The 2011 Dean's Scholars
February 21, 2011
The School of Arts and Sciences named 20 students from the College of Arts & Sciences, the College of Liberal and Professional Studies, and the Graduate Division as 2011 Dean's Scholars. This honor is presented annually to SAS students who exhibit exceptional academic performance and intellectual promise. The 2011 Dean's Scholars will be formally recognized as part of the Levin Family Dean's Forum.
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| The 2011 Dean's Scholars with Dennis DeTurck, Dean of the College; Nora Lewis, Vice Dean and Executive Director of the College of Liberal and Professional Studies; Ralph Rosen, Associate Dean for Graduate Studies; and Rebecca Bushnell, Dean of SAS (back row, center, l to r). |
College of Arts and Sciences
Ioana Aron (Chemistry) is a junior who has participated in the Provost's Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program. She was asked by Professor Gary Molander to join his research group. He was impressed with how quickly she picked up the techniques required to perform the requisite research and her independence as a thinker. She developed reaction conditions for a major synthetic transformation during her time in the laboratory, which was subsequently pursued by a graduate student. Ioana co-authored a paper in the journal Organic Letters.
Ilana Cohen (Philosophy and English), a senior, is a University Scholar and an Andrew W. Mellon Undergraduate Fellow in the Humanities. She is submatriculating for a master's degree in philosophy, focusing her research on digital aesthetics. In the summer of 2010 she carried out funded research at the James Joyce Foundation in Zurich and presented a paper at the International James Joyce Symposium.
Lauren Kapsalakis (Anthropology) is a senior University Scholar and Benjamin Franklin Scholar. She is submatriculating for a master's in anthropology with a global health concentration. She has participated in the Provost's Undergraduate Research Mentorship Program and received the Ernest W. Brown College Alumni Research Grant. Under Professor Claudia Valeggia and the Chaco Area Reproductive Ecology (C.A.R.E.) Project, she conducted ethnographic work in Argentina. She is the editor of the anthropology department's student journal, In Situ.
Kathryn Llewellyn (Communication and Sociology) is a junior who has impressed faculty members in communication and sociology with her willingness to grapple with unfamiliar issues in a serious way. Describing her writing as "sophisticated and mature," mentors in both of her majors noted her "careful, painstaking research" and her "insightful, conscientious and thorough analytic efforts."
Eileen Moison (Biochemistry and Accounting) is a junior in the Roy and Diana Vagelos Life Sciences and Management Program. An active member of Assistant Professor of Chemistry E. James Petersson's research group, her work focuses on adapting the enzymes involved in protein synthesis to permit the construction of proteins from building blocks that go beyond the 20 natural amino acids. Eileen made rapid progress in independently designing protein modifications and testing their ability to utilize unnatural amino acids.
Benjamin Moskowitz (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) is a junior who is submatriculating in the Fels Institute of Government's Master of Public Administration program. He is a Benjamin Franklin Scholar. Benjamin is planning an ambitious research project for his senior year that builds on his "flawless" performance in high level classes in three departments, and his passion for enhancing the workings of government.
Daniel Shiff (Philosophy) is described by his department as having "a sharp, creative, and insightful and subtle mind." A senior, he has maintained an excellent GPA while taking advanced level courses in physics, philosophy and psychology. He has also been praised for his ability to excel across diverse modes of inquiry.
Jessica Wetstone (Logic, Information and Computation) is a senior who has excelled in a demanding program focused on integrative study of logic, mathematics, and theoretical aspects of computer science. Faculty say that her excellent work in high-level computer science classes is matched by her equally impressive work in mathematics.
Doyle Yuan (Biochemistry and Biophysics) is a senior Roy and Diana Vagelos Science Scholar who is submatriculating for a master's degree in chemistry. As part of Professor Andrew Rappe's research group, Doyle is using his advanced theoretical skills to explore the properties of magnetic oxide surfaces in order to invent new materials for solar energy conversion. He has been accepted to the M.D./Ph.D. program at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
College of Liberal and Professional Studies – Undergraduate Program
Molly O'Neill (English) is a senior with a concentration in creative writing. She has taken part in the Fellows Program at Kelly Writers House, where she is currently a program assistant. She received the 2009 Iris N. Spencer Undergraduate Poetry Prize for a sonnet she wrote in an LPS course, and her poetry has been published in Peregrine. She was also a guest reader at the annual West Chester Poetry Conference.
Professional Master's Programs
Inam Ur-Rahman (Master of Science in Organizational Dynamics) has a concentration in Projects, Programs and Portfolios. He has made an impact with his thoughtful application of systems theory to his work, something all the more striking given that his training as an engineer gave him little previous exposure to the social sciences, philosophy or management. One faculty member described his capstone project on the U.S. aerospace industry as "one of the best I have seen."
Graduate Division – Doctoral Programs
Joanne Baron (Anthropology) studies the ancient Maya, focusing on questions of local identity and the nature of power within political organization. She is actively working on a field project at La Corona in Guatemala, where she is deploying her specialized knowledge of ancient Maya hieroglyphic texts. Joanne has received a prestigious field research grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and has presented many papers at local, national and international conferences, including one in 2010 in Poland.
Ashley Cohen (English) is currently at work on her dissertation, "Placing India: 'The Indies' and the Imaginative Geography of the British Empire, 1763-1835." Her research tracks the rhetorical, cultural, and economic coupling of India and the West Indies through the term "Indies" and is facilitated by her knowledge of Hindi, Urdu, and Persian. In an unusual step for a graduate student, she is also nearing completion of a second major project, a critical edition of Lady Nugent's Journal, for which she has a contract with Oxford University Press.
Matt Handelman (German) combines his interests in literature and math through his focus on mathematical modernism in 20th-century German-Jewish philosophy. He has done research at the Deutsches Literatur Archiv in Marbach and will edit and publish a correspondence of Franz Rosenzweig that he discovered there in the Jahrbuch der Schillergesellschaft. Last year Matt presented a paper at a conference on mathematics and the humanities in Freiburg.
Erin Kelley (History of Art) is writing a dissertation on the advent of Modernism in Japan and the engagement of Japanese artists with new developments in European art at the beginning of the 20th century. This topic has required her to develop an expertise in both modern European and East Asian art, while mastering classical and modern Japanese language. She has lectured in Japan, received a Japan Foundation fellowship, and published a paper on silent film star Anna Mae Wong.
Darien Lamen (Music) specializes in Latin American ethnomusicology, with a focus on Brazil. His first article written and delivered in Portuguese, on musical practices in Northern Brazil, was just accepted for publication as part of the conference proceedings of the Brazilian Association for Ethnomusicology; he has other articles under review by major journals. Darien is the co-creator of a web-based, multimedia ethnographic archive of artisanal soundsystem technology called Projeto Sonoro Paraense. He also played a central role in initiating the music department's successful Samba Ensemble.
Jisun Lee (Chemistry) is an organic chemist whose research focuses on total syntheses of biologically important natural products. Among these are metabolites produced by tunicates as a defense mechanism to protect their larvae, and the rostratins. Her work has already resulted in six co-authored publications in peer-reviewed journals. Jisun has presented her work at local and national conferences.
Joanna Radin (History and Sociology of Science) is currently completing her dissertation, an interdisciplinary study of the biological management of frozen human and animal bloods called "Life on Ice: Frozen Blood, Human History, and Biodiversity in a Genomic Age." The project incorporates historical, ethnographic and scientific approaches. Her publications include a coedited volume, Perspectives on Risk and Regulation, and an oral history of the biological anthropologist Jonathan Friedlander.
Eli Tsukayama (Psychology) focuses his research on character strengths and positive outcomes, with a concentration on self-control and achievement. He is currently involved in a large-scale project developing interventions to cultivate self-control in school children. He has co-authored six peer-reviewed articles in journals including Emotion and Social Psychology and Personality Science.
Bradford Reed Winegar (Philosophy) focuses his research on Kant, Early Modern philosophers, metaphysics and epistemology. In addition to his exceptionally strong coursework, he is already an active contributor to the field. In addition, Winegar has been invited to present papers at the prestigious International Berkeley Conference in Switzerland.
Previous Dean's Scholars
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996