Past Projects

I spent the summer of 2021 exploring how working adults in English towns have reacted to the pandemic and what perceptions they hold about the impacts on themselves and their families.

Advanced Studio students and Professor Margaretha Haughwout organized an online exhibition to showcase students' exceptional work in the spring 2020 semester.

For my AMS project I wanted to investigate storytelling in other countries. I found that some of the most important national narratives are found in memorials that commemorate important events and collective tragedies, which are defining moments in a country’s history. As an English major, I am interested in text-based storytelling, but I also appreciate the power of art, photographs, statues, and other modes of representation. I had the privilege to travel to four different countries with my study abroad program, Semester at Sea. While in Japan, Vietnam, Mauritius, and South Africa, I used my AMS funding to visit important sites such as commemorative museums and engage in interpersonal exchange where possible. Here is a brief summary of my key findings in each country.

For my AMS project, I explored the legendary Queen Mary 2 ship on its August 18th-August 25th voyage and its December 15th to 22nd voyage. On both voyages, I interviewed passengers and employees to learn more about why more people are choosing to travel on cruise ships. I asked a series of questions including who chooses to cruise, why specifically the Queen Mary 2, and who chooses to work on a cruise ship. I also compared the answers of summer and winter passengers to note any differences. By doing so, I hope to understand a little more about how cruise ships function as a business and why there is an uptick in the demand for cruise ships worldwide.

When we travel to a place, we leave with a certain fantasy about the place in our mind. Whether it be a picturesque landscape that one saw in a travel guide photo, the sound of the music of an artist from that place or a particular scene in a movie, what we were exposed to before travel constitutes our fantasies and expectations for the trip. Just before the trip I had taken one semester of Arabic. I found the language extremely fascinating, and I wanted to see and experience more in depth the culture that the language was living in. So in summer 2019, I went to Egypt for a 7-week intensive Arabic Program at Hedayet Institute located in Maadi, Cairo with the fantasy of learning Egyptian arabic while also exploring Egyptian culture.

After my semester abroad in Wollongong, Australia, where I took a course on nutrition, I spent two weeks of July 2019 immersing myself in the culture and geography of different regions in New Zealand. As an aspiring medical student from rural upstate NY, who had the opportunity to learn about nutrition both in and outside of the classroom in Australia, I was curious to learn about nutrition and wellness in one of the most geographically unique countries in the world.

“ Not all monasteries allow women inside all parts of the monastery.” 1 This quote comes from an interview I conducted on April 11, 2019, with a male member of the Ladakh Buddhist Association in Leh, Ladakh, India. I was in Leh, Ladakh, in Northern India during the month of April, 2019 with the chance to complete a research project on the relationship between women and religion. During that month, I interviewed thirty-seven people, most of them women, about the relationship between women and religion in Leh. I expected them to give opinions on issues such as women religious (in this case, Buddhist nuns), the ways that lay women practice Buddhism, religious education, and the effects of religion on a woman’s understanding of self. Instead, almost everyone wanted to talk about the protector spirit temples of Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries and women’s lack of access to them. Overall, my interview participants were overwhelmed and angered that women were still not allowed to enter these holy spaces.

Climate change is a global issue that affects every aspect of our planet. While statistics on mass extinction and the amount of time left to save the earth can be daunting to any individual, the ski industry may be one of the most affected- and concerned. Skiers and ski mountains need snow to ski on, but ski areas across North America (and the world) are increasingly experiencing rapid changes in temperatures and snowfall. Extensive research has demonstrated that ski resorts have alarmingly short lifespans if temperatures continue on an upward trend- but some ski resorts are more vulnerable than others. There is a significant difference between ski resorts based on region; this can perhaps most clearly be seen between the Northeast and Rocky Mountains.