Welcome to the DASR Blog!

Albert Gallatin statue outside of US Treasury Building

Welcome to the blog for the 2014 winners of the Dean’s Award for Summer Research (DASR). This award was created to encourage advanced Gallatin undergraduates to pursue an original research or creative project related to their concentration during the summer months. This year we will follow 19 rising juniors and seniors as they set out to conduct research throughout the country and globally, including Thailand, Brazil, Israel, Germany and Puerto Rico. Starting next week, they will reflect on and share their experiences throughout the summer. Below are glimpses into the diverse topics of study each student will explore. We hope that you will join us as we follow their projects across continents and touching subjects from activism, to the arts, to globalization, to religion.

  • Zachary Meher will travel to rural villages in northern Thailand to analyze, research, and implement a sustainable supply chain model for these villagers to get their products to market in the most cost-effective, ecologically friendly way possible.

  • Jonah Walters’ project will examine the literatures of exiled authors living in New York City. He will use these literatures to analyze New York City in the 20th century as an extra-national space where delocalized ideas have congregated and from where particular ideas about nationhood, sovereignty, and citizenship have been projected globally.

  • Vanessa Castro is exploring visual culture in New York City and will turn the fruits of her research into a curated art show in the Gallatin Gallery.

  • Julie-Ann Hutchinson will be interning at the Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C.  While there she will explore how the modernization of China has been shaped by its differentiated circumstances from the West, as well as its historical and cultural norms.

  • Philip Colgan is studying at the Broadway Dance Center in their Summer Professional Semester Program. He will train vigorously in a multitude of dance styles in order to grow as a physical and creative artist.

  • Paul McAdory will write a series of interconnected short stories set in New Orleans, Jackson, MS, and New York City. The stories will explore the physical and psychological differences, transitions and connections between each locale.

  • Annabelle Attanasio is doing ethnographic and visual research in Anaconda, Montana, which is the backdrop of a feature film that she is working on.

  • Gabrielle Jensen seeks to conceptualize the work of German artist Anselm Kiefer as a practice of alternative critical theory—one that is visual, lyrical, and emotionally accessible. She will travel to Berlin not only to view the works of art but also to spend time at the architectural and geographical sites that are the subjects of Kiefer’s visual critical theory.

  • Helen Isaac will volunteer for a community radio station in Puerto Rico called Radio Vieques, compiling a catalog and digital archive of the songs and artwork that were created as part of the 90s peace protests and in protests since then.

  • Adam Sperry seeks to unpack this notion of the “Millennial” generation as a political stratification within society and see if there is any merit to the idea that there are aspects of political identity that all “Millennials” share.

  • Elyse Frenchman will be filming a documentary in China, which chronicles the process of the collaboration of architect and urban design graduate students from MIT, Tsinghua University in Beijing, and Cambridge University in the UK, as they create energy efficient designs for the city of Tiyuan, China.

  • Sinead MacLeod plans to design a digital webbed archive to display sections of the Riot Grrrl Collection at NYU’s Fales Library as a collaborative student project. She will build a website, serving as an archival exhibit, which connects various zines and visually maps cooperation and difference.

  • Angelina DeSocio wants to study the various places of worship throughout NYC and how they contrast with the perceived culture of secularism in the city. She hopes to shine a light on the astonishing number of spaces that invite reflection, study, practice of tradition, and every other facet that worship has to offer.

  • Zachary Fine will research both historical and contemporary perspectives on pedagogy in the humanities with the hopes of exploring alternative teaching practices. In particular, he hopes to consider the possibility of the classroom as a site of ethical learning and engagement.

  • Giovanna Sundquist-Olmos’ research will take place in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where she will be studying digital poetry. In her research she will explore the impact of computers and internet presence as well as virtuality and how content is informed by a digital reality.

  • Carly Krakow will examine the intersection of environmental issues and human rights concerns in Palestine and Israel. Her project focuses on water access and water quality in the West Bank and Gaza.

  • Francesca Huynh’s creative project aims to share stories of the Chinese-Vietnamese (ethnic Chinese born in Vietnam) in America through a visual narrative that combines biographical interviews, oral histories, and photographs to tell the stories of multiple generations tracing their pasts to the Vietnam War Diaspora.

  • Gabriela Tully Claymore’s project will explore the history of New York City’s DIY music spaces and underground cultural landmarks that have shaped the city’s identity. She hopes to prove that New York City is still a place for artists, a place that youth culture can thrive outside of the mainstream despite its costliness.

  • Samantha Seid is exploring Asian/Pacific/American feminisms and grassroots organizing. This research project will attempt to further analyze and contextualize the histories of Asian/Pacific/American feminism, particularly through the lens of the Asian American Movement in the 1960s and 1970s, and put them in conversation with the status of A/P/A feminism and organizing around women’s issues today.