ÐÔ°®ÌìÌÃ

This spring the Mellon Initiative is saying goodbye to the largest group of undergraduate researchers: 26 students from the 2017, 2018, and 2019 cohorts are graduating on May 16. We are super proud of each and every graduate and their impressive achievements! 

Given the various choices of how one can spend their summers, these students took the opportunity to do arts or humanities research in collaboration with a ÐÔ°®ÌìÌà professor for a ten-week stretch. Invariably, this experience can become a little intense, as students have to navigate and overcome challenges, such as finding the right work-life balance, making new friends and connecting with their fellow summer researchers, working solo on new tasks and materials for an extended period, and responding to setbacks and detours in their research. 

With the steadfast support of their faculty mentors, as well as the Mellon program, each of these students finished strong if not stronger: all presented their research findings at their end-of-summer ÐÔ°®ÌìÌà Research Symposium and many went on to present their findings at undergraduate, graduate, and even professional research conferences all over the country. For example, in 2019/20 almost half of the 2019 Mellon SURFs applied to and were subsequently invited to present at conferences, some even had to make choices as their presentations were accepted at multiple conferences!  

Please help us congratulate these inspiring scholars and wish them the very best as they go forth into the world to begin a career and/or go on to graduate studies. We will miss you!

Ariana Fletcher-Bai, Tiffany Nguyen, Chelsea Rodriguez

Ariel del Vecchio, Mary Margaret Herring, Jamiless Lopez, Chiara Pride, Kristina Reinis, Andrew Tao, Kate Warford, Simone Washington

Arisha Ali, Abigail Bowen, Jonathan Chapman, Ry Eskridge, Sara Heridia, Connie Laing, Alex Parris, Nathaniel Pigott, Lauren Rawlins, Nick Smetzer, Kirsten Timco, Jared Tincher, Adam Toler, Simone Washington, Leah Woehr, Allyson Young