EPIIC Archives

Colloquium Members

EPIIC 2008-2009 Class Bios


David Attewell
David Attewell is a sophomore from New York City. He is currently majoring in International Relations and plans to spend junior year abroad in Paris. He spent the summer of 2008 interning for the NYC Dept. of Housing Preservation and Development. David’s interests include the rise of the EU, the assimilation of Muslim immigrants into Europe, and the impact of urban inequality. In his spare time, he plays intramural basketball, is a member of the Tufts University club soccer team, and is an obsessed and perpetually disappointed fan of the Birmingham City Football Club. He loves eating out and has not yet found a country whose food he does not like. David hopes to take advantage of his EU passport (which he has courtesy of his British father) by living and work in Europe for several years after college.


 

 
 


Benjamin Beede
Ben Beede is a sophomore at Tufts University planning on majoring in International Relations. He was born in Taiwan to a Taiwanese mother and an American father. While growing up as a member of an American diplomat’s family, he attended school in Beijing, Virginia, and Copenhagen. Though hailing from diverse and varied places of origin, he most strongly identifies as an American, but the city of Beijing will always be his home. He has a strong interest in seeing the mian zi, or “face” of the United States restored in the eyes of the world community and hopes that someday his work will contribute to this goal. His interests include soccer, vigorous exercise, reading fiction, and spending time with friends. On campus he is involved in the Tufts Football Club (TUFC), ZBT fraternity, the Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES), Model UN, and the Mixed Martial Arts Club.
 

 

 


Kelsey Bell
Kelsey Bell is a junior at Tufts University, born and raised by the beaches of Cohasset, Massachusetts. Her coastal upbringing led to a brief stint as a swimmer and a lengthy career as a competitive springboard diver beginning at age eleven. She is currently majoring in Political Science with a minor in Communications and Media Studies. Kelsey took a semester off during the fall of her sophomore year and ended up in Costa Rica, surfing, learning Spanish and studying digital photography under the guidance of a local Rastafarian. This past winter, Kelsey participated in the Ghana Gold: A Corporate Social Responsibility Study Tour in Ghana with the Africa and the New World Program. She has just returned from a whirlwind summer of further travel, studying in Talloires, France, doing work in Kazakhstan with Tufts Hillel, and participating in the Exposure/Aftermath Workshop studying reconciliation in Uganda. Kelsey is also a Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service Scholar and hopes to combine her interest in cities with her Scholar’s community service project this year. When she’s not working, Kelsey can be found enjoying live music, laughing with friends and attempting to catch some waves in Massachusetts.

 
Saloni Bhojwani
Saloni Bhojwani is a sophomore majoring in International Relations and Economics. She attended international school in Singapore and has lived there her whole life. She speaks French and is learning Chinese, and spent the summer after her freshman year in Beijing. She is particularly interested in issues of Economic Development, especially in Asia and the South-Asian subcontinent.



 


 

 

 

 
Chelsea Brown
Chelsea Brown is a sophomore majoring in International Relations from San Diego, California. Instead of at the beach, Chelsea was at the stables nearly every day, as she rode horses competitively since the age of four. Chelsea’s mother and stepfather are activists and progressive philanthropists working across borders, so she was exposed to issues like social justice and environmental sustainability from a very early age. She is on the board of her family foundation, which works with human rights organizations in Latin America and environmental and democratic integrity initiatives in the U.S., and she is a junior member of the Threshold Foundation. In her freshman year at Tufts, she was a member of the Equestrian Team, Tufts Students for Barack Obama, Burlesque Troupe, and Free Thought Society. A professed anglophile, Chelsea has studied and traveled in England extensively and hopes to attend the London School of Economics and Political Science for an advanced degree. This past summer she interned for the New Mexico Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy, where she created a documentary about passive solar architecture and testified before the New Mexico Public Regulations Committee about the need for more energy efficiency. At present her interests are diverse, ranging from drug policy to climate change to international human rights law, and she predicts they will only keep expanding throughout her participation in the EPIIC program and residency at Tufts.

 


Kirsten Brown
Kirsten Brown is a sophomore from New York City. For six years she attended Hunter College High School where her love for International Relations blossomed. At Hunter, she also fell in love with Russian History and here at Tufts University she is studying both International Relations with a focus on Middle Eastern History as well as Russian History. Outside of the classroom, Kirsten is a member of both the women’s cross-country and the women’s indoor/outdoor track team. In addition, she is an admissions tour guide and a certified barista at Starbucks. Kirsten is very passionate about working with people, getting to know them and their history, as well as traveling so her ideal job would bring both passions together. In addition, Kirsten loves reading, crossword puzzles, her ipod, and Law and Order.



 

 

 


Diego Chacon
Diego is a sophomore majoring in International Relations. His family is originally from Venezuela, where he spent a month this past summer, but he grew up in San Antonio and calls Texas home. In addition to participating in EPIIC this year, Diego choreographs for Spirit of Color (SOC), Tufts' hip-hop dance troupe. He also serves on SOC's executive board as the webmaster. As a freshman, Diego served as a co-chair for Pangea's Kicks for A Cause Tournament. Diego enjoys the bringing his academic interests of sustainable development, global nutrition, and urban sustainability together with his extra curricular interest and is excited to embark on the EPIIC journey.



 

 


Alison Coffey
Alison is a sophomore from Tacoma, WA planning to major in Anthropology. She is excited to approach the topic of Global Cities from every possible angle, but has a specific interest in rural-urban migration, forced evictions and resettlement. She is interested in these issues across a range of geographic locations, leaving her in an almost constant state of indecision about which region to focus on. Alison is an active member of EXPOSURE, through which she participated in this summer’s photojournalism workshop in Cambodia under the guidance of Gary Knight and Mort Rosenblum. This year she will take on the project of developing a Boston-based EXPOSURE workshop focusing on urban issues closer to home. She was also recently accepted into the IGL’s Synaptic Scholars, and hopes that this year’s colloquium will integrate well with her research in that program.


 


Alexandra De Cramer
Alexandra De Cramer is a junior majoring in Political Science with a minor in Media and Communications Studies. She was born in Hannover, Germany but lived in Izmir, Turkey her whole life. Her passion for world issues started with her introduction to the Model United Nations. During high school her passion for world issues grew, as she was able to participate in university conferences. She attended three Youth Assembly Conferences. One was about xenophobia and happened in the Hague, Netherlands and two were held in Istanbul, Turkey on water sustainability and democracy. In college she developed an interest in the Middle East region and satisfied it by learning Arabic for three semesters. Currently, EPIIC is her idea of bringing all the scattered pieces of her passions together, and achieving something concrete.



 

 



 


Emily Freedman
Emily Freedman is a senior studying Community Health and Child Development. However, her real passion for education lies outside the classroom. Through Tufts’ Pangea, she has gotten to expose others to experiential learning by participating in/coordinating two service trips to Honduras to work with the NGO F.U.C.O.H.S.O., a field partner of Sustainable Harvest International. She went to Israel following the 2006 war on Hillel’s Rebuilding the North Trip, and to Argentina with Hillel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in 2007. She also had the opportunity to study abroad in Barcelona, Spain in the spring of 2008. Emily loves bringing the lessons of her travels back to Tufts, and therefore co-chaired Israel Fest in 2007 and plans to do so again this year. She is working with others from the Argentina trip to create a model for raising awareness of the JDC’s work on college campuses, miniJDC, and is a member of the JDC’s steering committee for the ‘Next Generation Initiative’. Most recently, she went with the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation to the Democratic Republic of Congo to see the healthcare system in the country and learn about the new hospital the organization has built. Emily is also involved in the local communities of Medford and Somerville, and has had the incredible opportunity to volunteer with National Student Partnerships since her freshman year. Ultimately, she would like to work in the non-profit sector, most likely with international development organizations to improve health and poverty conditions around the world. Despite her international focus, Emily is a Houstonian at heart, and proud to hail from the Lone Star State!
 

 


Adrienne Frieden
Adrienne Frieden is a senior majoring in International Relations with a concentration in Global Conflict, Cooperation and Justice. She just returned from spending her junior year in Madrid, Spain. In conjunction with her academic studies abroad, Adrienne also interned at the Club de Madrid, an organization dedicated to providing counseling and support to nations working toward democratic transition. Upon returning to the United States, she began working with the Boston based International Center for Conciliation. At Tufts, Adrienne is actively involved with Exposure, the IGL's photojournalism for human rights program.






 

 


Stephen Gershman
Steve Gershman is a sophomore from West Hartford, Connecticut, studying international relations with a focus on Europe and the Middle East, specifically regarding the expansion of and integration within the European Union. Although he grew up in New England, Steve participated in International Orientation in ’07 and is an active member of the International Club. He writes for the Tufts Observer, serves as the Public Relations and Marketing Director in the Inter-Fraternity Council, and is a proud brother in the Zeta Beta Tau Omicron Chapter. Steve plays for the Club Tennis team and plays pickup basketball regularly. Through two marketing internships, he has developed an interest in perceptions, specifically in how marketing affects politics.

 



 

 


Mara Gittleman
Mara Gittleman is a senior from South Brunswick, New Jersey majoring in American Studies and Environmental Studies. At Tufts, Mara is an officer of Environmental Consciousness Outreach (ECO) and a manager of Oxfam Café. She is currently writing a thesis about urban agriculture as a solution to food insecurity and as an environmentally and socially advantageous alternative to the current agriculture industry. Last semester she studied sustainable development in Costa Rica and this summer she interned for the Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE), where she worked last fall and continues to work now.

 

 


Dwijo Goswami
Dwijo Goswami is a sophomore planning to double major in International Relations and Political Science along with a minor in Economics. In order to lighten the burden of his academic aspirations, he decided to join EPIIC this year. He was born in Chandigarh and brought up in New Delhi, India. He spent his summer interning with HSBC Premier Wealth Management in Delhi doing exactly the opposite of what he wants to do with the rest of his life. Areas of interest include sustainable development, slum economies and microfinance. He is excited for the opportunities this year’s topic of EPIIC will offer him to expose himself to these fields. His other campus activities include the Tufts Daily, the Tufts Financial Group and being a WMFO DJ.

 



 


Eileen Guo
Eileen Guo is a freshman at Tufts University. Born in China but raised primarily outside of Princeton, New Jersey, she has always felt that she did not belong fully to either place. This cultural confusion was not all negative, however, as it sparked her academic interests in identity politics, migration studies, and international relations. Before coming to Tufts, Eileen took a gap year during which she taught English in Spain and survived an earthquake in China. In her spare time, and away from the fear of flooding, landslides, and aftershocks, Eileen loves to travel, write, and practice Capoeira.



 

 

 


Jeremy Guterl
Jeremy Guterl is a sophomore hailing from Bethesda, MD and is very excited to be a part of the EPIIC program. Jeremy is an aspiring International Relations major and plans on minoring in Arabic. He is the Internal Public Affairs Coordinator for ALLIES, the IGL's groundbreaking civil-military relations student group. In an almost complete nonsequitur, he is also a lighting designer for Tuft's theater program. Last summer, Jeremy was lucky enough to hold an internship at the Near East South Asia (NESA) Center for Strategic Studies, where he was able to attend lectures, perform administrative tasks, and interact one-on-one with senior military officers and government officials from the NESA region.

 
 


 


Ian Hainline
Hailing from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Ian Hainline is currently a sophomore at Tufts. Majoring in Political Science, Ian is interested in foreign policy analysis, American constitutional law, and education policy, and hopes to pursue a career in either politics, criminal law, or civil rights law. Beyond the boundaries of EPIIC, Ian is a co-chair of the ALLIES (Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services) program in civil-military relations at the IGL, as well as a Tufts tour guide and saber fencer. In his spare time, he enjoys basketball, naps, and trying to make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich.

 





 


Gillian Javetski
Gillian Javetski is a sophomore majoring in International Relations and Community Health. A resident of the fine state of New Jersey (home to Bruce Springsteen and the tastiest blueberries in the entire world), she grew up in Paris, France. At Tufts, she works as a News Editor for The Tufts Daily. This past summer she had the opportunity to intern at the Global Youth Action Network where she helped co-write a report on Global Youth Service Day and covered Economic and Social Council meetings at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. Her many interests include public health, microfinance, issues related to corporate social responsibility, and Scrabble. She’s looking forward to learning everything and anything about global cities and is thankful to all of those who made this opportunity possible.


 
 


Michelle Liu
Michelle Liu is a sophomore at Tufts University who hails from Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania—a suburb of Philadelphia. After graduating as an art major from Lower Merion High School in 2007, Michelle spent time in Botswana where she developed a deep interest on the effects of AIDS on the people and countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. While in Botswana, Michelle was very excited she had the opportunity to go bungee jumping at Victoria Falls and is even more ecstatic that she lived to tell the story. Currently she is an International Relations major and Studio Art minor. Academically, Michelle is interested in the creation and implementation of international law pertaining to liberty and equality in society. She hopes to pursue a career in human rights law.

 



 


Yun Luo
Yun Luo is a freshman from China at Tufts, thinking about majoring in Environmental Engineering. She always likes to try something new; she went to Germany for one year as an exchange student and enjoyed her adventure there. Now she is in Tufts and is getting used to college life. Born and raised in Shanghai, she is interested in topics about urbanism as well as environmental issues and hopes one day she can change the urban environment.

 




 

 


Ashish Malhotra
Ashish Malhotra is a sophomore at Tufts University majoring in International Relations and Political Science. Ashish is a proud Indian citizen, who was born in Melbourne, Australia, and has also lived in Thailand and New York City, where he attended the United Nations International School. Ashish is a big sports fan, and in particular follows Australian Rules Football, Cricket, Tennis and Basketball quite closely. Ashish is also a regular contributor to the Sports-India.com and Tennisindia.org websites as a tennis reporter. On campus however, Ashish has been a member of the Tufts Garba Team and the BEAT (Bias Education and Awareness) Bias Team. This past summer Ashish did an internship at the World Federalist Movement in New York City where he worked on the Reform the UN Project, attending meetings at the United Nations and monitoring UN reform. Ashish has been studying Arabic at Tufts and hopes to spend time in the Middle East and North Africa next year.

 


Alison Meyer
Alison Meyer is a sophomore at Tufts University from Los Angeles, California, majoring in philosophy with a possible Russian double major. She is a managing editor of the Primary Source, Tufts' journal of conservative thought, and plays on the rugby team. She is also a regular contributor to crucialpolitics.com, a nonpartisan blog. In high school, she single-handedly galvanized students from eight local high schools to fight a parental notification proposition. She was a founding member of Tufts for Ron Paul, and is now an active member of Tufts for McCain. She is very interested in the preservation of civil liberties and hopes to extrapolate those ideals to her EPIIC project.


 

 


Alykhan Mohamed
Alykhan was born in London, UK and grew up in Boston, MA. He hopes to graduate with a BA in Architectural Studies and Russian and Eastern European Studies. His interests in urban planning and street performers led to his spending last summer as a co-director at St. James's Summer Shelter in Porter Square, one of only two entirely student run homeless shelters in the country. After an exhausting but rewarding summer, Alykhan is happy to have his life back. In the future, he wants to work in some capacity to improve urban life in the developing world and eventually attend graduate school for architecture. After a meaningful and hopefully lucrative career, he plans to open a jazz cafe on the Mediterranean coast.

 


 


Sharon Neely
Sharon Neely is a sophomore proudly representing her home city of Chicago, where during the summer she made organic soap and mentored kids on the west side. She came to Tufts not knowing what to do with her life, and now knows that she wants to be an Urban Studies major (the only problem being that there isn't one, but we're working on it...) When she isn't thinking about cities and how to fix them, she is working at the costume shop, singing in Anchord, and waxing theologic at the Spiritual Discussion Group.


 
 


Meera Pandit
Meera Pandit is a sophomore majoring in English and minoring in Economics. She grew up in Summit, New Jersey with her parents and older sister. At Tufts, she has been exposed to the world of film and is currently contributing to a documentary about the Solar Decathlon. Additionally, Meera is interning at a recently launched eco-friendly fashion line, and she is a member of Major: Undecided, Tufts’ sketch comedy troupe. Meera hopes to travel to either Southeast Asia or South America for research.

 




 
 


Laura Patterson
Laura Patterson is a senior majoring in Sociology with a minor in Communications and Media Studies. She is excited to be a part of EPIIC this year and feels it will be invaluable to examine her sociological interests. These interests include issues of wealth and poverty, education, gender, race and the media. Coming from the Philadelphia metropolitan area and having interned in Post-Katrina New Orleans with Habitat for Humanity, she is especially interested in urban centers. In addition to EPIIC, she is involved in Oxfam Cafe, Concert Board, and several other campus organizations. She also interned with AIDG, a Boston-based non-profit that does sustainable development in Haiti and Guatemala.

 

 

 


Katrina Pennington
Katrina Pennington is a sophomore majoring in International Relations and currently exploring too many different interests to choose a double major. She grew up in a small town in the Bay Area, surrounded by children in her mother’s daycare. Since coming to Tufts, Katrina has investigated many varied activities, from STAND to dance opportunities to Gospel Choir, and this past summer spent two months from June to July volunteering at an orphanage in Cusco, Peru. She can’t get enough of the world beyond the United States, and while particularly interested in Latin America, can’t think of one place she isn’t itching to visit. She plans to spend her entire junior year abroad, hopefully in two different countries. Life after Tufts is a wonderfully large question mark, hopefully including grassroots or NGO work combined with diplomacy, possibly journalism, and lots of travel. Beyond school and intellectual pursuits, Katrina ran the Boston Marathon freshman year, adores a sweaty and rigorous dance class, and is constantly cutting up and fixing her T-shirts because “they just don’t look quite right.”

 


Lucy Perkins
Lucy Perkins, a current sophomore from Pittsburgh, will likely double major in Political Science and International Relations with a concentration in Security Studies. She plans to attend law school and hopes to one day write policy. Lucy has been very active in college Democrats, serving on the executive board of the Tufts chapter as well as holding an appointed position with College Democrats of Massachusetts as Campaigns Coordinator. She worked full-time this summer with Darcy Burner for Congress as a field organizer. She concluded the summer with a fabulous week in Denver at the Democratic National Convention where she wore a much too bright lime green vest and passed out signs to delegates on the floor. Lucy is currently an intern in Senator Kennedy's Boston office, and her interests include education policy, political psychology, international conflict, Latin America, microfinance, the Security Dilemma, Arabic, Spanish, sailing, equitation, and The West Wing.
 


Peter Radosevich
Peter Radosevich is a senior political science major who grew up for 18 years in Oakland, California before coming to Tufts. Peter's research interests are centered on industrial food systems and water resource management, particularly in countries like China and India. He also has a strong interest in sustainability and conservation, having spent the summer working at Boston's Conservation Law Foundation. Currently studying Mandarin, Peter hopes to be able to conduct research in China and improve his language skills. In his free time, Peter enjoys playing music of any sort and getting outside in the sunshine.



 


Bruce Ratain
Bruce, a proud native of Chicago (his first and favorite mega-city), is a sophomore majoring in Political Science. His interests are diverse, including, inter alia, international law, civil-military relations, architecture, and terrorism, but he has a particular interest in global environmental management. Bruce, along with his family of avid hikers, has traveled extensively, visiting cities and rural environments in countries ranging from Brazil to Korea to Israel, among other places. Bruce is a co-chair elect for ALLIES—the Institute for Global Leadership's civil military relations group—and has also been involved with NIMEP (New Initiative for Middle East Peace). Excited and grateful to be in EPIIC this year, Bruce looks forward to exploring and combining his many interests through the lens of global cities.


 


Rebecca Recant
Rebecca Recant is a senior at Tufts from Wyckoff, New Jersey. She is an International Relations major with a focus in global conflict, cooperation, and justice. Passionate about travel and languages, Rebecca recently returned from a semester abroad in Seville, Spain where she had the privilege of traveling extensively through Morocco, Portugal and Western Europe. Rebecca has taken an avid interest in the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, an NGO that performs rescue and relief work around the globe. She interned and volunteered at their New York and Buenos Aires offices in high school and participated in a unique mission to Cuba at age 12. At Tufts, she helped organize short-term service trips to Argentina and Kazakhstan and has been involved in creating a student group that will serve as advocates for overseas Jewish needs. She also enjoys teaching and writing, serving as an English teacher in an impoverished neighborhood in Seville and interning at Peacework Magazine. In her free time she enjoys working retail, cooking and being outdoors. She is thinking about law school, but excited to explore different options after she graduates this year.


Radhika Saraf
Radhika Saraf is a sophomore majoring in Economics and Community Health. She was born and brought up in Bombay – now Mumbai (and prefers calling it by both names). She is a tomboy and grew up playing cricket and football. A bronze award holder of the International Award for Young People, this program opened her to community building where she taught little children to read and played games with them. At Tufts, she is actively involved in Taekwondo and thinks its super cool. Over the summer, she went home to Mumbai and worked on taking photographs for EXPOSURE, highlighting the fact that the city is charming, but is at once existing across different centuries. She is now part of the Tufts Mountain Club and hopes to conquer some awesome peaks.

 


 
 


Lorrayne Shen
Lorrayne Shen was born and raised in New Jersey and is now a freshman at Tufts. After spending the past summer with her family trekking the cities of China, she is immensely interested in this year’s topic of global cities and looks forward to exploring it with the EPIIC class. Lorrayne decided to come to Tufts after the wrenching decision of foregoing film school, but still expects to utilize her passion for film in her studies at Tufts. She cares deeply about the state of American mass media and hopes to use her education in improving the transit of information to people. Lorrayne was president of her Model Congress club in high school and can’t wait to help run Inquiry this year with high school students from around the country. On her spare time, she enjoys sleep, people-watching, movie-watching, reading and drawing.


Brittany Sloan
Brittany Sloan is a sophomore from Radnor, Pennsylvania who plans to major in International Relations and French. On campus, she is an active member in the Sarabande Repertory Dance Ensemble, in the IGL’s EXPOSURE photojournalism program, and in the Tufts chapter of the Darfur activism group, STAND. She is fascinated by fragile states, post-conflict regions, and the religious, ethnic, and political identities that aggravate them. Brittany is thrilled to particpate in this year’s EPIIC colloquium, returning to the type of academic environment that first sparked her passion for experiential, integrated learning. She cannot wait to discover where EPIIC will lead her intellectually and globally.


 

 


Gabrielle Sloss
Gaby Sloss is a sophomore proudly hailing from New York City. She hopes to double major in Peace and Justice Studies and American Studies in order to pursue her interest in domestic issues and alternative forms of justice. Her passion for these subjects originates from non-profit internships at The Point Community Development Corporation, an urban revitalization organization in the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx, and the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, a New York State based financial justice institution. Gaby is excited for EPIIC as a means of exploring the various dynamics of cities in order to enhance her advocacy skills. She can be seen running around the Tufts campus or running into inanimate objects as she is a clumsy member of the Women’s Cross Country Team and does not understand why one would walk when one could run.


 


Nick Stratton
Nick Stratton is a sophomore at Tufts University majoring in International Relations and Music. Having been born in Detroit, his nascent connection with the blues calls him to the piano each day to pursue his burning love for jazz. Later, having moved to northern Illinois and, subsequently, northern rural Wisconsin, Nick discovered his true love for the city as an epicenter for improvisational growth and developmental cultural exchange only after having been deprived of it. Such want has jettisoned him around the world…on a medical mission in Ecuador as a Spanish interpreter, on a backpacking excursion through Ireland, France, Italy, Austria, and Germany with host families throughout, and then to work in Denmark the next summer, followed by another trip through Florence, Rome, Paris and London. Already at his tenth residence, Nick’s nomadic intrepidness coupled with exploratory passion yields one hungry being. During the interim, Synaptic Scholars and Tufts Argentine Tango keep him busy…but smiling.

 

Kara Takasaki
Kara Takasaki is a sophomore at Tufts University and is kama’aina (homegrown/born and raised) from the beautiful 808 Aloha State of Hawaii. She plans to major in International Relations and English and hopes to pursue a career either in law, politics, government, or foreign policy. She was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes when she was two years old and attended Punahou School from K-12. She was a state and nationally recognized wrestler and judoka in high school and has played percussion in marching band and concert bands from 5th grade into college. She is also a certified EMT-B in the State of Massachusetts and a practicing member of Tufts Emergency Medical Services. She is a Tisch Scholar and dances with La Salsa Performance Team at Tufts. Kara is an un-official expert on Zwibble Dibbles and Penguins and in her free time she likes to read, write poetry, listen to music, travel, shop, and laugh.

 

 


Cody Valdes
Cody Valdes is an enterprising freshman hailing from Vancouver, B.C. He anticipates undergoing a great deal of academic exploration before deciding on his major at Tufts, but is currently interested in the holistic development and rejuvenation of communities through the establishment of environmental and social equality. He is passionately focused on problems of community injustice, degradation, and gentrification in his hometown, but also wishes to travel abroad with the same intentions of establishing positive connections with people and their communities at large. He is also an active member of the raw vegan community, attempting to live and promote greater ethical, environmental, and healthful stewardship by doing so.

 

 


Lumay Wang
Lumay Wang was born in New York City, but has lived most of her life right outside Washington, D.C. in Bethesda, MD. She is a double major in Art History and International Relations. She spent two years living in the Republic of Georgia when she was young, a first encounter with a culture that was neither American nor Chinese. Lumay sees her environment through the world of aesthetics. She is passionate about efficient and creative design, cultural identities, and preserving good architecture. She has interned at the National Gallery of Art, the Duolun Museum of Modern Art, and Elite Traveler Magazine. At Tufts University, she is a dedicated member of the Tufts Ballroom Team and a staff writer and columnist for the Tufts Daily.

 

 

 


Adam White
Adam White is a senior in the Tufts School of Engineering. He grew up in Los Angeles, California, and 21 years later, he is still fascinated with the place. Adam was a member of last year's EPIIC Class, Global Poverty and Inequality, and this year he is interested in exploring the interaction of slums, poverty and power with cities, urban planning, and transportation. Last year, Adam traveled to Beijing, China, through his EPIIC research on Urban Transportation Preparations in Beijing Pre-Olympics. He spent his summer giving campus tours, preparing to teach a class on community-development projects for Engineers Without Borders, and traveling to Haiti for an engineering assessment trip and to help with the set-up for a new local nonprofit.