The Politics of Fear Archive: Course Members

Jessica Anderson 08
Jessica Anderson is a sophomore at Tufts University hailing from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She is currently majoring in International Relations and Community Health, and hopes to pursue a career in international human rights law. For over a decade Jessica's passion has been jump roping competitively with the Brewster Bayside Skippers. On campus however, Jessica puts her waitressing skills from the Cape to work as a manager for Tufts Catering, and a supervisor for Mugar Cafe. She is also a writing fellow and an active member of both Exposure and the Leonard Carmichael Society. Through EPIIC, Jessica conducted research in Ghana on the domestic violence bill and its potential to reduce HIV/AIDS. She was then selected to present her research on a panel at the Women As Global Leaders Conference in Abu Dhabi this March. Most recently, Jessica attended an Exposure workshop in Philadelphia on the gun violence issue, and plans to make a documentary on Philadelphia's gun culture with an EPIIC classmate this summer. In her spare time, Jessica enjoys cooking, live jazz music, laughing, and digging her toes into sand.

Matthew Benson 07
Matthew Benson is a member of the class of 2007 majoring in International Relations and Peace & Justice Studies. He was born in Cambridge, England and raised on both sides of the pond in several places in the UK and USA. Benson attended high school in St. Louis and in Washington DC where he worked as a Page for the US House of Representatives. At Tufts he is an active member of Pangea, a student organization promoting humanitarian action and awareness. Outside of Benson's pursuits and studies at university, his many interests include travelling the world, rowing, and stencil graffiti. For the summer of 2006 Matthew has been selected as a Luce Student Research Scholar in which he will be interning with a professor at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda examining the humanitarian response to the country's internally displaced populations.

Meena Bhasin 07
Ms. Bhasin is a fourth year student in the dual degree program with Tufts University and The New England Conservatory where she studies International Relations and Viola performance. Through music she has been able to travel and collaborate with musicians in Israel, China, and Japan.   Ms. Bhasin has performed in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and was invited to perform in the General Assembly Hall at the United Nations.   This year, through the Institute for Global Leadership, Ms. Bhasin was able to travel to the United Arab Emirates where she participated in the Women as Global Leaders Conference, and to Istanbul where she conducted research on contemporary women's movements in Turkey.   This summer Ms. Bhasin will be interning at the Americas Society in New York.  

Beth Bishop 06
Beth is a senior hailing from Rochester, MN majoring in Political Science and German, and is a member of this years EPIIC colloquium. At Tufts she is a member of the Tufts Women's Varsity Swim Team and the Tufts Marathon Team. She will be running her fourth marathon this May in Vermont. This year in EPIIC she travelled to Abu Dhabi, UAE for the Women as Global Leaders Conference, and played Alice Fisher in the senate mock hearing on the Patriot Act at the Law Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Next year she will be in Hamburg, Germany on a Fulbright scholarship. In her free time beth likes to cook and play drums and guitar.

Julia Clark 06
Julia Clark is a senior majoring in International Relations and Spanish from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She spent last year abroad on the Tufts in Madrid program, where she interned with the Club of Madrid, an innovative democracy promoting organization. In addition to democracy building and development studies, her other greatest professional interest is education; she has taught at inner-city summer school programs for the past three years. This year, she was fortunate enough to be able to attend the second annual Women as Global Leaders conference in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and also conducted her EPIIC research on immigration policy in Spain and France. Julia will be moving to Chicago after graduation to work before continuing on to a Masters Degree.

Floor de Ruyter van Steveninick 08
Floor de Ruyter is a sophomore majoring in International Relations. She is originally from the Netherlands and currently lives in Bloomington, Indiana. Floor deferred her admission to Tufts and spent a year studying and volunteering in Salamanca, Spain and San Carlos, Costa Rica. In January 2006 she traveled to Turkey with NIMEP in order to study some of the complex realities facing Turkish society today. The group's research included the EU accession process, the role of Islam in a democracy, contemporary ethnic tensions and Turkish foreign policy. Her academic interests include immigration issues and international development. She is looking forward to studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina in the spring. This summer she will travel to Paraguay as an intern for the Fundación Paraguaya, where she will work with a microfinance program for low-income women.

Arlyn Escalante 06
Arlyn Escalante (pronounced like Arlene) is a senior from San Diego, California. She grew up speaking Spanish at home and visiting Tijuana, were most of her family lives, regularly. Arlyn has been interested in International Relations and travel from an early age. Before college she traveled extensively in Mexico and went on an amazing trip to China. She spent her junior year studying abroad in Paris, traveling across Europe and interning at an NGO within the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. At Tufts she is a University College scholar, through which she has learned about the many dimensions of active citizenship. Her scholar project this year has been working with an immigrant’s rights activist organization and with the lobby to pass the In-State Tuition Bill. She is also a sister in the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority. She is planning on going back to San Diego for a year after graduation, hopefully working as an Americorps VISTA or in some kind of law-related job, she will be applying to law school next fall. Arlyn has taken part in many of the opportunities that EPIIC has to offer, she was a member of the Tufts delegation to the Women as Global Leaders Conference in Abu Dhabi, UAE and conducted research on “Contemporary Issues of Immigration in Spain” with two other colloquium members.

Anna Gollub 08
Anna Gollub is a sophomore majoring in international relations and women's studies from Anchorage, Alaska, which is farther away from Boston than London. As part of the Tufts Debate Society she has won speaker awards and participated in a public debate exhibition. She has also been involved in the Tufts chapter of Amnesty International, teaching ESL and participating in the EXPOSURE photojournalism program. As chair of the Tufts Feminist Alliance, she co-coordinated the Take Back the Night rally to stop violence against women and started a web log for Tufts students interested in gender issues called GADFLIES, (Gender Awareness Discourse For Living in Equal Societies.) During the spring semester she has been interning for a state representative doing research and drafting legislation. Anna is a recipient of the Anne E. Borghesani Memorial Prize for her research project on Islamic feminism in western Europe and plans to spend this summer and next year in Barcelona to do field work and study abroad. When Anna is not busy with her passions of feminism and political philosophy she pursues music composition and photography.

Jesse Gossett 08
Jesse Gossett is a sophomore double majoring in Environmental Studies and History. Jesse grew up on the Swinomish Indian Reservation in Washington State. During the his sophomore year, Jesse competed in the Ignite Clean Energy competition run through MIT, worked as a Resident Assistant on campus and worked as an on campus representative for JetBlue during the fall. Over spring break Jesse traveled to Philadelphia with 7 other students in EXPOSURE for a photojournalism workshop. Working with Jim MacMillan, the students addressed the issue of gun violence in Philadelphia. Over the summer Jesse plans to travel the world with his older brother, possibly getting tan in Vietnam.

Rachel Greenspan 08
Rachel Greenspan is a sophomore from Virginia double-majoring in International Relations and Peace and Justice Studies with a concentration in the Latin American region. In the summer of 2005, she spent nine weeks in La Plata, Argentina, building capacity within Radio Itinerante, a community radio initiative designed to empower youth through local media. She returned to Argentina over winter break to conduct her EPIIC research on the re-integration of democratic values and the development of historical memory through public education. As a University College of Citizenship and Public Service Scholar, Rachel has spent the year leading an after-school TV studio production workshop for teens in Somerville. She has also worked with various student action groups and advocated for indigenous rights, genocide intervention, sustainable development, and progressive political causes through internships and community activism.

Su Hamblin 07
Susannah Hamblin is a junior, majoring in International Relations with a minor in Political Science. Her interests include international security studies, foreign policy analysis and realist political theory. In addition to being an EPIIC student this year, Su was accepted as a member of the Director’s Leadership Council for the IR department and co-founded the Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES), a partnership with American military academies dedicated to addressing the civil-military gap. She has been granted the Institute’s Leonard Silk Fellowship and will be an intern at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington D.C. this summer. Susannah is very proud to be from the great state of Maine, the way life should be.

Jessica Harris 06
Jessica Harris is a senior majoring in International Relations and French. Born in Philadelphia to South African parents, the time she has spent outside of the United States has profoundly shaped her perspective on what it means to be American. At age 12, her family moved to Surrey, England, and her six years there fostered her passion for travel, photography, and British Indian cuisine. Although an Anglophile at heart, Jessica spent her junior year in Paris and loved every minute of it. Her academic interests include European literature, postcolonial politics, and immigration issues. In January 2006, along with 106 other Tufts students, she traveled to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi to help clean up in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed with a camera provided by EXPOSURE, her photographs are testimony to the hopes and fears that residents continue to face months after the disaster. Jessica is currently an Editorial Assistant at Boston Review, a political and literary magazine based in Cambridge, MA. Upon graduation, she plans on working for a few years before pursuing a degree in law and/or international business. EPIIC has validated her conviction that intellectual discourse can and should defy disciplinary traditions and boundaries, a value she hopes to sustain throughout in the years to come.

Nimrod Hashinovsky 06
Nimrod was a member of this year's EPIIC colloquium. He was raised in New Jersey and is proud of it. He is a senior at Tufts University, and will graduate in May. He is interested in international development, venture capitalism, and finance. In his free time, he enjoys playing tennis and reading the "classics." This summer he will remain in the Boston-area and intern at a human capital consulting firm.

Jason Hill 09
Coming to Tufts from the Southeastern United States, Jason Hill took the EPIIC course as a freshman. Majoring in History and contemplating a double major in Peace and Justice Studies, Jason is interested in the modern condition of European colonies, and as such, wants to work in international development. Outside of working with the IGL, Jason is active in programs in the Queer community and also gives tours in the admissions department. This summer, Jason will be in Annecy, France through the Tufts-in-Talloires program, volunteering with the YMCA at their high school Conference on National Affairs, and then backpacking Central and South America.

Sarah Jacobson 08
Sarah Jacobson, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is sophomore at Tufts University.    She is majoring in English at Tufts, as well as participating in the 5-year Dual Degree Program with the School of Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Sarah has participated in EXPOSURE, an offshoot of the Institute for Global Leadership, since her freshman year.   She is very interested in pursuing journalism and photography that is focused on global issues. In January 2006, Sarah traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and participated in an EXPOSURE workshop concentrating on inhabitants of abandoned government buildings.   She also worked with Jim MacMillan in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, examining gun violence.   She looks forward to studying abroad in Senegal, concentrating on the role of art in society.   Additionally, Sarah loves to sing, eat, paint, and draw. When Sarah grows up, she wants to have a career involved heavily with fine arts, documentation, and social change.  

Lauren Kari 08
Lauren Kari is a sophomore at Tufts University who plans to major in International Relations and Comparative Religions. Born and raised in southern California (Los Angeles and Orange County), moving to Boston has been quite an adventure. At Tufts, Lauren is a member of the women’s varsity fencing team, where she competes with the saber squad. She also is the Treasurer of the Class Council of 2008 and an active member of Programming Board. She has studied Arabic since coming to Tufts, and hopes to explore the Middle East and Asia. For her independent research project with EPIIC, she traveled to the Philippines to study counterterrorism and the US-Philippine relationship. In EPIIC, she participated on the Military-Institute Committee, the initial effort to link the IGL with various military academies. In that effort, she attended the US Military Academy’s Student Conference on United States Affairs on the ethics of military involvement. She also was on the Logistics Committee which required her to coordinate the van schedule for the year’s EPIIC symposium. At the symposium she moderated the panel South Africa: Terror, Fear and Reconciliation.

Samantha Karlin 08
Samantha Karlin is a sophomore working towards a major in psychology and a minor in political science. As part of the EPIIC class, she was on the Voices from the Field and Inquiry committees. She is specifically interested in conflict resolution and negotiation, and traveled to England this fall as a participant in a conference at the College of Birkbeck:University of London entitled "Fear of the Other:The Arab Israeli Conflict." At the EPIIC symposium, she spoke on the panel "What do we Fear?" about the Arab-Israeli conflict. She also role-played the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, at EPIIC's mock trial on the Patriot Act at the Law Library of Congress this April. Currently, she is collaborating on research for a photojournalistic book entitled "Healers" with photojournalist Lori Grinker (author of AfterWar: Veterans from a World in Conflict, 2004) and journalist Paul McEnroe (Minneapolis Star Tribune). She is also a development assistant with the Canavan Research Foundation, dedicated to researching cures for genetic brain diseases. This summer, she will be interning in Manhattan with the non-profit organization Media For Humanity, working to promote awareness of child trafficking through the media. Next semester, Samantha will be studying abroad in Prague through New York University, specifically through NYU Music in Prague. She is an opera singer, this year having performed in Amelia Al Ballo by Gian Carlo Menotti as Amelia.

VJ Kesavan 08
Vijaylaxsmi Kesavan is a sophomore majoring in international relations and english. In line with the theme of Politics of Fear, Vijay has done research on her home country Singapore. She anticipates doing similar research on the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, where she will be this summer. She is interested in conflict resolution, particularly in mediation work and hopes to guide her research in Sri Lanka towards that end. Vijay is a passionate writer. She hopes to be published before she turns 21. She is also a social change activist, and hopes to take her volunteer work within the Somali Bantu community in Boston further. Vijay would like to be in any one of these countries, the U.K., Sweden or Switzerland, for her semester of studying abroad next year.

Anastasia Konstantakatou F'08
Anastasia Konstantakatou is a senior majoring in Political Science and Foreign Languages and a joint degree student with the Fletcher School at Tufts beginning in the Spring semester of 2006. Within the realm of political science she has a special interest in public diplomacy and social policies, including immigration, an issue she has been exploring since 2003 in the context of Latin America. Exploring the "Politics of Fear" from a multi-disciplinary perspective has been eye-opening; still the experience of being a member of the EPIIC class itself has been highly rewarding both academically and personally.

Daphne LaBua 06
Daphne is a senior at Tufts University double majoring in Political Science and French. She was born and grew up in the United States attending school in a small Northern New Jersey suburb of New York City, but considers Greece as much her country as the US and holds dual citizenship. Her parents recognized the importance of instilling a love and appreciation for different cultures in their children, and Daphne and her brother grew up traveling to Greece every summer to be with family and friends as well as to travel. She credits her love of learning and traveling to her parents' tireless efforts. Her experience in EPIIC has been rewarding, exhausting, exhilarating, stupefying, powerful, and most importantly, filled with a sense of love and community. Over winter break, she attended an Africa Symposium in Cape Town, South Africa, on Conflict Resolution and Negotiation through the Institute for International Mediation and Conflict Resolution (IIMCR). In March, Daphne attended the Women as Global Leaders Conference in Abu Dhabi, UAE, after which she traveled to Madrid, Spain, to conduct field research through interviews with professionals on contemporary issues of immigration. These experiences have directed her towards a career path which will involve international and national humanitarian issues as she strives to be a responsible and active global citizen. Outside of her interest in international affairs, Daphne enjoys learning new languages and dancing, which she considers one of the most beautiful and powerful forms of personal expression. She thanks Sherman and Heather for their tireless and contagious passion, and wishes all the best to the graduating seniors and those with which she has had the honor of experiencing the ride that is EPIIC.

Ilya Lozovsky 06
Ilya majored in International Relations and German Studies. He grew up in three great metropolises of the world - Moscow, St. Louis, and Newton, Massachusetts. Perhaps this is why he feels he will spend most of his life travelling. Last year, when not bribing policemen in Russia or taking pictures of drug dealers in London, he studied in Tuebingen, Germany. He speaks Russian fluently, German well, and has just enough Spanish to hit on girls at bars. His passions include Russian literature, German beer, and the Boston Red Sox.

Barbara Magid 06
Barbara Magid is a senior majoring in International Relations and French. Originally from New York City, she enjoys traveling and spent her junior year abroad in France. There, she interned with a Parisian NGO that promotes children’s rights in developing countries. The summer she spent in Costa Rica doing development work and her experience as an intern at the United Nations in New York further fueled her interest in international development and aid. At Tufts she is involved in a wide range of activities; she runs a couple of LCS volunteer programs and is an active member of the Tufts Table Tennis Club. She also currently interns in Dorchester with a public health organization called YPACT, which is associated with Partners in Health. Through EPIIC she had the opportunity to attend the Women as Global Leaders Conference in Abu Dhabi, sponsored by Zayed University, and to conduct research in Turkey on Contemporary Women’s Movements. After graduating, Barbara will be moving to Costa Rica where she will continue to work in the field of development. She hopes to complete graduate work in Public Health and International Relations.

Peter Maher 07
Peter Maher is a junior majoring in International Relations. He is originally from Salem, NH and attended Salem High School. At Tufts, Peter's academic interests include foreign policy analysis, defense and security studies, and militant Islamist organizations. Under the auspices of EPIIC, Peter and Jackie Silbermann went to Israel and the West Bank for three weeks and conducted a research project entitled "The Implications of Hamas' Integration into the Palestinian Political Process." Peter also co-founded the Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES), an initiative committed to education regarding military affairs and civil military relations on campus and collaboration with other American military academies. With ALLIES Peter attended the New York Military Affairs Symposium and the Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference in Annapolis. Peter hopes to work in the public sector after he graduates and at some point attend graduate school.

Emily Mangone 06
Emily Mangone is a senior majoring in international relations and French. Although she has accomplished many things during her Tufts career, she feels her time as an EPIIC student has been invaluable. Over winter break Emily traveled to Cape Town, South Africa to attend a conference on mediation and conflict resolution. This was a breathtaking experience and it helped her to realize how much work there remains to do in SA. Two months later, Emily was in Sarajevo, Bosnia working on her thesis on university students and integration with the European Union. Geographically, Emily’s interests in the world continue to be broad but since the conference in Africa, she is has decided that peace and conflict studies are the subject she would like to continue to study at a higher level. To this end, she is attending a conference at the UNHQ in April to participate in discussion about the reform of the UN Millennium Development Goals.

Alex McCabe 08
Alex McCabe was born in Manila, Philippines where he lived, on and off, for twelve years. He spent three years in Port-Vila, Vanuatu and all four years of High School on the sunny island nation of Singapore graduating from the Singapore American School. Although a US citizen, he had never lived in the US until his freshman year at Tufts and has a very hard time answering the seemingly simple and innocent question “Where are you from?” He is an avid public speaker participating debate, Model United Nations, and extemporaneous speaking in High School. After spending the summer of 2005 in China teaching English, he is making an effort to learn Mandarin and as much about China as possible. Alex also is a major in International Relations and Economics. During his free time (which he so rarely has during the school year) he enjoys movies, reading books that are not required for classes, and long walks on the beach.

Padden Murphy 09
Padden Murphy is a Freshman majoring in International Relations and Chinese. Son of Timothy and Deborah Murphy, Padden comes to the colloquium from Great Falls, Montana. Before coming to Tufts, Padden attended Rowland Hall-St. Mark’s School in Salt Lake City Utah. After graduation, he deferred matriculation for one year, during which he interned for Senator Max Baucus in Washington D.C, and Senator Edward Kennedy in Boston. Through EPIIC and EXPOSURE, Padden was able to conduct photographic research on Argentina’s Policia Bonarense during the winter recess. Also through EPIIC, Padden co-founded the Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES), an initiative partnered with the U.S. Service Academies aimed at bridging the civil-military gap. Padden is in Tufts’ improvisational comedy troupe Cheap Sox, and is a member of the TCU Senate. This summer Padden will be furthering his language studies at Peking University in Beijing, China.

Amara Nickerson 06
Amara Nickerson is a Tufts senior studying International Relations. Especially fascinated by Latin American politics, Amara recently completed an International Relations honors thesis about humanitarian food aid sent from the United States to Guatemala. She also did research in Guatemala about the effects of the country's civil war. Amara spent her junior year studying in Valparaiso, Chile where she had the opportunity to learn not only about Chile's political history but also the country's unique culture, customs, and daily life. At Tufts Amara helped start a chapter of Americans for Informed Democracy and ran with the women's cross country team. She has participated in various volunteer activities including ESL classes for Hispanic immigrants. She is also an avid Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics fan and long before she had heard of international relations dreamed of being a professional sports commentator. Amara will be teaching in Brownsville, Texas beginning in fall 2006 as part of Teach for America.

Laura Reed 06
Laura Reed is a senior majoring in International Relations and Environmental Studies. Her intellectual and career interests include sustainable development, alternative energy and micro-finance. She plays rugby for Tufts and hails from Sydney, Australia. This year, she attended the Women as Global Leaders Conference in Abu Dhabi and interned with the United Nations Association of Greater Boston. Next year she will be living in the Marshall Islands, working for the WorldTeach program.

Seth Rosenberg 06
Hailing from Shaker Heights, Ohio, Seth Rosenberg is a senior political science and economics major. A competitive swimmer for 12 years, Seth was excited to breathe deep of something more stimulating than chlorine fumes while partaking in EPIIC's intellectual rigors. Seth comes out of EPIIC with little idea of what he'd like to do after he graduates in May, although EPIIC has distilled in him a deep desire to continue to question assumptions and strive for deeper truths (and conundra!). EPIIC taught Seth, among many other things, that limits on learning are scalable hurdles, and that it is possible to read 1000 pages a week. Hopefully, a job in public policy or the media is somewhere in his immediate future. In the fall of 2004, Seth co-taught an Explorations seminar entitled "World Hunger and Famine in the 21st Century," and continues to be interested in food security issues and development. In his free time, no longer spent grinding out the laps in the pool, Seth enjoys watching movies, dusting off his violin for the occasional practice session, dabbling in tennis and running, and compulsively rereading his favorite books.

Nina Scheinman 08
Nina Scheinman is currently a sophomore at Tufts and a member of the 2005-2006 EPIIC class. Nina was born and grew up in Tanzania, so her interests are in Africa and the development of Africa. With the support of EPIIC and the Institute she is planning a research trip to Sierra Leone this summer. While she is there, she will interview women to understand their felt and unfelt needs and requirements. Her task is will be to conduct a needs assessment that will subsequently help the NGo Youth Action International design and implement appropriate programs for women. Next Fall Nina will be spending the semester in Washington with the Tufts In D.C. program.

Ajaita Shah 06
Ajaita Shah is a senior double majoring in International Relations and Political Science with a focus on US Foreign Policy Analysis. She was born and raised in New York. As a proud alumnus of the 2004 EPIIC Symposium: Dilemmas in Nation Building – America’s Role in the World, she is beyond thrilled for this year’s EPIIC program. This year, in light of Politics of Fear, Ajaita researched Energy Security and Conflict Resolution Tactics for India and Pakistan by interviewing corporation leaders, politicians, scholars, and journalists in India assessing the market shifts in South Asia and the potential shift from Politics of Fear to Politics of Opportunity within the region. Since then, Ajaita spent last year abroad in the Tufts Program in Washington during the fall, and Madrid, Spain in the spring. She speaks Hindi, English and Spanish. Her interests include US Foreign Policy, South Asian studies, security issues, and conflict resolution. Upon graduation, Ajaita is going work with NGOs in Pune, Mumbai and Banglore India through the American-Indian Foundation Fellowship. She hopes to eventually get a joint Masters and Law degree and work mainly on security and energy issues in South Asia.

Lauren Shields 08
Hailing from the great state of Montana, Lauren Shields shares with Padden Murphy the unique distinction of being the first Big Sky State residents that Sherman Teichman has ever met. Lauren’s interests cover a wide range. Last summer she followed women’s issues and worked with the YWCA, coordinating a panel on Native American women. Eager to get involved with local organizations, Lauren interned for Senator Max Baucus in her hometown of Missoula, where she assisted groups write grant requests. Another passion, environmental issues, led to research for the Great Bear Foundation, teaching classes on bear safety, and was a recycling intern at Tufts. In addition, she worked as a fundraiser for Tufts. During the first semester of EPIIC, Lauren was a member of the Program Committee and helped mold the Symposium. In January, Lauren took a leave of absence from Tufts to intern in Washington DC for the Senate Committee on Finance, on the international trade team. As an international relations major with a concentration on international economics and development, the internship provided a singular opportunity to be involved in the formation of trade policy. During her time in Washington, Lauren worked on free trade agreements with Peru, Oman, and Korea, issues related to China such as currency manipulation and rural unrest, the Doha round of WTO negotiations, customs and trade facilitation, the India nuclear initiative, and more. Her responsibilities ranged from logistical support for staff to writing memos and floor statements for the ranking member of the Committee. In her time off, Lauren enjoys flyfishing, backpacking, art museums, and honing her barista skills. Upon the conclusion of her internship, Lauren plans to return to Tufts in the fall, and then spend the spring semester in Morocco, followed by a semester in Paris.

Jackie Silbermann 08
Jacki Silbermann, a sophomore majoring in International Relations and Middle Eastern Studies, hails from Lancaster, Pennsylvania (that's right, Amish country). She deferred admission to Tufts in order to spend a year studying and doing volunteer work in Israel. A student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem during the fall 2003 semester, Jacki studied Israeli politics and Islam, and spent her second semester living and working on a kibbutz near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip. She is fascinated by Islam and Arabic culture, and studies Arabic at Tufts, in addition to Hebrew. She is currently conducting research on Hamas and political integration and, through EPIIC, had the chance to complete part of this research in Israel and the West Bank during the winter of 2005-06. Her academic interests outside of the realm of Middle Eastern politics and culture include environmental policy and sustainable development education. She spent a week last spring doing sustainable development work in a small, Haitian village in the Dominican Republic, and she currently works at the Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) at Tufts University. Additionally, Jacki enjoys Ultimate Frisbee, Japanese food, the outdoors and the New York Yankees.

Nicki Sobecki 08
Nicki Sobecki is from Pleasantville, New York. Yes, Pleasantville. Along with a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations at Tufts, she is pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Nicki is fascinated by photography’s role in documenting the running record of human events and the ways in which such a record can inform and change the world. This fascination has led her down a windy and unpredictable path lit by experiences such as interning for James Nachtwey, participating in a journalism workshop in Kosovo, and traveling to Rwanda to document the reconstruction efforts. She has also been given the opportunity to work with Jim MacMillian to document gun violence in Philadelphia, a project she hopes to continue this upcoming summer. Her passions are simple, numerous, and in a state of constant expansion.

Mark Sy 08
Mark Sy is currently a sophomore majoring in International Relations and Political Science. He speaks fluent Mandarin, and plans to fine tune his French when he goes abroad to study for a semester in Paris in the spring of 2007. In his spare time, Mark likes to paint, read, swim and cook. He has recently become very interested in photography and plans to take it up as a new hobby. He is also very interested in Africa, and plans to explore the possibilities of incorporate art into his research plans for next summer.

Stephan Vitvitsky 06
The son of post-world war II immigrants from Ukraine, Stephan was born on December 3, 1983, in Boston, Massachusetts and spoke Ukrainian and English growing up.   A senior majoring in Economics and Political Science at Tufts, he is currently a member of the Club Hockey team, VP of the Russian/Slavic Circle, and is a reading tutor through the Tufts Literacy Corps. He also played soccer at Tufts his freshmen and sophomore years, was Photography editor of the Tufts Observer during his sophomore year, and was a columnist for The Tufts Daily during his junior fall. Over winter break, Stephan participated on an EXPOSURE workshop in Buenos Aires, researching and documenting aspects of Argentina's economic recovery following the financial crisis in 2001. Finally, he has an appetite typical of a 300-pound football player (he likes to eat) and will be studying and researching in Kiev next year as a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship.  

Molly Whittington 06
Molly Whittington is a senior majoring in Anthropology. She grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina where her passions were visual art and hurdles on the track team. In 2004 she worked with African refugee youths in Jamaica Plain with the International Rescue Committee and in 2005 she worked on a Cambodian mental health research project at the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma. Both art and photography are still an important aspect of her life as she is an active member in EXPOSURE, a photojournalism and human rights group and in 2004 she volunteered at an art therapy organization for teen girls who have experienced traumatizing events: The Arts Incentive Program in South Boston. In the summer of 2005 she attended a photography workshop in Bali under the guidance of John Stanmeyer and Gary Knight, made possible through EXPOSURE. Her active involvement in campus life is reflected in the participation and activities she helped design in such groups as EXPOSURE, the International Funds for Children's Computer Assistance/Computers for Cambodia, Oxfam Café, and two Fletcher student groups: the International Migration Group (formally the Refugee Roundtable) and Sudan Divestment Group. She was one of the founding members of the Anthropology Collective in 2004 and is the current president and coordinator. Her new project in progress is building a community garden in Chelsea for the Somali Bantu refugees as well as acting as a mentor and tutor for their children. Upon graduation, she hopes to continue her work with resettling refugees in the US and maybe one day she will go to the refugee camps of post-conflict/disaster regions.

Erika Wool 06
Born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama, Erika Wool is a senior graduating with a major in History. Her intellectual interests also include moral philosophy and philosophy of law. When not in the Philosophy department, Erika can be found on the tennis court, reading, or trying to learn to speak Spanish. Outside of academics, she is the Head Writing Fellow and an active member of the Tufts HIV and AIDS Collaborative. This past March she attended the Women as Global Leaders Conference in Abu Dhabi. Upon graduation, Erika is moving to London to work in an art gallery and decide whether she should go to graduate school for development studies or philosophy.