Tanner Conference

Melissa Jo Zambrana '16 describes her summer working at Tufts University’s Summer English Language Program. Imagine trying to develop skills in a language different than your own in a country where you know no one. Melissa Jo worked with college-aged students from 15 countries who were hoping to craft, improve, and refine their English language skills. There were daily excursions into Boston, presentations and workshops on American history and culture, and classes on idioms and world events. In her role as resident counselor, she worked to create a comforting, vibrant academic community for the students but found herself learning a lot from them as well. They taught her their languages, shared their perspectives on global issues, and showed ways in which they had fun in their countries. The students might have come to improve their English, but everyone at the Summer English Language Programs learned much more than they expected and developed friendships spanning the oceans.

This summer, Jeanne Gallée '16 worked as a full-time research assistant in MGH professor Evelina Fedorenko's neurolinguistics laboratory at MIT. She participated in a brand-new project that has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the language center of the brain. In an effort to combat the issues that different experiments, subjects, MRI scanners, and data analyses of different laboratories pose, the EvLab’s “ALICE" project will undertake the creation of a universal language localizer by implementing an auditory listening and response task across at least 100 languages in a fMRI study on native speakers. Additionally, Jeanne was given the opportunity to lead her own project on adaptive neural responses to syntactic structures.

Lisa Hsieh '16 interned at Hitachi TechnoInformation Services in Tokyo. She participated in several projects involving Hitachi's patent research database system. Many of these projects required Japanese-to-English translation. She realized that translating the original Japanese passages in a way that was consistent with the customary English usage was far more important then literal word-for-word meaning of the text.

Erin Nealer '15 worked on the Competitiveness and Enterprise Development Project at Babson Global this summer. "Enterprise Cities" are new, relatively autonomous cities on greenfield sites in developing countries that will grow through sustainable economic practices. Erin's research focused on anticompetitive market distortions that are common in developing countries, and the way in which they can be avoided in the future as young cities form.

Liza David '15 describes her internship with Ashoka, an enterprise for social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurship is the intersection of private and public sectors to pursue innovative solutions to societal problems. Ashoka works on health, education, environmental problems, and more. Liza describes her work on the Changemakers team, which runs worldwide competions looking for the next great innovation to solve pressing world problems.

Noorah Al-Eidi '15 recounts her internship with the Information Office of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, DC. She highlights joint Saudi-U.S. efforts to combat regional threats, and assesses some of the Kingdom's internal progress and challeneges in securing its own stability.

Alyssa Brody '16 and Charlotte Benishek '16 describe their internships that were coordinated by the Lumpkin Summer Institute for Service Learning. Alyssa worked in the Office of Senator Harriette L. Chandler. Charlotte interned with the Crittenden Women's Union. The Lumpkin Summer Institute challenges Wellesley students to explore and participate in social change in the Greater Boston Area. During the 10-week program, students reside together in Boston while undertaking full-time internships with local nonprofit organizations.

Bella Nikom '17 and Emily Chun '17 describe their summer in Jerusalem studying Hebrew in an intensive language immersion program. They saw firsthand the Israel-Hamas conflict that erupted shortly after they arrived.They discovered that a whole system of opolitics can be built around language. They learned how the use of Hebrew (or lack thereof) reflects the different desires of groups involved in this conflict.

Claire Tam '15 describes her Albright internship with the Belfash Interface Project, an independent peacebuilding organization in Northern Ireland's capital. She highlights her research on spatial segregation in Northern Ireland. Her time in Belfast revealed how power sharing enables social reconstruction; the way in which socioeconomic disparities continue to trap sectors of society in patterns of suspicion, mistrust, and civil unrest; and the centrality of youth engagement and community development to building sustainable peace.

As part of the Wellesley in Washington summer program, these four students spent the summer working within different health departments at the state and federal levels, at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and at the District of Columbia Department of Health. By reading and analyzing policy, regulations, and legislation they learned about disparities in health quality in vulnerable populations. Through data analysis, they saw how numbers could be turned into action and learned to make data accessible and readable for the general public. This presentation contrasts state level policy and program evaluation with work at the federal level, addressing the District of Columbia's dual function as the nation's capital and as a state. They share the unique experiences that the Washington Internship Program afforded us, to study health through our respective internships and glimpse Washington's culture through mentorships with alumnae in the strong network of Wellesley women.

As the first and sole intern for Austin Achieve Public Schools in the summer of 2013, one could say that I wore many hats. Hired to create a social and emotional learning (SEL) curriculum (based on my on-campus job at Open Circle), I began my internship endeavoring to build a curriculum for Austin Achieve that not only aligned with common SEL standards, but that fit the needs and hopes of this new charter school system. As with any new charter school, however, my responsibilities expanded in surprising ways—including coordination and oversight of Austin Achieve’s new campus, interim manager of school operations, and development of cultural competency training for staff and teachers. Working with a team of two to seven other staff members over the course of the summer, I learned the value of leaps of faith and the importance of a commitment to educational opportunity for all.

StudentsFirst, founded by former DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, is a national grassroots movement of more than 2 million parents, teachers, students, administrators, and citizens fighting to improve the current state of the American education system. As a communications associate, Lauren gained perspective on contentious education reform issues and the policy pillars that StudentsFirst rallies behind: elevating the status of teaching, empowering parents, and spending public education dollars wisely. Through these lenses, she expanded my knowledge of education policy and observed the daily operations of a hybrid grassroots-political lobbying organization while monitoring media, crafting communications, and researching teacher pension reform nationwide. This presentation focuses on nationwide research and media monitoring in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Iowa, and Maine, all while summarizing reform debates and lessons learned. Lauren's summer experience has fueled her interest in nonprofit sector work, specifically in public interest law, and has strengthened her commitment to the Wellesley College motto.

Education in the Dominican Republic is not accessible to everyone. Factors such as poverty and legal status prevent thousands of children from receiving an education. Mabelly spent the summer working with Caring Foundation, a nonprofit based in New York City that runs a school of 485 children in the poverty-stricken community of Bayaguana, Dominican Republic. She expected to just learn more about poverty and the Dominican Republic's educational system. Instead, she left with a deeper understanding not only of the challenges the Dominican Republic faces in educating its population, but also of the effects of immigration, race, and politics within the country. Dominican definitions of citizenship and historically strained relationships with Haiti leave many children of Haitian descent without access to education. This presentation explores how nonprofits like Caring Foundation work to fill in the gaps left by the Dominican Republic’s current education system and serves those omitted.

Kellen Kartub '14 explains how cyclotides, peptides with a unique structure, could prove very useful to medicine. This presentation looks in depth at a small portion of the chemistry behind their synthesis.

Kaley Haskell '14 reflects on teaching 110 "young teachers" at a Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center childcare program, where she confronted educational issues outside the college classroom, such as multi-ability students and language barriers.

Tijana Trkulja '13 interned for the Democratic Governance and Gender Equality department at the United Nations Development Program in San Jose, Costa Rica. Tijana shares research she did at the UNDP, exposing problems women face in the country.

Valerie Soon '13 talks about how empirical research in psychology can help inform our understanding of the way we make moral judgements, offering some perspectives on the burgeoning field of experimental philosophy.

Sara Kramer '15 researched the booming cloud computing sector as a summer analyst at Spencer Stuart. Sara discusses the origins of "Software as a Service", its development, and the future for the industry.

Christina Rozek ’15 discusses her experiences working as an EMT and firefighter-in-training, including the obstacles for women in firefighting, the culture of brotherhood in the firehouse, and tips for gaining respect in a predominantly male profession.

Erin Kim '09 describes the challenges she experienced and lessons she learned while in the unique Korean ETA program through a Fulbright Fellowship. She shares her insights with other students interested in the Fulbright Fellowship.

Meredith Stoner '13 details her experience in bringing a gender perspective to her internship on underbanked and unbanked populations in the Eighth District of the Federal Reserve System at the St. Louis Fed.

Ama Adi-Dako '14 shares her insights on the politics of behind-the-scenes Hollywood, which she witnessed while reading and analyzing scripts on the Warner Bros. lot during an immersive summer internship. With the support of the Lin Pictures team, Ama gained tools that will someday help her make it in the harsh film industry.

Stella Odewumi '13 and Njweng Yagni '14 launched and advanced their menswear business, Hespoke, during the Babson Summer Venture program. Hespoke is an online retail store that curates an eclectic mix of street wear and preppy brands.

Hayley Malkin '13 discusses how basic science skills learned at Wellesley translated to her work on a clinical research project with the cerebrovascular disorders and stroke program at Boston Children's Hospital.

Alice Sun '15 spent her summer doing research at Cornell Weill Medical College, looking at the interaction of LKB1 and Slitrk 5 proteins that may contribute to obsessive compulsive disorder.

Deborah Cramer '73 is writing a book following the long-distance migration of a small shorebird, the red knot, from Tierra del Fuego to its nesting grounds in the Arctic.  The Mary Elvira Stevens Travelling Fellowship helped support Deborah’s travel to the Arctic and James Bay, where she experienced firsthand the dramatic changes occurring there. Here’s a snapshot of the summer. Generous support for On the Edge comes from the Canadian Wildlife Service and Environment Canada, the Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation, the Mary Elvira Stevens Travelling Fellowship of Wellesley College, the Norcross Wildlife Fund, the Ocean Foundation, and Yale University Press. Photo credits Smithsonian Ocean: Our Water Our World cover: ©Flip Nicklin, Minden Pictures Red knots and horseshoe crab, ©Barrie Britton King eider, ©Émilie Bouchard Red knot, © Meagan McCloskey Plane on tundra ©Grant Gilchrist Aerial of camp, ©Meagan McCloskey Cabin at night, ©Grant Gilchrist Inside cabin, ©Naomi Man in 't Veld Inside cabin, closeup, ©Naomi Man in 't Veld Komatik, gun, geese, © Meagan McCloskey Slugs on table, ©Deborah Cramer Eating goose stomach, ©Deborah Cramer Taking notes, ©Meagan McCloskey Setting out on the ridge, ©Grant Gilchrist Inuksuk, ©Meagan McCloskey Finding the route, ©Grant Gilchrist Crawling across the snow, ©Grant Gilchrist Aerial of ice, ©Émilie Bouchard Standing on a little ice, ©Meagan McCloskey Spring saxifrage, ©Meagan McCloskey Eggs, ©Meagan McCloskey Dinner, ©Deborah Cramer

Through interviews with NGOs, members of academia, and students in Morocco, Suzanne Trainor '12 examined the effects of the Arab Spring on Moroccan society. In her Tanner conference presentation, she discusses the Moroccan's love for their King as a critical factor influencing movements to revolutionize and democratize the country.

Rebecca Richardson '12 shared how studying abroad focused her future goals and gave her a sense of "fit" as part of a panel of students who chose to study abroad for a full year. Rebecca discussed her experiences at the University of Melbourne in Australia and Cambridge University in the UK. The panel was held as part of the Tanner Conference at Wellesley College in November 2011.

Natalie Ross '09 was awarded a Fulbright Teaching Assistantship to work with education students at the University of Pretoria in South Africa while researching best practices for education course development. Natalie discussed the experience of working in an economically and linguistically diverse country as part of Wellesley College's Tanner Conference in November 2011.

Constance Bond ’87, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and Edna Novak ’02, Teach for America celebrate TFA and its influences on the lives of TFA teachers and the students they serve. These Wellesley alumnae address the ways in which Teach for America shaped their career and life goals and contributed to their achievements.

Imagine not seeing your family for over eight years. This is the reality that some women face when placed at Bedford Hills Maximum Security Prison for Women. I spent my summer interning at the Parenting Center, which provides support and advocacy for the women housed at Bedford. I helped coordinate their summer program which brings children, from all over New York State, to the prison for four days in order to visit with their mothers. The children enter the prison during the day, and at night go home with a host family who houses them for the time span of the program. The summer opened my eyes to a whole new world that I had never seen. I plan to take the knowledge that I gained this summer and apply it to my continued work with children and parents in the future.

How does a city named “corner of death” overcome its tragic past and current obstacles? The people of Ayacucho, Peru, are haunted by the 1980s and 1990s guerilla warfare of the Sendero Luminoso, “Shining path.” They are also burdened by the local cocaine trade. I assumed that the city would be encumbered by its troubled past but my assumption was challenged this summer when I observed first- hand how community programs addressing the needs of children and young adults can decrease the impact and lure of the Sendero Luminoso and drug trade. Through my volunteer work with Cross-Cultural Solutions in a Wawa Wasi, “Baby house” for infants in a poor neighborhood, as well as my interactions in an adolescent inmate rehabilitation program, a tutoring center for children, and a model kindergarten, I observed the positive role that government and local community-based programs can play in creating social change for an oppressed population.

Nonviolent conflict resolution is a delicate process for groups attempting to rebuild peace and trust, but for the people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this process is especially difficult. This past spring, I had the unique opportunity to experience this process in a Peace Camp with Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) hosted by the organization for which I was volunteering, The Center for Peacebuilding in Sanski Most, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The week, packed with workshops on active listening, the circle of reconciliation, and daily prayers from each faith represented at the camp, provided me with an in-depth view on the art of peacebuilding and the importance of nonviolence in post-conflict transformation. I hope that this presentation will shed light on the importance of activities and workshops that peacebuilding NGOs direct and facilitate for the people whom they represent on a grassroots level.

The Organização das Mulheres de Cabo Verde (OMCV) or Cape Verdean Women’s Organization strives to eradicate poverty through the distribution of microloans to entrepreneurs, specifically focusing on below- the-poverty-line female clientele. In addition to its financial services, OMCV works nationwide to improve women’s conditions by offering vocational training, child day care, women’s empowerment seminars, and health services. This summer I spent ten weeks living in Praia, Cape Verde’s capital city, and interning with OMCV. My presentation will offer insight into the workings of OMCV, explore Cape Verde’s microfinance sector, and delve into the culture-specific struggles of women in Cape Verdean society through personal reflection.

Before arriving in Boston, most refugees and asylum seekers have survived displacement, violence, persecution, or torture. Once here, they face financial, cultural, and personal challenges as they adjust to their new homeland. There are many organizations that offer support and resources to help these new Americans thrive. I have learned about the unique experiences of refugees and asylum seekers through my work with two such organizations. This summer I interned at the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights at Boston Medical Center, and I am now working in the refugee services department of Catholic Charities in South Boston. In my role as a case manager and financial specialist, I coordinate refugee clients’ resettlement, from airport pickups to social services. Hear one Wellesley woman’s perspective on the challenges and rewards of assisting refugees and asylum seekers as they build a life in Boston.

The Nexus Between Business, Finance, Foreign Policy, and Government Relations What do the areas of business, finance, foreign policy, and government relations all have in common? I had the wonderful opportunity to discover the answer to this question first- hand by interning this summer at Secretary Albright’s global strategy firm, the Albright Stonebridge Group. This presentation will examine my different work experiences there, including those related to business development projects and the role of emerging markets. This summer internship through the Wellesley in Washington Program and the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs was my first exposure to the private sector and I will discuss how I discovered new interests by stepping outside of my comfort zone. My work made me realize that I am passionate about pursuing global strategy consulting work that combines my interest in business development, emerging markets, international relations, and political science.

This summer I interned at a consulting firm, China Market Research Group (CMR), pro- viding strategic advice to foreign companies on entering the Chinese market and dealing with the increasing competitiveness in China. Although I have learned about China in a macroeconomic context in the past, conducting field research and interacting directly with consumers holding the “RMB” vote gave me a different perspective on Chinese markets. Working as an analyst at CMR allowed me to utilize the skills I acquired at Wellesley, and trained me well to analyze and identify key trends within a sea of data. In my presentation, I will share my insights on the domestic footwear market based on over 150 in-depth interviews I conducted with end consumers across five cities. I will also talk about my experience working in different city tiers in China, and what I learned about research and business in such a dynamic environment.

The moneylender has always existed, and is a legendary yet unknown figure who successfully operates within the black market. Microfinance institutions, despite their mission to take clients out of the clutches of the moneylenders, have not been entirely successful at removing loan sharks, as they are often called. Perhaps they never will be, as the moneylenders provide the most flexible loans at times when no one else will. However, we don’t know much about moneylenders’ costs and returns. How do they operate? How do they structure their interest rates? What costs do they incur? How do they finance themselves? I spent this summer conducting fieldwork in Honduras by initiating contact with informal moneylenders to learn more about their illegal business practices. This research will be used to produce academic papers about the moneylender business model as well as to inform future research about financial products in underdeveloped and developing countries.

As a Fulbright Scholar teaching English in South Korea, Christina was a cultural ambassador between the two countries. She interacted with students both inside and outside of the classroom through sports, volunteering, and directing the drama team.

As a Luce Scholar in Japan, Holly studied the creation and conservation of lacquer art. Back in the U.S., she has used her new skills to restore lacquer pieces as well as educate the public and fellow conservators on the art of lacquering.

While studying environmental issues in Kenya, Morgan also learned about women's issues and how gender relations among the Maasai have changed over time.

Da Eun interned at the government health clinic in Gualan, Guatemala as a malformation specialist and explores how to remove the barriers preventing pregnant women from getting their prenatal care.

As a researcher for the policy research center of East Timor's National Parliament and using her first hand view of politics through her stay with a politically active family, Beverley presents her conclusions on democracy and developing nations.

Megan examines the goals Mexico and the USA have for Mexican immigrants through her experiences as an intern at a state commission for migrant affairs in Puebla, Mexico and at a nonprofit USA organization that assists Mexican immigrants in legal matters.

Lucia interned with the Aga Khan Education Services in Kampala, working in the art departments of the primary school and high school. Her experiences confirmed the powerful, if not transformative effect that art can have on a community.

Ali studied at Second City Theater durig a two-week, intensive course. Using improvisational techniques, she gained insights into social relationships, examining status, hidden wants, and characterization.

Rosie interned in Togo with an organization that tries to economically empower people living with HIV. She also spent 4 weeks in California at an intensive program on global trade and development.

Michelle discusses her internship at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, working with exhibits and assisting a professional artists developing an installation that could withstand children's play.

Karina describes her work as a congressional intern for Representative Pete Stark and Aonya relays her experiences on reporting on Capitol Hill as a television news intern for Cox Broadcasting.

Taylor and Kimberly conducted research in the Herring River estuary in Wellfleet on sediment patterns and the recently accelerating loss of marsh vegetation near the Chequessett Neck dike.