) so I have been educating myself in the contemporary literary scene as well. I got to meet the American author Andrew Sean Greer, whose book won the Pulitzer in recent years. (It was also, surprisingly, a passage on my SAT...) I also spoke to Michael Chabon about contemporary arts and galleries in New York. I guess my leadership skills have helped a little in the confidence I need to project when helping library patrons.

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
9 months ago

Hi Sylvie! I hope all is well! It was great to meet up with you and Paris and watch you excel with your work with the American Library in Paris! It's quite exciting how diversified your work is!

Go to the profile of Sylvi Stein
10 months ago

Week Two:

If you are doing a leadership-in-action or community engagement project, how do you interact with community members, and what kind of conversations are you having? How do you connect with this community of people, and what common cause do you find?

I am working in a small community of American ex-pats living in France (and around half of the staff at the library either went to Columbia or has a kid who did... bizarre...). I have been talking about books, American books mostly, and also a lot about my life as a student. People are interested to hear what it's like in America politically- and how that manifests itself in the day-to-day interactions I have with others. I have greatly enjoyed these conversations and how they allow me to learn what it is like to live in a country that isn't America- it's strange because American schools pretty much exclusively prepare you for American life and jobs.

Go to the profile of Julia Goralsky
8 months ago

Hi Sylvi! That's really cool! I can definitely relate - as I was doing an internship in France, one of the topics we talked about most was how American policies relating to education differ from EU/UK, etc., which was certainly enlightening. 

Go to the profile of Peter McMaster
10 months ago

Week One: 

If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer’s project influenced your project this year, and if so how?  If your project is different, what tools have you developed to help you work on this project?

This summer I am working at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe in Tokyo, Japan. My work differs from the research I did last summer in that my focus is now on presenting my research to the public and devising ways to make it more accessible. Last summer laid much of the foundation for my work this summer, since I am basing my current work on the knowledge and expertise in astrophysics I gained from my previous research. Presentation and communication skills will be important to the success of my project this summer, so these are things that I am currently trying to improve. 

Go to the profile of Sylvi Stein
10 months ago

This is so cool! Did you always plan to go to Tokyo? What resources do you find at the Kavli Institute that are different from the Columbia resources?

Go to the profile of Charlie Hoskins
10 months ago

If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer's project influence your project this year, and if so how? If your project is different, what tools have you developed to help you work on this project? 

My project this summer differs from last summer as I am working in a legal-based setting as opposed to the world of academia. However, my project last summer and part of its focus on settler colonialism in Australia have heavily influenced what I am doing. First, I am doing quite a bit of archiving for the organisation, making sure that all of their legal material is in their databases and filing papers that cannot be thrown out yet, working with the lawyers and paralegals to ensure all their work is digitalised. My research last summer is helping me to get through a lot of files quickly and read over the information and analyse it quickly. This summer differs more tangibly from my last summer project as I also have a role in helping design and implement a program with our legal clients to ensure their mental health is tracking well. This involves interacting directly with clients on the phone, which is very different to reading in libraries. I have had to develop my ability to talk effectively to clients and identify when they need help. As most of our clients are in the legal system because of the lasting impacts of settler colonialism and the intergenerational trauma that ensues, I have been able to use my research and adapt it to understand better what our clients are facing. I have also been using my leadership skills, but more my ability to lead from the front. 

Go to the profile of Ashwin Marathe
10 months ago

Hey Charlotte! The work you're doing sounds really interesting, especially the archival work with lawyers/paralegals. I imagine there are a lot of documents to go through but it seems like the client part of it adds a more public facing role. Excited to hear what you learn from your clients!

Go to the profile of Charlie Hoskins
10 months ago

Week Two: 

If your project connects with your research from last summer, explain the ways in which in which it picks up on themes, issues, or questions that are important to you. How are you expanding on your project from last summer? How is your understanding of this topic evolving? 

My project continues the themes of settler colonialism, injustice and connection to land that my project last summer focussed on, but applies it to the present day. It is continuing to answer the question I have of how settler colonialism still impacts Indigenous communities. But, rather than looking specifically of the role of literature in telling us about the history of settler colonialism, I am instead looking at what legal cases show us about the current continuation of settler colonialism. My understanding of this topic is subsequently evolving. Though I know about how settler colonialism continues to impact First Nations peoples in Australia, my knowledge of how unjust the Australian legal system is towards Indigenous Australians is growing with every day I go into work. 

Go to the profile of Sylvi Stein
10 months ago

Do you think that the narrative of present-day discrimination towards Indigenous Australians is acknowledged in a similar or different way to the U.S. understanding of discrimination towards the Indigenous people of America?

Go to the profile of Noah J Bergam
10 months ago

Week 1
Q: If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer’s project influenced your project this year, and if so how?


A: I think last summer's project set me up with the "research literacy" to succeed in my current project.
For reference, last summer, I conducted a large-scale, automated analysis of the political undertones of Supreme Court transcripts dating back to 1955. This summer, I am simultaneously researching and creating educational content regarding climate modeling. I think research literacy––in the sense of being able to read through sophisticated work and capture the main ideas quickly, while filtering out the auxiliary details––is crucial to balancing these two priorities and coming out of this with the deliverables that I want. The whole goal of this summer, for me, is to explore a new and important area of applied mathematics and create materials that can help other students do the same. Last summer taught me how to scale steep learning curves: this summer, I want to apply those lessons in a pedagogical way.

Go to the profile of Noah J Bergam
10 months ago

Week Two.

Q: If your project connects with your research from last summer, explain the ways in which it picks up on themes, issues, or questions that are important to you. How are you expanding on your project from last summer? How is your understanding of this topic evolving?

A: Both last summer's project and my current work are about mathematical modeling, which is a very tricky subject. Unlike pure mathematics, which works in the space of abstractions and propositions, math modeling projects are data-centered. When working with data, there are somewhat competing perspectives at play. In one sense, there is way too much data and we need to distill the most important information, efficiently. In another sense, there is practically never enough data, because we often justify our inferences according to "laws of large numbers" and "central limit theorems," beautiful results that only apply "in the limit," as the number of data points goes to infinity. 
In any case, this summer, I am gaining a much richer understanding of the mathematical modeling toolbox. I am looking at a wider variety of statistical methods (spline regression, MCMC parameter estimation) compared to last summer, where I almost exclusively used transformer-based language models. This is helpful for me as I begin to work on the pedagogical material for this project. 

Go to the profile of Denise Taveras
10 months ago

Week One:
As you set out on your research or community engagement project, do you find yourself experiencing any worries or insecurities about saying something that’s already been said? How do we as researchers and/or volunteers learn to address or set aside those insecurities or, better yet, to use them to our advantage?

My work this summer engages with policy reform in Probation and Parole (community supervision) throughout the US. Right now, I am working with a team that is trying to showcase the effectiveness of less punitive community supervision and the importance of community programs in supporting people throughout their reentry and reintegration into society after incarceration. Because of how resistant many people are to these reforms, having existing examples of successful reform implementation is essential in convincing people that community supervision isn't helping people in the way it should right now. Leaning into this has been helpful in garnering support for these policy reforms. 

Week Two:
If your project connects with your research from last summer, explain the ways in which it picks up on themes, issues, or questions that are important to you. How are you expanding on your project from last summer? How is your understanding of this topic evolving?

My work this summer loosely connects with last summer. While I examined community responses to police violence through music the previous summer, I am now looking at how policing looks like for people on probation and parole. Specifically, I’ve been working with people on promoting legislation that makes these systems less punitive and restrictive on people's lives. Policing and its inability to effectively enforce public safety, particularly in black and brown communities, is a vital thread that connects my work across these 2 years. Last summer I engaged with the worst possible results of policing (fatal violence against community members) and this summer I am working with one of the more ideal courses that happens when you enter the system (the criminal justice system) which involves doing your time and getting out early on probation or parole. While I have an abolitionist perspective that is greatly informed by work from last summer, it's been really important for me to think about the more practical side of abolition and the role reform plays in impacting lives right now. I've been learning a lot about the importance of balancing the goals of abolition and the need for immediate change.

Go to the profile of Ashwin Marathe
10 months ago

Hi all! I have been working at the Justice Lab for the past three weeks and I'm enjoying my time there. Apologies for the late posts, but here are some responses to the past three weeks!

Week One:

Q: If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer’s project influenced your project this year, and if so how?  If your project is different, what tools have you developed to help you work on this project?

A: My work this summer is different from my research last semester, which was an oral history on the Farmers' Protest. At the Justice Lab, I am working on the Square One project, which is a narrative change project on criminal justice reform in different states. For that, I have joined in on meetings on the work happening in Oklahoma, including some roundtables that brought together different stakeholders (business leaders, pastors, the mayor, etc) to discuss criminal justice reform. I have, however, continued my interest in oral history by editing transcripts of interviews conducted with roundtable participants. Overall, it's been exciting to learn about the different criminal justice initiatives at the Lab and helping wherever I can!

Week Two:

Q: If you are doing a leadership-in-action or community engagement project, how do you interact with community members, and what kind of conversations are you having? How do you connect with this community of people, and what common cause do you find?

A: I've really enjoyed having conversations about a wide variety of topics in criminal justice reform (CJR)—from solitary confinement, the Rikers prison, narrative change, and more—with people at the Lab and local leaders in Oklahoma. The common cause that binds everyone is a desire to reform the criminal justice system to make it more humane and less discriminatory. Becoming more involved in these conversations has been extremely educational for me because I am learning the nuances of the different parts of the criminal justice system. It has also sparked an interest in doing my own set of interviews with local re-entry organizations in New York for the radio station, merging my passion for radio with my interest in carceral reform. 

Week Three:

Q: What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!

A: I typically work in the office from 9am-5pm, though some stakeholder meetings in Oklahoma (held over Zoom) are in the evenings from 6-8pm. Each day, I compile a list of tasks I want to complete that day (cleaning transcripts, reading reports/books/research, etc) and get started. If there are any morning meetings with the Square One team, I look over the agenda and join them. Sometimes there are also meetings with members of the Lab throughout the day to learn about their projects that I attend. Other than that, for the rest of the day, I continue completing whichever tasks I have and update my team to continue our workflow. We also go on field trips sometimes! I have attached a photo of our group after attending a re-entry simulation at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which was extremely educational and valuable. We gained a better understanding of prisoners who are re-entering society and were placed in a simulation, which included doing tasks like visiting our probation officers, paying for transportation (we only had 3 public transport tickets), looking for employment, finding a place to sleep, etc. I didn't really understand how hard it is to re-enter society with no help until after physically completing the simulation.  Though we look excited in the photo, it was quite sad to realize these challenges and hear from formerly incarcerated individuals on their experiences re-entering society after prison.

Photo link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Tyeci1j9kjZEDE6m9

Go to the profile of Akshay Manglik
7 months ago

That sounds very interesting - how did you get involved with the Square One project originally? Were there any issues that you focused on in particular over the course of the summer?

Go to the profile of Charlie Hoskins
10 months ago

Week Three:
What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!

I head to my organisation's office everyday and work from 9am to 4:30pm. My commute is roughly an hour on the train each way which gives me plenty of time to read some great books! Each day I work at the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service looks slightly different. On Mondays and Thursdays I work with the Criminal Law team going through old files and making sure cases have all their documents uploaded onto the online database we use. Though the searching for documents, scanning and uploading process is quite tedious at times, it is really interesting getting more familiar with how criminal law works and the types of cases we tackle. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays I split my time between Corporate Services and Client Feedback Program. In Corporate Services, I do work going through some really old files such as psych reports and determining if they can be thrown out yet, as well as designing a step-by-step guide for other volunteers in how to do our Client Feedback Program, which involves calling clients and determining if they need more support, such as mental health services or help from ACCHOs (Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations) while their matter is with us. The calls are also a great way for those clients who do need someone to talk with to have a yarn with someone about what they are going through. I have also done some work with the Policy team at VALS, which involved watching the Inquiry into the Victorian Budget Estimates for 2023-24 and taking notes for the team so they can use it in their policy projects. Overall the work is very engaging and everyday I encounter different things! 

Here is the link to a photo of the Inquiry into the Budget Estimates and the notes I was taking: 

Shared album - Charlie Hoskins - Google Photos

Go to the profile of Kelly Warner
10 months ago

Week 1:

So, this is a bit belated considering that I am well onto my third week, but that being said, when it was my first week I did have some worries about the nature of my research, especially regarding the repetitious nature of it. I am currently working on creating a literature review regarding stigma and mental health in Ireland for the charity, Mental Health Ireland. Since it is a literature review, the point is for it to be a little repetitive but in a more clear and concise manner to help the charity I am working at (and potentially others) to determine what is needed to best measure and consequentially address mental health stigma in a given population. For me, in addressing these insecurities, it has been the most helpful to think of the larger picture of what my work has the potential to do in terms of its potential application to mental health movements encouraging increased awareness. It has also been helpful in increasing my own awareness of mental health concerns, especially considering the different views and issues that Ireland has had regarding mental health in comparison to the States.

This project does differ from my work last summer, in which I worked in Columbia's Social and Moral Cognition Lab researching moral cognition in children. There is some overlap between the subject areas of this summer and last summer's projects, given that they are both psychological research based, but they are vastly different approaches to research in vastly different settings. However, I have been able to carry over some skills that I developed last summer into this summer. My willingness to ask questions when I don't understand or when I am merely curious about something has been incredibly helpful to me thus far, especially given that I have to adapt to a different countries research practices and standards. 

Go to the profile of Kelly Warner
10 months ago

Week 2:

My research broadly connects with the research I did last summer in that they are both related to cognitive processes and their impact on beliefs/actions. This project allows me to explore the cognitive processes I researched last summer in a more practical setting, in a different stage in development- in a mental health setting. My understanding of cognition has evolved given that I have been looking into the implications of negative beliefs on a given population, how it impacts and environment, and potentially makes it an unsafe environment for discussion and the sharing of ideas.

Go to the profile of Kelly Warner
10 months ago

Week 3:

My research advisor is really flexible, so I typically work Monday-Thursday from roughly 9 AM to 4:30 PM (but this is VERY flexible). However, this past Monday was the Bank Holiday in Ireland, so I had a longer weekend. :) But my typical day mostly consists of independent research - looking up articles, reviewing them, taking notes, etc. Several times a week I will meet with my research advisor to check-in and she will offer some advice and guidance on next-steps and research strategy. Additionally, since I am working at a mental health charity, there are numerous volunteering opportunities and events- so if I want a little research break I will help one of my colleagues with preparing for these events.

Around 11 AM everyday, everyone in the office stops work and sits down in the break room for tea time, where we discuss just about anything ranging from the finale of Succession to what mental health work we are currently working on. Roughly around 1 PM I will have my lunch break. Since the Mental Health Ireland HQ is located in Dun Laoghaire, it is right along the coast, so I will often take a walk along the coast for my lunch break.

Additionally, at Mental Health Ireland they are really big proponents of Co-Production, so at every stage of the development of mental health campaigns, programs, research, etc. they consult those that it directly impact, those with lived experience. They really emphasize doing research with others, not for others. So, I am currently involved in a handful of Co-Production groups that I meet with periodically to review and discuss my colleague's work.

Also, since the office is along the coast, we have a really nice view of the coast from the office (I often get distracted looking out)

Photos of Dun Laoghaire/Mental Health Ireland HQ: https://photos.app.goo.gl/LuLrQcJLv115Diag8

Go to the profile of Sylvi Stein
10 months ago

This is amazing! Outside of working hours, do you meet up with your co-workers and travel around?

Go to the profile of Kelly Warner
10 months ago

Yes! I occasionally meet up with some of the other student interns outside of working hours and ironically, they are both from the U.S. as well. I also typically use my three-day weekends for little trips around Ireland- such as Galway, Belfast, etc. or honestly, even just exploring more of Dublin because there is a lot to see and do!

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
8 months ago

Wow! Thanks for sharing, Kelly! It sounds like you are having a nice time and making the most of your experience in Ireland!

All the best,

Harrison

Go to the profile of Jonathan Truong
10 months ago

Week One:
Q: As you set out on your research or community engagement project, do you find yourself experiencing any worries or insecurities about saying something that’s already been said? How do we as researchers and/or volunteers learn to address or set aside those insecurities or, better yet, to use them to our advantage?

If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer’s project influenced your project this year, and if so how?  If your project is different, what tools have you developed to help you work on this project?

A: In order to catch the final six weeks of the Trinity Term at Oxford, I had a very early start to my summer, so I’ll try my hardest to accurately document my experience from the retrospective. Under the auspices of Professor Elleke Boehmer, this summer I am visiting the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing to, among other projects, explore the role of narrative intervention in sub-Saharan African adolescent lives.

Because research is so rarely collaborative in the humanities at the undergraduate level, I’m grateful to have the opportunity to learn from and contribute to an existing group this summer. For me, this collaboration has alleviated some of the pressures I experienced last summer about “saying something that’s already been said”; in a research network, novelty is not so much a product of the individual as it is a product of sustained collaboration. 

Drawing upon the work of Steve Biko, Paulo Freire, and Binyavanga Wainaina, the narrative intervention project looks at (i) how uneven infrastructures of storytelling inform access to narrative-making; and (ii) how narrative-making might work in service of the project of individual and collective liberation. Although this is a markedly different project than that which I undertook last summer, I've found some surprising applications of the critical vocabulary I developed—e.g. thinking about processes of identification, relatability, and responsiveness; considering medias, technologies, and infrastructures at play in the literary object. Knowing how to engage with and participate in an existing scholarly conversation has also certainly been valuable in my work.

Go to the profile of Jonathan Truong
10 months ago

Week 2:

QIf your project connects with your research from last summer, explain the ways in which it picks up on themes, issues, or questions that are important to you. How are you expanding on your project from last summer? How is your understanding of this topic evolving?

If you are doing a leadership-in-action or community engagement project, how do you interact with community members, and what kind of conversations are you having? How do you connect with this community of people, and what common cause do you find?

A: In the first seminar I attended, “Storytelling and Identities in Contemporary Namibia,” I was challenged to think more about what it means to access, engage with, and relate to a story. If the early stages of my research last summer were concerned with envisioning an “implied reader”—who exists as a function of the work—then this summer I am more concerned with the “actual reader”—whose responses are determined by their contextual environments. 

As Professor Elleke Boehmer remarked in her opening notes, “a text can only speak to us if it can be grounded in or related to context.” During the process of narrative identification, there is a moment in which the “story from the outside” must be transposed, accommodated, and interiorized into the “situation from the inside.” In learning of Wordsworth’s daffodils, for example—a lyric image oft deployed as an artifact of British cultural imperialism—students do not register the sign until it is spoken of analogically as like the native cosmos flower. In other terms, the narrative sign must be domesticated into an internal frame of reference. (For readers of Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy, this example will ring familiar.) This example stimulated many questions for me: how does inequality configure an individual’s relationship to storytelling in the so-called global margins? How might they get hold of storytelling to respond to oppressive and unequal environments? to articulate their contexts and re-articulate their futures?

Go to the profile of Sylvi Stein
10 months ago

Week Three:
What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!

I wake up, take the Paris Metro (40 min, two trains, plus some walking...) to the American Library in Paris. I arrive and receive a project - usually, something to do with donor outreach, or updating the newsletter, or researching upcoming art-related events. I work, then take a break at 1 or so to walk to a boulangerie to buy the most interesting-looking sandwich I can find. Then I head back and keep working until around 5, when I leave and head to Reid Hall to continue working or to attend the ongoing events (some examples: a talk with artist Anselm Richter, a book launch, a concert!). I meet some people in the Columbia Neuroscience program for dinner, or I go for a jog and stop at a crepe place along the way. I get back to my dorm and read one of the four books I have checked out from the library at the moment, and then I fall asleep (way too late!). The weekends are mostly spent at museums (up next this weekend: Picasso, the Pompidou, and maybe the Petit Palais if I have time). Here's a photo of me on the way back from the library, waiting for the bus next to the Eiffel Tower:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QeaD7iMZ12sgV1CttqQEx6f746f6EEuz/view?usp=sharing

Go to the profile of Kelly Warner
10 months ago

That's so cool that you are able to meet up with some of the people in the Columbia Neuroscience program! Did you know anyone from the program beforehand or did you just meet them while in Paris?

Go to the profile of Sylvi Stein
10 months ago

Week Four:
What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

I have had a pretty big problem with the language barrier -  I can't really talk to people, so it is hard to make friends, and it is difficult if I'm lost. I had to deliver some messages for my work, and I got mega lost looking for the building where I was supposed to deliver the message. I couldn't read the street signs, and the two people I encountered (two men working for a moving company) could only speak French! I took Spanish in school, but that wasn't much useful... but I worked it out through a complicated series of hand gestures, a partially-working Google Translate app, and a lot of smiling and nodding. It was nice to feel a connection between these people and myself that overshadowed even the language barrier. I have also been teaching myself some short French phrases - just things like "where is the bathroom" and "can i have this, please?" The most useful one has been "Merci" or "Pardon" when I bump into someone on the train.

Go to the profile of Akshay Manglik
7 months ago

That must have been challenging - language barriers were something I thought a lot about when considering going abroad. Did you find it easier to manage later on in your project when you had spent more time in Paris?

Go to the profile of Noah J Bergam
10 months ago

Week Three: What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!

It's interesting because the last two days of the week were pretty atypical! Along with the rest of my research team, I took the red line down to MIT to attend this workshop on the computational complexity of statistical problems. The lectures were awesome––they have given me new motivation to tackle daunting theory problems, both in my current research and beyond. I happened to take one picture when I was there: it shows a slide with a list of open questions in fine-grained complexity. I would attach it but this interface does not seem to allow it.

In any case, a typical day in the summer involves waking up at around 8 or 9am and heading to the Joyce Cummings Center, which houses the Math and CS departments, as well as my office. There, I work with the three other members of my group. Most days, we meet with our advisor, and every week, we have a joint seminar with the rest of the program where we listen to a lecture or present our work. I like to take walks on campus during my breaks to clear my mind, but between the weeks of rain and the air pollution, I just wish the weather was nicer! 

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
9 months ago

Wow, Noah! This sounds nice! I hope you're enjoying your schedule.

Go to the profile of Akshay Manglik
7 months ago

That sounds super interesting - was there a specific seminar that you attended that you found particularly insightful? And, how closely coupled were those seminars to your work - did they give you ideas for any new avenues of research to pursue?

Go to the profile of Charlie Hoskins
10 months ago

Week Four:
What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

One challenge I have encountered so far is maintaining my mental health while dealing with the subject matter I see every day. Something we discuss a lot in the office is vicarious trauma, and how interacting with clients and learning about their traumas can negatively impact our own mental health. This is a problem I am currently facing, and though I have not completely tackled the issue, I have learnt how to cope better with the feelings I experience after interacting with clients and reading over files. A lot of the cases I read tend to be about substance abuse, sexual assault and family violence, which are all very heavy topics, and I have noticed that calling clients dealing with these issues and learning about the perpetual injustices faced by First Nations people on a daily basis does affect me mentally. The way I am learning to manage it is by taking breaks from work when I need to and talking to people at the office about it, as well as venting to my family when I need to. Talking to other people at VALS has been really beneficial to tackle this problem as they have all gone through it too, and the people still working there are the ones that have robust systems in place to support their mental and emotional health.

Go to the profile of Sylvi Stein
9 months ago

This sounds very difficult, but it also sounds like you're dealing with it in an excellent way. Do you think you are learning anything about the ways in which their systems to support mental health differ from those in place in similar institutions in the US?

Go to the profile of Charlie Hoskins
9 months ago

Definitely! I found that in Australia, there is much more emphasis on work/life balance and managing mental health over productivity. We also have a free therapy service for employees in particular business fields, which also extends to their families who might also be impacted! 

Go to the profile of Kelly Warner
10 months ago

Week Four:
What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

One challenge that I have encountered a bit is the cultural difference. While Ireland isn't incredibly different from the States, at times the cultural differences can be a little jarring. This is especially noticeable when I am working on collecting literature for background information for the literature review I am working on because it is specific to Ireland and Irish history regarding mental health. It is also quite noticeable socially as well. For example, if I go to a more rural part of Ireland, their accents are usually pretty thick and some even speak Irish Gaelic, so it can be a bit difficult to understand.

I've found the most helpful approach in these situations is to be patient with myself and be willing to ask questions. I will often speak with my Research Advisor about specifics of Ireland's mental health history or Irish culture. She has also been incredibly helpful in explaining certain Irish colloquialisms that confused me at first and has given me a lot of recommendations for places to go or fun events in the area that have helped me become more familiar with Ireland and Irish culture.

Go to the profile of Yoni Kurtz
9 months ago

I've only been in the UK for a week, but I definitely have experienced similar cultural barriers (despite the similarities to the U.S.), especially regarding the the differences in the public education system. Good luck!

Go to the profile of Jonathan Truong
8 months ago

Hope you enjoyed Dublin! Mental Health Ireland seems like an incredibly impactful organization, and I'm excited to hear more about your time in the UK

Go to the profile of Julia Goralsky
8 months ago

I'm glad you have been able to rely on your Research Advisor for help navigating the cultural differences! I can definitely relate - every meeting I attend seems to be conducted in parliamentary procedure, which has been a bit strange especially given that I'm used to a super direct style of communication; I am also learning to be patient with myself/others as I figure out the proper procedure.

Go to the profile of Yoni Kurtz
9 months ago

WEEK ONE:

If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer’s project influenced your project this year, and if so how?  If your project is different, what tools have you developed to help you work on this project?

A:

This past week was my first week in the UK, and I spent it getting acclimated to the country, and beginning my work with the Prince's Teaching Institute. Though my first hands-on/field experience with the non-profit is tomorrow, in my time in the PTI office this past week, I began to see how I might integrate some of the tools I developed last summer into my work this summer. Specifically, I got to use many of the same research and curation skills that I developed doing research last summer to begin creating an organized spreadsheet of potential fundraising events that the PTI might run in 2024. In a similar fashion to my work last summer where I focused on researching the history of youth baseball and its historical role in shaping and developing different visions of American identity, this past week I found myself working together with the other PTI office members to develop programs that might shape the futures of young English and Welsh students.

Go to the profile of Peter McMaster
9 months ago

Week Two: 

If your project connects with your research from last summer, explain the ways in which it picks up on themes, issues, or questions that are important to you. How are you expanding on your project from last summer? How is your understanding of this topic evolving?

Much of my work this summer centers around ideas in gravitational wave physics that I studied last summer. While last summer was about pushing the field forward, this summer is about taking a step back and figuring out how to present the problems and concepts associated with gravitational waves in a more accessible way. So in that way I'm gaining a more conceptual understanding of how the field has developed and where it is going. 

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
8 months ago

Wow! Thank for sharing, Peter! I hope you had an amazing time in Japan! It's nice to take a step back with your work! I look forward to learning more!

Go to the profile of Charlie Hoskins
9 months ago

Week Five:
What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

Throughout my summer experience, I have gained a greater understanding of how entrenched racism is in the Australian judicial system, but also that there are judges and lawyers, as well as activists, who are actively trying to change this. I have also acquired new skills in filing and using Actionstep, which is the online database we use for our legal matters. 

I have had the opportunity to meet so many inspiring people during my time at VALS. My supervisor, Dayle, the volunteer coordinator at VALS, has been instrumental in helping me conduct my project. She has been instrumental in allowing me to engage with every department at VALS and speak to lawyers about their work, as well as cheering me on whilst I work on my project for the Client Feedback Program. Dayle has taught me that part of being a good leader is being unapologetically yourself and creating a safe space for others to do the same as she fosters such a warm and welcoming environment for me and the other volunteers. This has influenced the confidence I have in myself, and I am learning to trust my instincts and ability more as a leader because of her. 

Go to the profile of Denise Taveras
9 months ago

Week Three:
What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!

A typical day for me involves going into the office space that the Justice Lab operates in and (depending on the project I’m working on) reading different community reports about probation and parole as well as legislation relating to P+P reform. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures from the office, but I do have a couple of screenshots of the many tabs I have open on my laptop.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dEBY3oVgBq2skD_l7K5xzq6BH0QiVMFl/view?usp=drive_link 

Go to the profile of Denise Taveras
9 months ago

Week Four:
What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

My biggest challenge was familiarizing myself with what probation and parole really are and how they differ from state to state and sometimes even county to county. I won’t be able to fully understand all of the conditions and policies for probation and parole in every state as they all vary so much. There has definitely been a learning curve but it's been really interesting to work through it. Community supervision is something that impacts way more people than I realized and connecting with people on probation or parole as well as purposefully seeking out their stories (whether through looking at art or reading essays and letters they publish) has helped me build a better understanding of how these policies look like in the day-to-day lives of people on community supervision. 

Go to the profile of Noah J Bergam
9 months ago

Week 4: What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

I've been encountering a lot of issues with group work and communication. I am working directly with three other undergraduates, but there are a lot of other people who are tied to the work we are doing. This includes not just our PI but also a post-doc helping out with the project, the co-authors of the paper we are trying to extend (they work at U. Buffalo), and a group called G-Hub (short for "glaciology hub") which is building up a website of open-source tools, data, and educational material on the melting of glaciers and the rising of sea levels. 

While there are benefits to embedding oneself in such a large and well-connected research community, it is also kind of intimidating. I've had a few moments of proudly suggesting new ideas only to discover (or be told) that they have already been done or, worse, are bad ideas. I've had some trouble coordinating with my immediate research partners because we are all climbing the learning curve at different rates. 

I think the approach I've adopted is to accept that I am not going to become an expert in this subject in a matter of weeks. It's okay that I've stepped a bit out of my comfort zone, into a field that's very new to me. I think it's given me much more perspective on how careful one must be when applying mathematical models, how important it is to be patient and willing to learn about the domain of application first.  

Go to the profile of Ashwin Marathe
9 months ago

Week Four:
What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

There haven't been specific challenges that I've encountered with my day to day work, but related to the content of my work, it has been extremely enlightening to fill in my knowledge gaps on the US criminal justice system. It's hard to learn all the ins and outs of it in two months, so I have tried to read books/articles on re-entry and court-related matters. Reading has been helpful and I've immediately learned a lot about the challenges of prison re-entry and the impact of judging on sentencing. I've also reached out to others that work here to learn about specific topics, which has helped a lot—talking to them has made it easier to digest the books/articles. 

Week Five:

What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

I've learned a lot about criminal justice and the many actors involved, including the government, nonprofits, researchers, and more. My supervisor connected me with the Publisher of the Marshall Project, who I interviewed for WKCR 89.9FM. I have also been connected to other organizations in New York in the criminal justice space; I have been looking into tutoring for Petey Greene, a non-profit that helps incarcerated individuals. Though these are external actors/activities to my work, they are helping me learn about criminal justice and what it looks like in the real world.   

Go to the profile of Sylvi Stein
9 months ago

This sounds incredible! Do you plan to stay involved with the same organizations during the school year, or are you interested in founding your own branches of these programs at Columbia?

Go to the profile of Akshay Manglik
7 months ago

It's really cool how you connected your Laidlaw work to your other pursuits, like your show on WKCR! Have you continued coverage of criminal justice issues on the show by interviewing other subject matter experts?

Go to the profile of Noah J Bergam
9 months ago

Week Five: What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

As I mentioned in my previous post, my REU advisor put my group in contact with a post-doc at UBuffalo. Her name is Sophie and she runs a wonderful NSF-funded pedagogical/research collective known as GHub (“glaciology hub“).  She has been incredibly helpful, both in terms of providing guidance to our group research project and support for my specific Laidlaw project, which focuses on generating educational materials on the mathematical modeling involved in glaciology and geoscience more broadly. In learning more about GHub, the goal of my Laidlaw project has narrowed down to posting a series of educational materials on GHub and then advertising these materials (along with the broader GHub mission) to space-grant consortia and relevant university departments/institutes. 

This progression of the project has taught me a lot about the importance of networking in academia. There are a lot of smart people out there doing a lot of different things. Oftentimes it is convenient and more efficient to collaborate. In my case, this is helping my work reach a wider audience, and it is putting me in contact with domain experts––at the same time, I'm helping this budding initiative grow its platform. In my future work, I hope to continue to pinpoint and deliver on these kinds of useful collaborations 

Go to the profile of Peter McMaster
9 months ago

Week Three:
What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!

My typical day follows the conventional 9-5 work schedule. Throughout the day I have meetings with various professors and groups to touch base and go over my progress. Recently I've been put in touch with a professor at the University of Tokyo Main Campus, so I have been traveling there once a week to meet with him. I am also currently preparing a talk at Chiba University on gravitational wave physics.

Week Four:
What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

The language barrier has been a challenge that I've had some difficulty surmounting. While I have been practicing my Japanese, it is not nearly at the level necessary to effectively communicate complicated ideas. Therefore, I've adjusted my approach to focus more on preparing materials for others to use and targeting groups that can speak English. 

Go to the profile of Akshay Manglik
7 months ago

That must have been a great experience - what was the talk at Chiba University like?

Go to the profile of Sylvi Stein
9 months ago

Week Five:
What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

On the practical side, I have learned to work with a lot of different programs in new ways (including but not limited to Polaris, a library site; Raiser's Edge, a finance site; Adobe InDesign; YouTube; Instagram; and Blackbaud, a general organization site). I have also learned a lot about how a real nonprofit functions - it requires a lot of intercommunication to make sure things don't get done twice or not done at all. I have been working a lot with the head of Events, who is not technically my boss but who has been offering me a lot of advice on getting work done (do it early in case you make mistakes and have to go back!), on working in a library (the patrons come first, as do the donors) and on life in Paris in general (don't take the train after 11pm because they don't come as frequently).  I think that her advice has taught me that leadership is very site-specific, and it can't really be taught; you just have to absorb knowledge from others and be willing to pass it on. There is no such thing as "general leadership skills" except being polite, patient, and a clear speaker.

Go to the profile of Rosie Zhou
9 months ago

Hi Sylvi, it's so cool that you learned how to use new programs to support your work with the American Library in Paris! Really resonate with your thoughts on absorbing knowledge and site-specific leadership. 

Go to the profile of Neha Mani
8 months ago

Hi Sylvi! I'm so impressed by the wealth of knowledge and skill set you've derived from your project thus far. I agree that leadership is really site-specific and there's no "one" model for it. 

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
8 months ago

Thanks for sharing, Sylvie! This sounds like a great mentorship opportunity and ability to learn while contribute!

Go to the profile of Akshay Manglik
7 months ago

Sounds like you learned a lot during the summer! Are there any other elements that stuck out to you about how the nonprofit environment differs from a research environment?

Go to the profile of Rosie Zhou
9 months ago

Week One:

If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer’s project influenced your project this year, and if so how?  If your project is different, what tools have you developed to help you work on this project?

This summer, my project differs greatly from what I worked on last summer. I'm exploring a field that is still very new to me and in which I hope to continue gaining experience in: film and media. The organization I'm working with, the Manilatown Heritage Foundation (MHF), has a Media team that works on media projects to shine light on the history and legacy of the International Hotel in San Francisco. I myself was exposed to the I-Hotel in my Intro to Asian American Studies class, when we watched Curtis Choy's 1983 documentary, The Fall of the I-Hotel together. This documentary was moving and powerful, providing an in-depth view into the I-Hotel and its importance to the Filipino elderly immigrants, Manongs, who lived there. 

From when I was a child, I was drawn to film; films I watched growing up were immensely powerful, making me think critically and feel so much emotion. As I venture more and more down the filmmaking path, I am constantly reaffirmed of the power that film has on people, and I think that it is especially important towards illuminating parts of history that are often unknown and untaught (like the I-Hotel). 

Throughout this past year, I've developed technical skills in filmmaking—such as how to use a filming camera, audio and lighting equipment, and editing software. These skills will only be expanded upon and honed upon throughout my time working with MHF; I'm so grateful that my mentor, Chet Canlas, is willing to teach me technical skills and guide me throughout the production and post-production processes of our media projects. I also strive to keep developing skills of interviewing speakers and collaborating with others while on set. 

I've loved working with MHF so far and feel that I've already learned so much. I look forward to the weeks to come and continuing to explore the beautiful city of San Francisco :)

Go to the profile of Jonathan Truong
9 months ago

Rosie—so exciting to watch you develop and refine your filmmaking skills! MHF seems like a great fit for you this summer, and I'm looking forward to hearing more about what sounds like an incredibly meaningful project on the I-Hotel.

Go to the profile of Rosie Zhou
9 months ago

Thanks Jonathan :) love hearing about what you've been up to as well with your project! 

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
9 months ago

Wow, Rosie! I find it so exciting you are working on a newer theme to you, putting yourself with great mentorship and great impact with the I-Hotel! Please keep us updated! I look forward to hearing about it!

Go to the profile of Jonathan Truong
9 months ago

Week Three:

Q: What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!

A: [Attached is a photo from a weekly internal group seminar at OCLW, where we workshop visiting researchers’ works-in-progress.]

No day looks exactly the same this summer—a flexibility which I became acclimated to last summer—especially given most time is spent independently. Here’s one day in the life: 

We have a weekly internal seminar for visiting researchers at OCLW on Tuesdays, where we workshop visiting researchers’ works-in-progress—whether those be books under contract, a manuscript proposal, or conference preparation. This week, we looked at a visiting professor’s book project on racial formation in transpacific Chinese-American auto/biographical writing (for privacy/discretion, I will keep my descriptions a bit vague!). Later in the day, I worked on a seminar report for the “Storytelling and Identities in Contemporary Namibia” workshop that I mentioned in a previous post, which will be used by faculty at Oxford and the University of Cape Town in the Narrative Intervention project. Because much of the work is informed by seminal postcolonial theorists, I've spent some time reading primary/secondary literature on Chinua Achebe, Steve Biko, Paulo Freire, and Binyavanga Wainaina. I also read up on some past initiatives by the research hub, which has been in progress since 2019. I spent the evening at a book launch for the Centre, which focused on the contemporary medical memoir from a non-Western perspective.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pzFIjwheLCmzECqNuO0_c9lL5KRYmUtU/view?usp=share_link

Go to the profile of Jonathan Truong
9 months ago

Week Four:

Q: What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

A: I am the first undergraduate to visit the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, and because of this the terms of my status are at times unclear. Part of this I attribute to institutional differences from the U.S.: the same culture of undergraduate research assistantships is absent at Oxford, and, I assume, UK universities at large. For me, this means I am working with a high degree of independence, and find myself looking for ways to step in without over-stepping. Above all, this has been a challenging but valuable exercise in communication for me: I've been required to request ways to get more involved and self-advocate for my desire and ability to do so.

Go to the profile of Elizabeth Carpenter
9 months ago

Hi Jonathan,

I really relate to this comment! I am in the first internship cohort the Justice Lab has had so all of us find ourselves having to ask for more to do. It sounds like you are really learning from it and I hope it will help me too. I am curious to hear about other cultural differences between US and UK educational norms. 

Go to the profile of Elizabeth Carpenter
9 months ago

Hi everyone! Sorry for the late posts, I've been working at the Justice Lab on the Emerging Adult Justice Project.

Week One:
As you set out on your research or community engagement project, do you find yourself experiencing any worries or insecurities about saying something that’s already been said? How do we as researchers and/or volunteers learn to address or set aside those insecurities or, better yet, to use them to our advantage?

If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer’s project influenced your project this year, and if so how?  If your project is different, what tools have you developed to help you work on this project?

Starting out in any new project or job is very nerve-racking because its hard to know exactly what your role will be before you begin. It was especially hard this year because I've never worked in the criminal justice space before. Last year I worked in Public Health and this year I became interested in the Justice Lab because mass incarceration is a public health issue. The EAJ Project uses neuroscience and developmental psychology to demonstrate why young adults need to be treated differently in the justice system. Although my last summer and this summer are certainly different, the data analysis skills and especially the writing skills have been super valuable so far. Having a public health background also gave me a unique view of the project which has been helpful too.

Week Two:
If your project connects with your research from last summer, explain the ways in which it picks up on themes, issues, or questions that are important to you. How are you expanding on your project from last summer? How is your understanding of this topic evolving?

If you are doing a leadership-in-action or community engagement project, how do you interact with community members, and what kind of conversations are you having? How do you connect with this community of people, and what common cause do you find?

I have been meeting a lot of people working in the criminal justice space, many of whom are formerly incarcerated themselves. We have had some great conversations which helped me realize how broken the justice system is and gave me insight into the devastating powers that lawyers can have. We also had an event recently that brought together DAs, legal aid defenders, judges, non-profits, and many other stake-holders who all represented different sides and angles of the system. This kind of conversation is pretty rare since these aren't groups that tend to cooperate together but we were able to have great conversations together and everyone was able to find common ground. A common cause of everyone in this space is that they really care about their job and pursuing justice. Unfortunately, everyone goes about it in different ways that can have negative effects on people. 

Week Three:
What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!

I wake up and head to work. When I get there, I check my email and answer emails from Lael Chester, my boss, and anyone else. Then sometimes we have a check-in meeting with the internship supervisor and all the fellows share what they've been working on, so we can discuss and give feedback on each other's work. Depending on the day, I am asked to sit-in on Lael's meetings with different people. One day it was a public defender's office in Wyoming to consult on a case. Another day it's the Nebraska probation and parole department that we're helping implement developmentally appropriate policies for emerging adults. I look up facts they ask about during the meetings and also take notes and consolidate deliverables. When I am not in meetings I work on my other tasks. These include a paper I am writing on gang attraction for emerging adults, the monthly newsletter, updating the website, event planning, editing content, etc. Sometimes we also have field trips to meet different groups like the Center for Justice or the Reentry Theater Harlem. Recently we had an event at the Columbia Club that I helped plan and all the interns got to come and watch really interesting speakers. 

Week Four:
What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

I have difficulty prioritizing when I have a lot of different tasks to do. For example, this week I have a ton of emails to answer, plane tickets to book for an event, and other short-term tasks while I am also behind on my longer-term tasks like my paper and the July newsletter. I try to time-block where I spend the morning completing as many small tasks as I can. Then, after lunch, I work on my paper/ newsletter. One hour before I end for the day, I go back to my email and respond to any new emails I have and write down the short-term tasks I need to do in the morning in order of importance.

Week Five:
What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

I have gained a lot more knowledge of the legal field and where I want my career to go. Lael Chester has been enormously helpful to me in this internship. She has insisted I sit in on every meeting so I meet as many people as possible in many different fields and see what aspects I like. She also shares with me about her vast career experience to help me see what is good and what is bad about each career option. She gives me plenty of different kinds of work which also help me gain several different skills. She has been a super kind and helpful leader which inspires me to behave the same way when I am in the position where people are working under me. 

Go to the profile of Rosie Zhou
9 months ago

Hi Lizzy, so cool to hear about all your work with the Justice Lab! It seems like you've been able to contribute meaningfully to the group and gain a lot from the experience, especially in guiding you towards future career pathways and the legal field. It's great to hear that the Lab works directly with those experiencing incarceration and has what seems to be a bottom-up approach, rather than a top-down approach that doesn't consider the ideas of those most impacted by the issues (as I've noticed some organizations do). Hope your last week goes wonderfully! 

Go to the profile of Jonathan Truong
8 months ago

Hi Lizzy, great to hear that your time at the Justice Lab has given you exposure to such a network of resources, skills, and people! Such important work you're doing--I'd be interested to hear more about the "emerging adult" justice leg of the project, which it sounds like you've been working in considerably for the past few weeks.

Go to the profile of Rosie Zhou
9 months ago

Week Two:

If you are doing a leadership-in-action or community engagement project, how do you interact with community members, and what kind of conversations are you having? How do you connect with this community of people, and what common cause do you find?

This last week, MHF held a Community Archiving Workshop, in which we partnered with California Revealed to work on organizing MHF's collections and items donated by various individuals who were involved with the I-Hotel struggle. This event was incredible to me, because I got to help organize the collection of cassette tapes that document various events and activities that tenants of the I-Hotel participated in, and MHF's events from the time of its conception. I also participated in a musical workshop in which we learned how to play traditional musical instruments of an indigenous Filipino tribe. 

I also met more community members and was especially honored to meet Manang Jeanette Lazam, who was a young activist during the struggle to keep the I-Hotel and is one of the last survivors of the movement. She spoke candidly during the event about the importance of preserving the history of the I-Hotel, especially since the physical space, and those who occupied that space, are all gone now. Her words made me think a lot about history and memory, and I thought again about the importance of film and art. I believe that the most powerful way we can remember the past is through documenting it and making it "come alive" again. We also watched the restored version of Curtis Choy's 1983 documentary, The Fall of the I-Hotel. This was my second time watching it, and it touched me even more than the firs time I watched it. It is haunting, heart-wrenching, and immensely beautiful. 

I've been trying to interact with the folks at MHF and Manang Jeanette as naturally as possible, really just observing and learning from them rather than trying to impose anything myself. I find that there is such richness, love, and sense of community in this space and I'm glad to just be a part of it. I especially love chatting with Caroline Cabading, who's the executive director of MHF and has such a deep knowledge of the history of I-Hotel and San Francisco, and Filipino culture. Everybody at MHF is very dedicated to showing how the past is really not that separate from the present—something that history classes at Columbia have taught me. In this vein, I feel that this experience is helping me see first-hand how academia and the world outside the ivory tower can be bridged to support communities and bring forgotten stories to light.

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
9 months ago

Week 1: As you set out on your research or community engagement project, do you find yourself experiencing any worries or insecurities about saying something that’s already been said? How do we as researchers and/or volunteers learn to address or set aside those insecurities or, better yet, to use them to our advantage?

Hi! This summer, I am working with FEDETUR, the Federation of Tourism Enterprises in Chile on understanding the current state of carbon counting and emissions reduction in Chilean tourism. I have some worries about explaining certain aspects of sustainable tourism to Chilean contacts if they already know them. This week, I am getting a better sense of the carbon counting and emissions reduction / environmental impact work done within Chilean tourism enterprises already. I also realize the reemphasis on these themes could help further grow sustainable choices in Chile, so repeating a very valid issue should perhaps not be of large concern given the scope of the project.
From a more obvious perspective, I have some insecurities about the language barrier between myself and those I will work with, as I am working fully in Spanish. While I feel fluent, Spanish is not my native language, and Chilean Spanish is especially known for being quite distinctive and hard to understand for native Spanish speakers, so I do not catch 100% of what is said. I’m filling the gaps quite quickly. This barrier has also made me think about how to use my perspective especially within Chile.
Chilean universities require students to pursue internships during their college years, so doing what I’m doing is quite common in my organization. However, they have never had a foreign intern, so I am thinking about the ways I might best serve them through my perspective. This might be helping with English communications and research or providing a US perspective on the tourism sphere. I look forward to learning more.

Go to the profile of Neha Mani
9 months ago

Wow! This is so cool, Harrison. I think it's really great that you acknowledge the limitations of your linguistic ability and are actively working to make sure you're communicating as best you can with the people you're working with. 

Go to the profile of Jonathan Truong
8 months ago

Your project sounds amazing, Harrison! This seems like a great extension of some of the research questions you addressed last summer

Go to the profile of Neha Mani
9 months ago

Week One:

My community engagement project is a summer program offered by The Science Squad, an NGO founded in 2016 by a Laidlaw alum! My project is centered around engaging high schoolers in carrying out a research project of their own while also conducting a Science Education Outreach Project (SEOP) that allows them to be part of a grassroots movement in increasing scientific discourse in their local communities—the high schoolers part of this program come from schools and communities without robust science research programs or course offerings and therefore want to be part of a change in their community for increasing scientific literacy. Although this topic is widely discussed in science education, it seems that there hasn’t been one concrete solution, at least one that addresses the needs of students in urban and suburban educational environments. I feel that, since we all have a shared mission in increasing the reach of robust science education, it should empower us and not make us insecure that other people are considering solutions for the same dilemma. 

My project last summer was a science research project (investigating the structural biology of proteins involved in Wnt signaling). I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to carry out a project like this due to my privilege of having a well-rounded scientific education both in high school and college. A recognition of that privilege drove me to understand how I can best attempt a solution for engaging high schoolers without these resources in scientific research and pedagogy.

Go to the profile of Julia Goralsky
8 months ago

Hi Neha! This sounds super exciting! I am looking forward to hearing about their research projects. Is there a certain topic/branch of science that is most popular among the students that go through the program?

Go to the profile of Neha Mani
8 months ago

Hi Julia! Students are conducting a variety of research -- from AI modeling of proteins to astrophysics research (though 90% of the projects are within the realm of biological sciences and about half are computationally based). 

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
8 months ago

Last summer, I developed a map of NYC’s environmental tourism, focusing on carbon emissions reduction, circularity, and environmental justice. I am currently working with the Federación de Empresas Turísticas de Chile on developing a guide to help tourism businesses in Chile manage their emissions and environmental impact. This summer, I am helping tourism organizations get on the map of sustainability. I am applying what I saw as beneficial in NYC to help companies in NY through Chile’s largest tourism business association. My understanding of sustainable tourism is evolving as I am working around people who live and work around the tourism industry as opposed to academia. There is much more discussion on carbon offsets and seldom discussion on stopping activities in total.

I was quite surprised to learn that one of the companies I am studying, a tour company that takes its customers to Antarctica (which ever-amazes me), is carbon neutral through offsets. They buy carbon credits that offset their flights to Antarctica from the tip of the continent as well as the boats that cruise through the Antarctic Peninsula. Without their income, new green energy projects would not be starting. I have always been hesitant of offsets because they don’t take away the carbon emitted, only take away carbon from other businesses. This feels unsettling, but I highly doubt these businesses will halt until the production of renewable solar fuel (or something similar). Most of the livelihood of the Southern tip of the continent revolves around Patagonian and Antarctic tourism, which evolved out of scientific expeditions and trading routes. This research helps me think about how I could convince tourism companies to truly be more sustainable, and I’m excited to learn more as I reach out to these companies.

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
8 months ago

Week Two:
If your project connects with your research from last summer, explain the ways in which it picks up on themes, issues, or questions that are important to you. How are you expanding on your project from last summer? How is your understanding of this topic evolving?

Go to the profile of Neha Mani
8 months ago

Week Two:

My project takes place over Zoom predominantly with hour-long in-person meetings with my mentor weekly to discuss how the program is developing and any adjustments we should make for our weekly workshops for the students. The reason for the mainly online format is to reach students from all across the east coast and connect them with undergraduate mentors who are also in different parts of the world over the summer! In our weekly workshops, in addition to learning critical skills in research practices and outreach project development, we converse about the importance of participating in scientific discourse with each other and pursuing outreach projects so that all students have the opportunity to engage in important scientific conversations with their peers, no matter what resources they have access to in their communities. In these workshops, I stress the importance of making outreach projects accessible to students without prior research knowledge as it is very easy to think of outreach projects that are, unconsciously, tailored to students with previous exposure to science research (e.g. using jargon that may be unfamiliar to students who haven’t engaged with research papers before). Because the students who have elected to be part of this program are from communities/schools which don’t have established research programs (and they were self-motivated to learn how to do research on their own), they are truly inspired to give back to their community the guidance and pedagogy that they’ve received through The Science Squad. It is this common drive that the students and I share that has made our program successful thus far!

Go to the profile of Peter McMaster
8 months ago

Week Five:
What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

In terms of soft skills I feel like I have learned a lot. Living by myself in a foreign country helped me to become more independent and resourceful in a variety of ways. 

My coworkers were impactful in that I was able to learn from them and ask them for advice. Since they were older, seeing where they were at in their careers helped me to figure out what I want to do. 

Go to the profile of Jonathan Truong
8 months ago

Week Five:

Q: What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

A: As someone whose primary interest is in literary studies, I had many enduring concerns about my work’s contribution to the “public good,” as it is formulated by the Laidlaw Foundation. This summer, under the instruction of so many seminal literary scholars, I’ve arrived at a better understanding of the (ethical, social, political) “value” of literary studies in the 21st century.

In addition to my project commitments, I’ve been attending many seminars and lectures in the Faculty of English in my own time. In one of these talks, visiting Professor Kevin Quashie lectured on contemporary Black literary criticism in a world-context structured by insurgency, disaster, and crisis. As Professor Quashie remarked, we think of aesthetics as antagonistic to—in the case of Black literary arts—racial matters, as if aesthetic discourse were in conflict with the political contexts of these works. Although my project is more outwardly 'humanitarian' this summer, throughout the Laidlaw program I've been thinking a lot about what my interest in literary studies means more generally for the kind of work I'm interested in pursuing—about what it means to attend to sentences in times of global crisis. There are no easy answers to this question, of course, but part of what I've valued so deeply about my time in Oxford is that I'm coming away with a more comprehensive understanding of literary studies as something entangled with, attentive to, and compatible with the public good.

Go to the profile of Rosie Zhou
8 months ago

Jonathan, it's really interesting to hear about your reflections on this summer! Super cool that you were able to meet professors who are really passionate about their work and its relation to the world outside of academic and research contexts. I love how you say that literary studies is "entangled with, attentive to, and compatible with the public good." I really relate to the feeling of wondering how aesthetics, literature, and art have  tangible impacts on the world, especially in times of crisis. I've had a lot of similar thoughts relating to film/film studies. Would love to discuss more with you about all of this once we're back at school in the fall!  

Go to the profile of Rosie Zhou
8 months ago

Week Three:
What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!

A typical weekday for me usually goes something like this: 

- Walk to Chinatown and get dim sum to-go or sit down and eat at a restaurant. So many yummy + cheap foods to try!

- Head to the I-Hotel Center on Kearny Street. A Staff member of the Center is usually there already. 

- Assist with any tasks that they need help with that day. Mostly, I help out with social media and updating their media list. If it's a production day, I help set up equipment and make sure everything's ready for filming. Sometimes, if I'm not needed at the Center itself, I'll go to the Chinatown Public Library branch and work on things there. 

- Once I feel like I'm at a good place for the day, I head back to North Beach! On the weekends, I'm also working at a local independent movie theater, which has been really fulfilling on top of my internship experience. 

Here's a fun little commercial that we made for an upcoming fundraiser with Masa Ramen Bistro in Berkeley: https://youtu.be/i9HJlYdQmrw

Below are some BTS pictures from recording an interview with Manang Jeanette and Manang Carman! It was really interesting hearing their perspectives and I think it's super cool being able to know someone who was involved in the struggle to save the I-Hotel. 

Go to the profile of Peter McMaster
8 months ago

Week Six:
For your final post, upload a video presentation or create a written or photographic narrative in which you discuss your project: why did you become interested in this project, what was the goal of the project, what was its significance or impact (real or potential). How did the project evolve or change over the course of these six weeks? Finally, please consider how your understanding of leadership (curiosity, empathy, teamwork, resilience, etc.) has informed your work or been deepened by your work.

I initially became interested in my project as a result of the work I did last summer researching gravitational wave events. This summer was more focused on educating others on the current state of gravitational wave physics as opposed to conducting new research. The impact of this project is that it informed the general public and academic circles on current problems and concepts regarding gravitational waves, and what the future of the field could be. The scope of the project changed throughout the summer as I learned to handle different audiences and groups of people. The leadership skills I've developed over the last year were very helpful in navigating a foreign country and learning to work with different people. I had to become independent in a variety of ways and developed and refined many leadership skills. 

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
8 months ago

Week Three: What does a typical day look like this summer?

I am living with a lovely host from Santiago and a housemate from Bolivia working here. Both present different perspectives and histories of the land (which are also quite different from that of my coworkers), and it is lovely to spend time with them. I always start with a healthy breakfast, which in Chile, always includes manjar (Chilean dulce de leche). I walk about five minutes from my host’s home to my office. I work in the World Trade Center South (a name based on NY, which I suppose has not aged well), which is in the business district of Santiago, located right across the street from the largest mall and tallest building in all of South America. During the day, I work on connecting with tourism companies through Chile to speak about their sustainability initiatives, usually through Google Meets, as well as writing a guide for my organization in relation to sustainability. Everything is in Spanish, évéñ my kéybóárd! Today, I am connecting with Transforma Turismo, a governmental group seeking to innovate Chilean tourism. I usually take lunch from a café nearby, which there are many. I can also walk around the parks nearby along the Mapocho River and/or spend time at the mall. Restaurant and grocery prices are quite comparable to New York, as the country has a (quite impressive) program of keeping food local. They portmanteau this neighborhood Sanhattan for a reason. I work 9-5ish Monday to Friday, with the option of working from home if I want to for two days a week, though I usually enjoy spending time at the office. In the evenings, I might head to a museum (although I have to be more situationally aware in this section of the city), spend time with my host, taking las once, an evening tea time, head to a restaurant or event with my housemate, or have a nice dinner out with a fellow Columbia friend. My pace feels more relaxed in Chile, which allows me to work productively and feel rested for the upcoming academic year.

Here is a photo from my walk during lunch in the monument park: https://photos.app.goo.gl/zV84rer2RocV3mSm6

Go to the profile of Julia Goralsky
8 months ago

Hi Harrison! This sounds like such a good experience! Have you found a favorite restaurant/cafe yet? How do you feel working primarily in Spanish?

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
8 months ago

Hi! Thanks! My favorite lunch spot (since lunch is the big meal here) is this little open air square about 5 minutes from my office. The restuarants there all include a drink and (at least) one side, and it is a nice place to get a filling, tasty meal. There is Chilean, Japanese, Indian, and more options to eat. My favorite food to try there has been the milanesa de pollo (breaded chicken cutlet), which always comes with a lovely soup.

Working in Spanish is really nice. I keep a notebook of words that I learn (many chilenismos, or Chilean words that do not exist in other Spanish dialects). I feel really good about challenging myself to work in a non-native language.

Go to the profile of Elianna Lee
8 months ago

Week One:

As you set out on your research or community engagement project, do you find yourself experiencing any worries or insecurities about saying something that’s already been said? How do we as researchers and/or volunteers learn to address or set aside those insecurities or, better yet, to use them to our advantage?

If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer’s project influenced your project this year, and if so how?  If your project is different, what tools have you developed to help you work on this project?

For my project this summer, I am working with the Anthropology department at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, focusing on sociolinguistic studies and how culture can be conserved through language. Though this project is in a different discipline than my work on the American Diva project last summer, which focused on gender and sexuality, they both aim to emphasize the importance of linguistics in our own perceptions of culture; my experience last summer has given me the tools to more critically investigate seemingly innocuous uses of language and putting media into a broader sociopolitical context. It also allowed me to discover the ways that language and media can influence our daily lives and how important my own lived experiences can to take into account when conducting research; it is through my own lived experiences that I have observed how instrumental the internet can be for linguistic and cultural preservation. To answer the first question as well, I think that the desire to be completely original is one that can be dangerous when conducting research--nothing that we say or write is in a vacuum and we must acknowledge the work of those who come before us as we enter the conversation. Especially when considering fields like anthropology or gender studies, our own lived experiences can often be the motivation for research and it's important to acknowledge how and why these experiences have become a driving force. This personal motivation is something I consider to be a great advantage when conducting research as it allows for a nuanced perspective and great interest in the subject.

Go to the profile of Rosie Zhou
8 months ago

Hi Elianna, it's so cool to hear about your work at the National Autonomous University of Mexico! The connections between linguistics and cultural conservation seem fascinating and so very relevant to the present day. I love how you say that our own lived experiences are tied to the motivations behind research. I think incorporating more of a personal lens into humanities research is not only important, but desperately needed to bridge the gap more between the world of academics, and the world outside of academia—the "real" world. Would love to learn more about your research and experiences as you spend more time in Mexico! 

Go to the profile of Julia Goralsky
8 months ago

Week 1

If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer’s project influenced your project this year, and if so how?  If your project is different, what tools have you developed to help you work on this project?

Last summer, I spent the majority of my time in the lab, studying the efficacy of specific therapeutics on cancers that employ the alternative lengthening of telomeres method. While this experience gave me an appreciation of the wet lab aspect of medical research, I wanted to improve my understanding of medical research as a translational process. After all, developing pharmaceuticals to treat chronic conditions is only one part of the puzzle - funding, supply, and distribution also play a major role in ensuring the sustainable management of chronic conditions. This summer, I am thus in Uganda interning at a hypertension clinic run in association with the MUST-UNC-PHEALED Collaboration. In practice, this looks like taking part in the clinic once a week, updating the patient database, and securing medication supplies. In addition, I am also cataloging the specific long-term challenges the clinic faces and using a combination of interviews and preexisting literature to identify potential solutions. A significant portion of my project still involves the data collection and organization skills I used in the lab. However, in comparison to last summer, my project involves a more significant level of collaboration with various teams, including the clinic, nonprofit, and research staff. As I don’t speak the local Lhukonzo language, this has been a bit of an exciting challenge. That being said, I am very much looking forward to seeing where my project takes me!

Go to the profile of Neha Mani
8 months ago

Hi Julia! This project sounds amazing -- I'm so excited to hear more about it. I guess it's pretty early in your project to ask this, but have you started to see any pattern in the issues faced by the clinic / clinical issues amongst the patients you've been interacting with?

Go to the profile of Julia Goralsky
8 months ago

Hi, thanks! One of the biggest issues so far is finding a funding source outside of foreign donations - so I've been doing a lot of research on cost-sharing initiatives!

Go to the profile of Neha Mani
8 months ago

Week Three:
What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!

My day starts with reading and responding to emails from The Science Squad mentees and mentors from the night before. I start drafting my workshop plan for each Friday usually on the Tuesday before and create a Powerpoint presentation for a one-hour workshop. After a quick stop at Tatte bakery for a cappuccino and roasted strawberry muffins, I get back to work! I finish off my presentation and either work on updating our website or have one-on-one meetings with my mentees to discuss their outreach projects and/or research projects (usually I do some prep work before these meetings since everyone has vastly different projects in different stages of development). In the evenings, I meet with Arya, the organization director, to discuss pertinent next steps for the program (we've done a mix of virtual/cafe/dinner meetings depending on our schedules—we went to a grilled cheese place near MIT which was fun!). I've attached a screenshot from one workshop presentation I presented two weeks ago here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LOJKQmioUXDv6mlAXPkd7WG5mKwSKlU2/view?usp=sharing 

Go to the profile of Julia Goralsky
8 months ago

Week 2

If you are doing a leadership-in-action or community engagement project, how do you interact with community members, and what kind of conversations are you having? How do you connect with this community of people, and what common cause do you find?

My main source of interaction with community members is a clinic held once a week for hypertension patients. Typically, a line of about 100-200 people will form around 7-8am outside/in the main hallway of the clinic comprising patients waiting to be seen. Everyone then listens to a health education seminar as the clinicians arrive. The majority of interactions between the health education staff/clinicians and the patients occurs in Lhukonzo. However, patients will often say hello to me, and using a clinician to translate, we’ll often have a brief conversation. In addition, speaking to patients who understand a bit more English, I’ve been excited to learn about their occupations and backgrounds. Overall, while this language barrier has been a bit terrifying, one of the most common phrases I tend to hear is “You are most welcome.” Given the community is relatively rural and remote, I wasn’t quite sure how my project would be perceived, so it has been amazing to meet such a kind and welcoming group of people. Furthermore, people come from all over the Kasese district to attend this specific clinic, so it has been amazing to see how dedicated people are to pursuing care. As my project focuses on making this care more easily available to these patients, it has been great to connect through this common cause.

Go to the profile of Neha Mani
8 months ago

Week Four:
What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

One of the challenges I've encountered is making sure students stay on course with their deadlines + submitting materials to me in a timely fashion. To ensure consistent communication with my students, I use Slack to get in touch with students quickly and send all my workshop slides/tasks via email. So far, I've been able to make sure students keep me in the loop about their progress and are on track to publishing their outreach projects on our organization website by August 25th. Another challenge I encountered was ensuring students communicate with each other during our workshops because I believe science education should be collaborative and didn't want the students to feel isolated. I have been successful in forging collaborations between students on their projects and one student will be starting an initiative in the fall which many other students in our program are interested in helping with as well! So, this has been a super exciting development and I look forward to encouraging more teamwork in our program for the rest of the summer. 

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
8 months ago

Wow! Thanks for sharing, Neha! I hope you are having a meaningful experience!

Go to the profile of Rosie Zhou
8 months ago

Week Four:
What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

One challenge that I've encountered, which I see that some other students have encountered as well, is navigating how to structure my time effectively. Because my internship with MHF is pretty unstructured and I have a lot of freedom for how to use my time for certain projects/tasks, I have found it difficult at times to foster the self diligence that's needed to work on things. Without concrete deadlines, it can be easy to push things off and focus on other creative projects of my own. 

However, I've found ways to overcome this challenge, mainly through creating schedules for myself and allocating chunks of time to focus on tasks. I've also found it very helpful to dedicate certain times of the day towards different focus areas—for example: mornings/early afternoons for internship tasks, evenings/nights for creative projects. 

Week Five:
What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

I have gained many new skills from my summer experience, mainly surrounding how to use and set up recording equipment and facilitate interviews. Chet Canlas, who runs the Media team at MHF and is an independent filmmaker, has been instrumental in teaching me these skills. I'm so thankful that he dedicated his own time to teach me how to use equipment and answer my questions. I'm also thankful that he allowed me to spearhead my own projects and produce a podcast segment and commercial for the organization. I admire Chet's work ethic and straightforwardness, he is a strong leader who is not afraid to tell you how it is. I will definitely try to carry his spirit with me as I lead projects in the future, acting with a sense of power and resoluteness.

Go to the profile of Elianna Lee
8 months ago

Week Two:
If your project connects with your research from last summer, explain the ways in which it picks up on themes, issues, or questions that are important to you. How are you expanding on your project from last summer? How is your understanding of this topic evolving?

If you are doing a leadership-in-action or community engagement project, how do you interact with community members, and what kind of conversations are you having? How do you connect with this community of people, and what common cause do you find?

My project this summer is very much closely related to my work on the American Diva project last summer in terms of methodology, as a significant portion of the research takes place online; last summer I was investigating different portrayals of 'diva', most of which were available through online archives that were created as fan service, while this summer I have been looking into online forms of cultural and linguistic preservation. For the first two weeks, I’ve focused mainly on becoming familiar with the methodology and history of digital ethnography in order to better understand my place as a researcher—a ‘non-digital-centric’ approach, though the term might seem paradoxical, focuses on the ways that media and technology are embedded into our everyday lives, following users offline and online. There are also a lot of variant terms for digital diasporas and digital ethnography (such as net-diasporas, web-diasporas, netnography, cyber ethnography, and so on), so it's been interesting to see how certain disciplines use these specific terms.

Week Three:
What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!

My advising professor is quite flexible about my research, so aside from meeting twice a week to discuss what I’ve been reading, my days normally start at around 9-10am, I go for a walk, eat breakfast, and take the bus to UNAM which is about 30 minutes away. During our meetings my professor will give me specific books and articles to read as well as videos to review and transcribe, so the majority of my day is spent doing that in the library or at the Institute for Anthropological research, where his office is located. On the weekends I usually spend time with family and I love going to the different markets and museums here in Mexico City. This is a photo I took of one of the main markets, La plaza la fuente del dragón, and some sweet stuffed animals :) 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/6RAKEkJ4V46ivCjH8 

Week Four:
What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem

One challenge that I’ve encountered is understanding Spanish at an academic level—though I am fluent conversationally, there are often times where I feel like an important concept has gone over my head–reading primary sources and academic papers can prove a bit difficult, especially since some academic concepts are hard to understand even in English. As far as tackling this problem, what I’ve found works the best for me is to skim read a paragraph and then slowly go over each word to make sure that my I am not misunderstanding any sentiments or phrases and I’ve also been reading a book of short stories in Spanish to help with my reading comprehension.

Go to the profile of Denise Taveras
8 months ago

Week Five:
What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

I learned a lot from my supervisor, as the senior site work manager, they were really inciteful about what it means to be a leader and activist in a community that's not your own. Through working on different projects that were community-based and location specific, I learned about best practices for supporting communities and their ability to create programming and services that address issues in them. Throughout the summer, we started to build a resource that collected information from existing organizations that addressed the over-punitive policies in probation and parole. A big part of this project involved respecting already existing community-based organizations and their ability to understand and address problems in their community. Within the context of my fellowship at the Justice Lab and as a Laidlaw fellow, this guidance was really important to me as I struggled at first with understanding how I, as a non-community member, could contribute to these community based efforts without reproducing some of the violent and harmful rhetoric and ideas that often come with field work. A lot of these communities know what the problems are, they just need access to the resources that can help address them in sustainable ways. 

Week Six:
For your final post, upload a video presentation or create a written or photographic narrative in which you discuss your project: why did you become interested in this project, what was the goal of the project, what was its significance or impact (real or potential). How did the project evolve or change over the course of these six weeks? Finally, please consider how your understanding of leadership (curiosity, empathy, teamwork, resilience, etc.) has informed your work or been deepened by your work.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KApPvcbbIM4iGN9eySqKlQUyhc5hvU-Fx/view?usp=sharing

Go to the profile of Rosie Zhou
8 months ago

Denise, it's great to hear about how you've taken a lot away from your experience! Your recognition of how to navigate the space as a non-community member to ensure that you weren't reproducing any harmful rhetoric, is really admirable and definitely something I've had to come to terms with/still coming to terms with. 

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
8 months ago

Week Four:
What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

Understanding the impact of my work challenges me. The more I learn about the tourism industry and environmental opportunities, the more convoluted my understanding becomes. I have developed a guide for my organization on my perspective of how and why to manage one’s carbon footprint within the tourism industry, and I want to start using my knowledge to ensure that tourism businesses make ethical, sustainable choices. To grow my impact and make the most of my time here, I have tackled this challenge by reaching out to my coworkers and asking for advice. At times, it may be hard to reach out, but I have realized that this open communication is very helpful, and my voice has value. I also am resolving this challenge by reaching out to more tourism enterprises to learn more about what they need the most guidance with. Providing a platform to speak about sustainability within tourism is relatively new (from a carbon footprint perspective), so these conversations promote impact. The conversations help the organizations question their current processes and, in time, should promote positive sustainable choices.

Go to the profile of Julia Goralsky
8 months ago

Week 3

During the week, I primarily work from the Bugoye Health Center campus. Typically, everyone starts their day around sunrise at 7am, so I’m definitely having to learn to be a morning person. Depending on my tasks for the day, I’ll usually work on my patient database design from the NGO office next door. Everyone is super friendly, so during this time, I’ll also have the chance to learn about how other studies are going on topics such as severe malaria, bednet distribution, etc. In the early afternoon, I’ll usually return home and work until 5 or 6pm. Then, I’ll then have 1 or 2 meetings before I’m done for the day!

On Thursday, however, I’ll head over to the clinic on campus, meet with the patients, and record notes during their visit with the clinician. The clinic lasts however long there is a line of patients outside, and I am always impressed by the stamina of the staff.

On weekends, I typically do some sort of fun, touristy activity with my roommate. So far, we’ve completed a hike in the Rwenzori Mountains and are planning to head to Queen Elizabeth National Park next weekend. Otherwise, I do a LOT of reading!

Here’s a picture of the health center and of the hike we did in the Rwenzoris: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DtxsAzJeNwStXVxc0aHSuTMk6idcdXqz/view?usp=drive_link

Go to the profile of Wena Teng
7 months ago

This sounds like the perfect balance of learning and fun as well as the perfect balance between research and NGO. So exciting and hope you end your time in Uganda with a blast.

Go to the profile of Rosie Zhou
8 months ago

Week Six:
For your final post, upload a video presentation or create a written or photographic narrative in which you discuss your project: why did you become interested in this project, what was the goal of the project, what was its significance or impact (real or potential). How did the project evolve or change over the course of these six weeks? Finally, please consider how your understanding of leadership (curiosity, empathy, teamwork, resilience, etc.) has informed your work or been deepened by your work.

One of the most meaningful projects I worked on was creating an "podcast" episode—an interview with Manang Jeanette, one of the original defenders of the I-Hotel. Mikey (the other intern) and I asked her questions regarding her experiences back in the 60s living and working at the I-Hotel; how she developed bonds with the manongs there, how the experience shaped her, etc. We also connected the history of the I-Hotel to the present day, sharing our observations as young people today and how American society has changed/stayed the same since the times when she was our age. 

As I was editing the interview, Manang Jeanette's words really touched me even more than when we were recording—I think they truly are so important for our generation to hear. I'm grateful that we were able to engage in meaningful conversation, her words will stay with me forever. 

On August 4th, MHF held their commemoration event of the 46th anniversary of the I-Hotel eviction. We first had an gallery exhibit open to the public, then a screening of the restored version of Curtis Choy's documentary The Fall of the I-Hotel, and finally, a community sharing session where community members, including original defenders, shared poetry, excerpts, music, with the audience. It was truly a beautiful, moving event that I'll always remember. Seeing how the legacies of those who fought for the I-Hotel have continued into the present day and are still being carried on gives me a sense of hope, as well as determination to keep sharing the story of the I-Hotel, so that it becomes engrained in our collective memory and never becomes forgotten. 

Lastly, my understanding of leadership has undeniably been deepened by my time at MHF this summer. My experiences have shown me that the best leaders are those who maintain a sense of curiosity and humility, not viewing themselves as "above" anyone else. They are deeply empathetic, extending their kindness and generosity to all they work with, as they see how others contribute to their own learning and self growth as well. And of course, they must have resilience, working through barriers to achieve their goals and not being afraid of challenges/getting out of their comfort zone. I hope that I can keep working towards the point of embodying this level of leadership. 

Here is a folder with photos I took from the August 4th commemoration event :) Another beautiful thing that came out of this summer is getting more into photography—I'm glad I was able to document our events so they will always be remembered through visual images. Maybe someday they'll be in MHF's archive, and young people will look at them the same way I look at images in the archive from the 60s/70s now. 

Go to the profile of Elianna Lee
8 months ago

Hi Rosie! It's so great to read about your transformative time working with the I-Hotel and their leaders; to be able to be in community with people who love and care deeply about each other is always a refreshing experience. I love your photography! It's always so great to be building an archive in real time, whether it's for yourself or for others 

Go to the profile of Wena Teng
8 months ago

Rosie! I am so happy for you and this is so exciting. I remember us learning about The Fall of the I-Hotel in our Intro to Asian American Studies class Freshman Fall and then visiting MHF last summer in SF. What a full circle and so glad to see that you are continuing to explore your passions in film and media. 

Not only is your photography so emotion provoking, but your reflection on your experience is also lovely to hear.  I feel very similar, to the non-profit I'm working with, and feel so honored to share community and space with people who are so brilliant but humble. You are just like those you described and so glad your perspective on leadership has evolved. 

Go to the profile of Julia Goralsky
8 months ago

Week 4

What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

One of the most notable challenges I’ve had so far centers around communication. Given that I have a limited internet connection and am 7 hours ahead of EDT, it is difficult to be in constant communication with the US-based side of the research team. Thus, I have definitely been switching between email, WhatsApp, and Zoom to relate the essential information. However, not being able to check-in about every little detail has also given me the opportunity to learn to trust myself and my decision-making process. Furthermore, this has provided me with the chance to rely on the Uganda-based team, which has been incredibly supportive.

For example, in redesigning a patient database, I first interviewed the clinical staff based in Bugoye and then reviewed their current paper and electronic systems. From this, I created an outline that I have been (slowly) updating to record patient history from 2019-2023. In order to make sure I have enough time to complete the project, I have had to have a bit of faith in the efficacy of my design skills and my ability to resolve any inconsistencies that naturally arise from relying on handwritten paper charts. This has definitely been a bit terrifying as I normally like to check in with my PI over smaller issues/questions, but in this sense, has thus been a great opportunity to gain confidence that I hope to apply to the research I complete in the US. 

Go to the profile of Elianna Lee
8 months ago

Week Five:
What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

During my time here in Mexico City I've been mainly focusing on improving my skills as a researcher by connecting theory to fieldwork; Dr. Castillo, my project adviser, has been immensely helpful in helping me distinguish which discipline my future endeavors might take and how to integrate my own personal experiences with my research. As I have had the opportunity to engage with his work, my own perspective and definition of collective memory has solidified into something I now see myself engaging with almost every day; it reminds me a lot of my work last summer working with nontraditional archives, archives that exist because of a deep love for a certain topic. This is definitely something I see my future work focusing on; how our own personal archives function as a preservation of culture and memory in ways that formal archives can sometimes lose. 

Go to the profile of Julia Goralsky
7 months ago

Hi! That sounds like an amazing opportunity, learning how to fuse your personal experience with academic research to not only provide a source of motivation for the research but reach an even deeper understanding of the subject matter itself. I can somewhat relate - in STEM research, personal experience isn't a critical aspect of the research process, but after engaging with direct patient populations through global health research this summer, I am realizing the importance of using this personal experience to direct both future wet-lab and global health research I might engage with!

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
8 months ago

My experience has greatly expanded my knowledge of how tourism organizations think and how they are beginning to respond to the climate crisis. I feel much more adept at sharing information related to climate and tourism. I have also learned how to better express myself in Spanish in the fields that interest me.

My supervisor Gabriel has helped shape my project. He has given me more confidence to express my more environmentalist lens within the tourism industry here in Chile. He has provided me with confidence to ask more direct, sensitive questions to tourism businesses about their sustainability practices. Generally, the tourism industry still has a long way to go to find ways to make sustainability profitable, largely due to the large carbon footprint associated with air (and cruise) travel. Many organizations who are beginning to count their emissions and become “carbon neutral” still do not include the airfare of visitors coming to their properties and programs. Asking direct questions about this sensitive subject for them was something I was unsure about, given my representation with the Federation of Tourism Enterprises. However, I feel more comfortable approaching these themes (respectfully, of course).

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
8 months ago

Week 5 in Santiago :)

Go to the profile of Wena Teng
8 months ago

Adding both Week One and Week Two here:

Week One: As you set out on your research or community engagement project, do you find yourself experiencing any worries or insecurities about saying something that’s already been said? How do we as researchers and/or volunteers learn to address or set aside those insecurities or, better yet, to use them to our advantage?

I will be in Taiwan this summer and one worry I have is the lack of institutional knowledge and language skills to communicate with community members and the mentors at the NGO I am working with.

My Mandarin is rusty, my Taiwanese skills are little to none, and the operations of non-profits in Taiwan, on first impression, seem to be very different than operations of non-profits in the states. Already, so many times this week, I found myself speaking English in the middle of a sentence or conversation. Fortunately, many people on my team, international affairs, have worked in non-profit spaces in the States and can speak English. However, I can use my transnational identity and ability to navigate between the two languages - despite their sporadicness - to my advantage because my perspective would be able to provide ideas that are not just national, but global. I would also be able to bring my experiences from non-profits in the States to suggest different ways to approach outreach, legal research, and more.

I'm very grateful to be back in a city that I have only known as a child and only attached to fun/leisure. Thus, much of my knowledge about the legal and political landscape of Taiwan is filled with gaps, but I'm viewing them as advantages and points of learning and growth. Hopefully, I would be able to finish an entire conversation without saying parts in English by the end of this summer. 

Week Two: If your project connects with your research from last summer, explain the ways in which it picks up on themes, issues, or questions that are important to you. How are you expanding on your project from last summer? How is your understanding of this topic evolving?

This summer, my community engagement project is in Taipei, Taiwan with an NGO called the Garden of Hope Foundation: a non-profit devoted to "preventing and eliminating gender-based violence and co-creating a gender-friendly society through a diverse array of services and initiatives."

Last summer's project focused on archival research and playing around with documents of the past. Playing around with archival documents, last year, also meant creating connections by myself: often with the past and future. For example, one of my concluding thesis was that the idea of somatic individualism, seen in Qing women who found intellectual networks in their inner chambers in a Confucian state, was related to modern women and feminists participating in dissent through performance. Garden of Hope's projects and initiatives bring the archives to life because their advocacy team is similar to the modern advocates I researched last summer; although the Garden of Hope is based in Taiwan and different from China, threads can be formed between movements there and here.

My responsibilities include helping them with memos and logistic coordination for their upcoming annual international conference; this summer, their conference is focused on Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV). This expands on my project from last summer, which saw both gender-based violence and dissent occurring within the family sphere or physical space, but this evolves my own thinking by expanding the spaces in which violence but also advocacy, and dissent can take place.

I'm so excited to learn more about Taiwan - its history, legal world, political world, culture, night markets, and more!! 

Go to the profile of Harrison Gerson
8 months ago

Thanks for sharing, Noah! Your glaciology jokes rock!

Go to the profile of Julia Goralsky
7 months ago

Hi Noah! Your textbook project sounds awesome; I can't wait to check out the completed version!

Go to the profile of Wena Teng
7 months ago

Hi Harrison, I loved your video recap! It sounds like you had an incredible time extending your project from last year to exploring tourism/sustainability practices. 

Go to the profile of Neha Mani
8 months ago

Week Five:

I acquired a variety of skills in leading workshops and training younger students in developing research prowess and a passion for science education. My project mentor, Arya who is the Director of the Science Squad, has been instrumental in guiding me throughout the project. She has been critical in helping me effectively lead workshops, manage communication with all my students, and ensure the program is maximally productive! She has taught me a lot about leadership, particularly the ways in which leadership is not always about doing everything yourself, but rather knowing when to delegate tasks to increase the organization’s productivity. Her advice applies to leadership I’ll exhibit in my other extracurricular activities in the present and in the future.

Go to the profile of Julia Goralsky
7 months ago

Week 5

What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

In terms of practical skills, my summer experience has allowed me to engage with a lot of resources that are generally employed in clinical research, which I will be able to not only take beyond undergrad but directly apply to my job during the year. For example, this has included gaining an increased familiarity with REDCap software as well as the ethical concerns that are naturally more prominent when working with individuals in the research process rather than cancer cells. In terms of perspective, this experience has also shifted my view on public health research. I was definitely a bit uneasy leaving behind the lab this summer, but spending time with the PHEALED team and the patients of the hypertension clinic has shown me the very impactful nature of this form of research and has encouraged me to apply for other opportunities to get more involved with global health initiatives. 

One of the most impactful people so far has been the program manager of the PHEALED site: Mr. Emmanuel Baguma. Aside from helping me organize even the most trivial details of my project, he has modeled a form of leadership that has allowed me to better understand the characteristics of a successful NGO. While his leadership style certainly incorporates a variety of different elements, what has been most notable to me is his ability to foster collaboration. He has demonstrated that to be a successful leader, one must really get to know their team and create an environment that not only encourages productivity but also centers on ensuring a positive employee experience. As I seek out leadership opportunities in the future, I will thus focus on the development of my communication and collaboration skills so that I too might be able to engage with various teams in this manner.

Go to the profile of Elianna Lee
7 months ago

Week Six:
For your final post, upload a video presentation or create a written or photographic narrative in which you discuss your project: why did you become interested in this project, what was the goal of the project, what was its significance or impact (real or potential). How did the project evolve or change over the course of these six weeks? Finally, please consider how your understanding of leadership (curiosity, empathy, teamwork, resilience, etc.) has informed your work or been deepened by your work.

I became interested in this project due to my own experiences in my personal and academic life; last summer, I engaged with audiovisual archives a significant amount and I wanted to further explore how these formats can serve as forms of cultural preservation. The project did not necessarily have a goal except furthering my own experience with anthropological fieldwork and I feel more secure in my research interests for future projects.  Through this summer's work, my own understanding of leadership has been reinforced as something that requires empathy and curiosity, something that must be focused on the group that's being lead rather than the leader itself; this comes from my work observing acts of community both here and in New York City. A theme that I find myself coming back to this summer is collective memory--the shared experiences, culture, values and beliefs--and personal archives and how the two can sometimes converge. The attached photos are some that I though embodied collective memory, especially through public monuments.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/wp2aniwx9PAZjXLz6

Go to the profile of Wena Teng
7 months ago

Ellie, this sounds lovely and I remember you talking about this earlier in the semester. I loved that you were able to compliment your research with the archives with anthropological fieldwork. Your photos have such a strong sense of nostalgia and I loved looking through them. Collective memory is something I was also thinking about this summer as I traveled back to Asia, but also thinking about how my own memory of community, from when I was younger, has changed now that I'm back as a young adult. I'm so happy for you and can't wait to hear more!

Go to the profile of Julia Goralsky
7 months ago

Week 6

For your final post, upload a video presentation or create a written or photographic narrative in which you discuss your project: why did you become interested in this project, what was the goal of the project, what was its significance or impact (real or potential). How did the project evolve or change over the course of these six weeks? Finally, please consider how your understanding of leadership (curiosity, empathy, teamwork, resilience, etc.) has informed your work or been deepened by your work.

I am attaching a link to my video below!

https://laidlawscholars.network/videos/99f7363a-5c91-4420-8e5d-7dedb6edf5fd

Go to the profile of Wena Teng
7 months ago

Week Three: What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!

The exciting thing about this part of the summer is that every day is a little bit different, but a typical weekday for me looks like this:

• Wake up around 7:30 AM and say hi to my host family's cat :)

• Head downstairs to the FamilyMart or 7 for a cup of cold brew. There are so many street-esque vendors and stores in Taipei - I usually just walk until I see something that catches my eye. On this day, I had egg pancake with Chinese croissant (蛋饼加油条). Everything here is so yummy AND cheap - I'm not sure how I am going to survive in the States again.

• If I'm asked to come to work in the afternoon, I sometimes like to go to a cafe in the morning or look around. I live right next to the famous Elephant Mountain and hiking it in the morning, before there are tourists, has been so refreshing.

• Take the train to Garden of Hope's 新店 (Xindian) location! It's where the International Affairs team is located and my commute is around ~50 minutes.

• Check in with my team: Here, I receive assignments for the day, continue ongoing assignments for the international conference, provide my input, or receive feedback. I'm either working on translations, researching about technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TF GBV), or doing outreach with our constituencies/speakers at the upcoming conference. 

• Team lunch from 12:30-1:30! Work dynamics in the states vs. in Taiwan have been interesting to observe. At least at GOH, the dynamics are very horizontal and interns are always invited to lunches and can casually get to know each other/our team. They've been so welcoming and supportive with my work, but also eager to get to know me/my passions, and answer my questions about local life, non-profit spaces in Taiwan, and food suggestions :,)

• Head back to Taipei area around 6PM. Sometimes I grab dinner with a friend or explore night markets by myself!

Below are some pictures. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1j3dQvhn5ZOi5YmlDzXFhEkpwxi6KykfC?usp=drive_link

Go to the profile of Wena Teng
7 months ago

Week 4: What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

Since I work with the International Affairs team, one challenge has been being able to process the differences - both subtle and blatant - between different countries/regions regarding technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TF GBV). From digital surveillance to historical differences to cultural/political changes, each country has a different set of legislation and societal reactions/engagement with TFGBV. Being able to understand the differences between different countries, and in contrast with what I am familiar with (the US) while also respecting and being open-minded to the different sociopolitical orders/norms in different regions has been fulfilling. A lot of the discussions and teach-ins we had the first summer have been helpful in viewing regulations and norms -- not just in Taiwan but also in the other regions I am researching -- carefully and critically. I also am very grateful for my team and fellow interns who have engaged in conversations with me and provided me with readings, and Taiwanese shows (like WaveMakers) that touch on these complicated topics. 

Go to the profile of Wena Teng
7 months ago

Week Five:
What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience? Have you met anyone who has been instrumental in shaping/helping you conduct your project? Briefly, how has this person impacted you? What have you learned about leadership from this individual, and how might it influence your actions, work, and self in the future?

Since most of my responsibilities, this summer were to provide support for GOH's international conference on Technology Facilitated Gender-Based Violence, I gained more knowledge on advocacy and policy through both an international and digital sense. Much of my knowledge about policy is either through physical interactions with communities or historical archives, but supporting the international conference provided me with a transnational approach to the legal and policy-based resources for victims of TFGBV. Since international mobilization is also contingent on different languages, time zones, different national approaches, and cultural gaps, learning how to mobilize digitally was a needed skill for future transnational leadership and a connected global community. 

On a similar theme of global connection, I met another Laidlaw Scholar from the UK who was also doing their leadership in action at the Garden of Hope! Laidlaw Scholars are truly everywhere and it was a shock when we both learned about our shared program. My friend and fellow intern, Elly, worked on a separate program that GOH also hosts called Power Camp where girls from across Asia gather to network, learn, and discuss issues ranging from media literacy to body positivity with cultural sensitivity and gender awareness training. In addition to learning about the ways they navigated a new space and new work culture, as Elly had only worked in Europe before, Elly also gave me an incredible perspective about taking risks. They had been mostly involved in tech and startup spaces prior but made her major switch and interest switch rather recently. Beyond amazing conversations about our shared experiences being first generation, our research interests, and more Elly also approached all the spaces we worked in with an open mind, passion, humor, and friendliness. Through that, she was a good listener and I noticed she led through those aspects. I especially admired her shift towards pursuing her interests, and taking these risks, as this is also something I am working on and will continue to do. 

Go to the profile of Akshay Manglik
7 months ago

Apologies for the late post - I had to get my responses cleared beforehand which delayed my submission. 

Week 1

Q: If your project this summer differs from your project last summer, has last summer’s project influenced your project this year, and if so how?  If your project is different, what tools have you developed to help you work on this project?

A: Last summer, I worked on using computational and machine learning techniques to analyze both fMRI (brain imaging) and text data to contribute to a memory study. My project this summer is focused on helping make tools that can automate the process of triage, enabling first responders to respond to crises quicker and more effectively. While my research this year differs - I'm working with health-related data, and analyzing images and videos rather than text or MRIs - I'm using the same kind of quantitative and software engineering skills to develop algorithms and pipelines that can be used in a variety of contexts. Last summer was helpful for familiarizing myself with tools like Jupyter, working on a server, and using Linux/Bash alongside Python, all skills that I am using for my current project as well.

Week 2:

Q: If your project connects with your research from last summer, explain the ways in which it picks up on themes, issues, or questions that are important to you. How are you expanding on your project from last summer? How is your understanding of this topic evolving?

A: My project connects with some of the research I did last summer in terms of the techniques and processes that I am currently using. Part of my research last year involved using "foundation models" (very powerful, general purpose algorithms) to help with analyzing language; this summer, in order to help create technologies necessary for automated triage, I utilized other cutting-edge foundation models (such as Meta's Segment Anything model) that were attuned to image processing. My skills from last summer in creating analysis pipelines for applying pre-trained foundation models to new data (and understanding the steps of data preprocessing, code adaptation, etc) were crucial for this process.

 I also have an evolving understanding of how triage works and what the constraints would be in a computational setting. Whereas there are many things a doctor can focus on immediately (measuring heart rate, note down injuries, etc) it is much harder for a robot to perform those tasks. There are workaround measures that are themselves areas of research (e.g., identifying heart rate from video of a person), but the process of working on this problem has provided me with a deeper understanding of what those second-order steps are.

Over these past two summers, I feel I have been exploring different types of knowledge - knowledge conveyed by text, by videos, by images, by time series data - and how we can analyze those types of knowledge in concert with each other to build new mental models and tools that can help build our understanding of the brain or help doctors treat patients.

Week 3

Q: What does a typical day look like this summer? Aside from a narrative description, upload a photo, video and/or other media submission!

A: The days tend to fluctuate a bit (especially depending on whether I'm in person or remote), but typically I wake up at 7, take the train and then a shuttle from DC to Laurel, MD, and start my workday. I'll work on my code, and attend meetings on the project. Often these meetings will give me a better picture of other areas of the project (for example, other types of triage approaches that are possible) and the overall topic. After lunch and some more work (interacting with some of the other interns as well), I'll head over to the makerspace to work on the intern project for our sector - essentially a separate project interns across teams can work on together. This year's intern project is making a small drone (like one you might buy on Amazon and fly) from scratch and programming it to fly autonomously. It's a super interesting project (involving hardware, software, and AI) and I've been learning a lot from it! After that, I'll head back home, grab dinner with a friend, and relax.

Here's a picture of the drone that we built (after a crash during a test run):

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Qp2EnNTv89o3gVMX7

 

Week 4

Q: What challenges and/or difficulties have you encountered and how did you go about resolving them? Speak to a specific challenge you have encountered and some of the ways that you tackled the problem.

A: I've encountered a number of challenges trying to implement my project, due to my lack of familiarity with some of the techniques and approaches that we are using (related to computer vision) as well as my unfamiliarity with the general area of triage and first aid. I've tackled them both by consulting online guides and resources, which are abundant and very helpful, and also by talking to the employees I'm working with to see what they know about the issue and if they have any advice for approaching the problem.

One challenge I encountered was while I was working on my analyses. One type of image analysis is an image segmentation, where you highlight relevant areas of an image that you want to focus on (i.e., segment the area of focus). There are different algorithms that exist for performing these segmentations, where you give the algorithm some kind of "prompt" so it knows what to focus on. I was having issues with using one kind of prompt - a keypoint prompt - where you place dots on the rough areas that you want to focus on. This prompt was not granular enough, and selected elements that I did not want to select (for example, it would select a subject's whole body, instead of just their arm, because it couldn't tell that I was trying to select their arm and not their entire body). To resolve this issue, I talked with the other employees about it and had a one on one meeting with someone who was very experienced with using this type of model, who walked me through some of the alternative prompt methods we could explore. I ended up settling on a bounding box approach, where you draw a box around the desired area instead. This has the benefit of telling the model both what you want to select and what you do not want to select. In general, I have utilized and practiced a lot of my communication skills, which Laidlaw has emphasized throughout my two summers.

Week 5

Q: What new skills and/or knowledge have you gained from your summer experience?

A: I have gained a lot of skills and knowledge from this summer. As mentioned in some of my prior reflections, I gained technical skills, such as performing new types of analyses and generating new software workflows that combine analyses together to automate long and repetitive processes. I also gained technical knowledge, such as how cutting-edge image analysis (computer vision) algorithms work, as well as learning about the different considerations that go into triage and first aid response, especially in disaster situations. Lastly, I exercised and gained soft skills, such as collaboration and communication. Working on a project with a larger team meant working with several different people and communicating what I was working on and struggling with, as well as proactively reaching out to others for assistance and guidance. This enabled me to learn a lot more than if I was just teaching myself, and it ensured that everyone's work was complementing each other's rather than duplicating efforts. I also got to know the employees and interns that I was working with, which was helpful for forming connections and learning more about other people's professional journeys.

Week 6:

Q: For your final post, upload a video presentation or create a written or photographic narrative in which you discuss your project.

A: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M5DrMegpgxqRVRJuxtcgZtd32fa_ClQJ/view?usp=sharing