Explore the various activities that previous Honors Students have spent time on over their summer. Visit the Experiential Learning website to find out about internship programs, studying abroad, and more.
Aliah McCord - (SR) | Spanish Culture and Lit (BA); Pol & Govt (U.S.) (BA); Latina/o Studies (MN)
This summer I am completing my Matelich Summer Challenge Grant by traveling to Oaxaca, Mexico and spending one month living with host families, experiencing what life is like in rural Oaxacan communities, and conducting interviews on the impact of migration to the United States on the communities left behind.
Anna Barcus - (SR) | Pol & Govt (U.S.) (BA); Environmental Policy & Dec Making
With the Summer Research Award I have received, I hope to uncover why the action strategy fails to adequately address those critical aspects of effective affordable housing policy and how the City of Tacoma might go about creating and implementing a strategy in the places that fall short. Upon completion of this research, I hope to gain a better understanding the intricacies policy-making process between local government and key stakeholders.
Emma Harrington - (SR) | Communication Studies (BA); Pol & Govt (U.S.) (BA)
This summer I will be completing an internship with the Napa County District Attorney's office in my hometown, which I am extremely excited about. I had to pass a four month background check to get the position but it will mean that I will get to work directly with victims of local crime to ensure that they are being served by our office.
Amanda Melin - (SR) | Chemistry (BS); Spanish (MN)
I have receive a grant from NASA, so I will be working in an Analytical Chemistry lab at UPS examining wastewater in order to obtain more precise data on city- and state-wide consumption patterns of illicit drugs, pharmaceuticals, alcohol, caffeine, and artificial sweeteners in order to better understand the overall health of our community. Long-term, this data will also hopefully provide insight in creating a system to predict and prevent overdoses from opioids and other harmful substances. I will also be learning to speak Italian, biking around Tacoma, and learning to create an e Portfolio through an experiential learning program on campus.
Bryce Poplawsky - (FR) | Undeclared major
I’ll be working in a lab at the university of Idaho as well as working for a conservation organization called Friends of the Clearwater where I’ll be hiking around in the Idaho back-country monitoring road-less area usage and human impacts.
Emily Wright - (FR) | Geology (BS); Science,Tech, & Soc (MN)
I will be returning home and interning at the U.S. Geological Survey, working under an environmental mineralogist who specializes in spectroscopic analysis. I'll be involved in a number of projects, including ones on chromium contamination in an aquifer, biological options to help plants grow in mine tailings, and investigating the impact of the California Camp fire on the concentration of carcinogenic isotopes in a chromium mine. My work will involve both time in the lab/on equipment and analyzing data from experiments.
Kobi Hall - (SR) | Physics (Pre-Engr) (BA); Mathematics (MN)
I'll be spending the first half of this summer working in Tacoma. During this time, I will also be working on an independent research project about computational physics. For the second half of my summer I'll be taking two classes in partial differential equations and abstract algebra at UC Berkeley.
Kylie Gurewitz - (SR) | Religious Studies (BA); English (MN)
With the AHSS Summer Research Grant, I plan to research the cultural and religious roots of the "mindfulness" trend that has grown in popularity throughout the west, and specifically how it manifest today through meditation apps. understanding this new phenomenon is important for the field of Religious Studies because the popularity of meditation apps show how the spread of technology has affected the day-to-day practice of religion.
Katie Grainger - (SR) | Biochemistry (BS); Performance (Orch) (BM)
With the Summer Research Grant for Sciences, I will be working with Dr Rink on DNA-related cancer treatments. The goal of this project is to develop a non-isotopic, SYBR-Gold based assay for the quantitative detection of both double-stranded and single-stranded forms of DNA.
Kate Gladhart-Hayes - (SR) | Science,Tech, & Soc (BA); Neuroscience (MN); Bioethics Program
I will be doing research on nuclear waste on indigenous lands from a bioethical/history perspective with the AHSS grant I received from the UEC.
Kyra Zapf - (JR) | English (BA); Intd Humanities-Globl Mid Ages
With the grants I received from the UEC and from Honors Program, I will be traveling to England this summer to study 16th century English sumptuary law manuscripts at the British Library and comparing them to textile collections at the Victoria and Albert museum. The end product is a multi-media digital essay.
Olivia Perotti - (SR) | Molecular and Cell Biol (BS); Mathematics (MN); Politics & Govt (MN)
I received a summer research grant to work on antifungal-producing bacteria under Dr. Stacey Weiss and Dr. Mark Martin in the Biology department. I’ll be investigating whether or not the transfer of these microbes from parent lizards to their eggs is a viable mode of protection against pathogenic fungi in their environment. My break from research will be a week-long trip to Peru where I’ll be visiting Cusco and hiking Machu Picchu
Lukas Karoly - (JR) | Physics (BS)
I have been awarded the Summer Research Grant for Sciences, so I will be doing research on Vorticella with Dr. Rachel Pepper (Physics). Vorticella are a genus of aquatic microorganisms that live attached to stream beds, plants, animals, or floating detritus. They create feeding flows, which draw in water, which contains food. Depending on the orientation of their cell body, the feeding flows can become vortexes, which recycle the water. This decreases their feeding rates, as they are not able to draw in new water that contains new nutrients. The optimal orientations that maximize feeding rates differ in still water, and in the presence of an ambient flow, like in a stream. Previous research done by Dr. Pepper and collaborators has found, both theoretically and empirically, the optimal orientations of Vorticella both with no ambient flow, and in the presence of an ambient flow. This summer, I will look at the orientation of Vorticella in the presence of different ambient flow speeds over time to see whether they are typically oriented to allow for optimal feeding rates.
Leslie Machabee - (SR) | Economics (BS); Mathematics (MN); Spanish (MN)
This summer, I’ll be the program assistant for Madrid Summers. I’ll be living in Madrid and working as a peer-to-peer support resources for the students in the program and as an assistant to the director of the program.
Becca Miserlian - (SR) | English (BA); Classics (MN)
I will be doing my internship in the Manuscript Editorial Department at Yale University Press this summer!
Jenna Krueger - (JR) | Psychology (BA); Education Studies Minor
This summer I will be working as the camp naturalist at Camp Lutherwood Oregon leading backpacking trips and generally teaching the campers about nature.
Olivia Couture - (JR) | English (Cr. Writing Focus); Classics (MN); Education Studies Minor
I am working with my High School English teacher, Penny Kittle, who has a foundation called the Book Love Foundation. This foundation is a nonprofit that raises money for yearly grants. Those grants are given to English teachers so that they can buy books for classroom libraries. Specifically, I am involved in their summer book club. I will be handling a lot of the social media platform as well as fielding questions about the foundation and Mrs. Kittle's work (because I had her as a teacher and experienced first hand how revolutionary she is). Additionally, I will be guiding interviews with the authors of the books we're reading.
Noah Thomas - (SR) | Computer Sci (Standard) (BS); Special Intrdplny (BA); Mathematics (MN)
I will be doing summer internship here in Tacoma and continue to work as the tour guide coordinator for Admission.