Synaptic Scholars
2013 Scholars
| Rachel Baras | Rosario Dominguez | Vasundhara Jolly | Suzanne Lis | Ben Perlstein | Chase Maxwell | Alexa Rosenthall | Dhiren Shah | Emily Wyner |
ROSARIO DOMINGUEZ was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. She graduated from The International School of the Americas (ISA), a small internationally focused magnet school. At ISA, she had the opportunity to meet with several Nobel Peace Laureates and retrace the steps of Civil Rights activists in Alabama. During her senior year she interned at the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center in San Antonio where she discovered many issues that afflicted her community and learned more about the history of social justice in San Antonio. At Esperanza, she was member of the Free Speech Coalition, in which she worked with community members to repeal an ordinance instituted by the San Antonio City Council that would require nonprofits, street marchers and protesters to pay outrageous fees. When she is in Texas, Rosario still participates in Esperanza’s social justice endeavors.
The culmination of her high school experiences awakened an interest in the beauty of community organizing and social movements. Working with other Latina women at the Center helped her define her identity as a first-generation Mexican American and encouraged her to explore her culture. By exploring her culture, she developed an interest in Latin America and immigrant rights in the United States. She joined the Student Immigrant Movement, where she has worked with undocumented youth in the New England area and joined SIM’s efforts to pass the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform. As a Citizenship and Public Service Scholar at Tisch College, she hopes to work with the immigrant population in Boston.
Even though her parents have settled in the United States, her entire family resides in Mexico. Every time she visits her family in Mexico, violence and fear are unavoidable components of the daily news, and growing up in Texas surrounded by people who have fled has provided her with two different perspectives of Mexico’s state. The love for her culture and interest in social movements has cultivated a curiosity to see how past revolutions have influenced struggles in modern day Latin America and how rural Mexican communities have reacted to the destitution caused by the current drug wars.
In her free time, Rosario enjoys painting with watercolors, going on adventures, and learning more about plants and sustainability.
VASUNDHARA JOLLY is a freshman from New Delhi, India from the class of 2013. She is hoping to major in International Relations with a focus on Middle East and South Asia along with a possible minor in Film Studies.
Vasundhara’s academic interests lie in international politics, history and the study of culture. She is extremely interested in intercultural dialogue and discovering the significance of different media, like movies, music and photography, in spreading awareness on social issues.
Born and brought up in one of the most vibrant and chaotic cities of the world, she was exposed to a myriad of cultures and religions from early on. She is bilingual (Hindi & English) and has been studying French for a few years now. Her unique and strange last name "Jolly" has earned her a variety of strange nicknames and confused looks.
She attended Delhi Public School in New Delhi and in 11th grade, she was given the unique opportunity to attend a pedagogical and cultural exchange program with Mauritius College, a high school based in Curepipe, Mauritius. There she was able to practice her French speaking skills and learn a bit of Mauritian Creole. She was appointed the Head Girl in 12th grade. All throughout high school, she was part of the school basketball team and was the captain of the same in 11th and 12th grade. She also represented the state of Delhi in the 53rd National Basketball Games held in Rajasthan. She was also an active member of the Environment Education Council in school, helping spread awareness on numerous environment issues and organizing tree plantation drives and cleaning the Yamuna river initiatives.
For the past 4-5 years, she has been volunteering for an NGO that operates in urban slums in the capital. Summer after graduation, she interned at the Centre for Legislative Research and Advocacy in Delhi where she researched the impact of climate change on immigration in the Indian subcontinent and also on the success of the Millennium Development Goals as laid down by the UN. She also helped conceptualize a door-to-door climate advocacy program for Indian Parliamentarians.
The same summer she visited Dharamsala, a tiny town nestled in the Himalayas that plays host to the Tibetan people in exile, where she got to visit the Dalai Lama's monastery. The trip opened her eyes to the silent yet powerful freedom movement amongst the displaced people and sparked her interest in their culture. This summer she is interning with Tehelka, a magazine based in Delhi that focuses on Indian politics and development issues.
On the Hill, Vasundhara has been involved with The Roundtable, served as Assistant Stage Manager in Vagina Monologues and acted in the 3Ps spring major, subUrbia. She has been a vegetarian for the most part of her life for ideological reasons and a chocoholic since birth for obvious reasons. Traveling, reading, hunting for quaint tea and coffee shops, autochthonous music artists, adventure sports and the underground hippy movement in India are just some of her other interests.
SUZANNE LIS is a member of the Class of 2013 majoring in International Relations and minoring in Music. Upon graduating from high school in West Hartford, CT, she matriculated at Tufts intending to pursue a pre-dental track and a minor in music. However, she soon lamented the apparent disparity between the arts and sciences. As the daughter of two Polish musicians, she had grown up in an environment of the arts, languages, and culture; in school, she had found literature, human rights, politics, and science. As of now, she is confident that the wide and varied curriculum of International Relations will permit her to bridge the gap between the arts and sciences that has plagued her and to further hone yet-undiscovered interests. She also plans to complete a music minor, as music is still an inevitable and crucial part of her life. She attended the prestigious Boston University Tanglewood Institute in 2008, sang with Hartford Symphony Orchestra in February 2009, and currently does chamber music and opera ensemble at Tufts.
At Tufts, Suzanne became interested in immigration, especially the DREAM Act. Having written articles about the DREAM Act for the Tufts Daily, she found an outlet in the Somerville Movement of Dreamers, a coalition of students from Somerville and the surrounding communities. As part of SMOD, the group successfully lobbied for the official support of the DREAM Act by Tufts University. The result was documented in the Boston Globe, the Associated Press, and the Tufts Daily. During the summer of 2010, Suzanne will be interning at a private immigration law firm in Hartford, CT in order to learn more about the immigration system and develop her Polish legal translation skills.
She has also returned to her roots in her interests in ex-Soviet states and public health. As a Synaptic Scholar, she hopes to address the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS amongst injecting drug users in Poland with a program that encourages collaboration between Poland and Germany.
In her spare time, Suzanne enjoys reading, cooking, salsa dancing, anything music-related, hiking, and good conversation with friends.
CHASE MAXWELL is a member of the Class of 2013, majoring in Architectural Studies. Chase originates from Missoula, Montana, where he attended Hellgate High School. During his senior year, Chase co-chaired a student-run lecture series, funded by the Bezos Family Foundation and modeled after its internationally renowned umbrella organization, the Aspen Ideas Festival. Chase conceptualized and implemented six lectures and film screenings, all pertaining to the topics of global health care and world education, ranging from the HIV/AIDS epidemic in China (“Blood of the Yingzhou District), to mental health care in the United States (“West 42nd Street”), to comparisons of higher education systems in the United States, China, and India (“2 Million Minutes”). Following this uniquely programmatic immersion in world affairs, Chase affirmed to pursue his interests in international affairs further.
This summer, Chase had the opportunity to intern for the Mike and Maureen Mansfield Center at the University of Montana, an institution dedicated to promoting a better understanding of Asia, and relations between the United States and Asia, and affiliated with the Washington, D.C. based Mike and Maureen Mansfield Foundation. In this position, Chase has assisted the Center’s staff in implementing a State Department-sponsored program crafted to foster leadership skills and an understanding of globally interconnected climate change issues among 20 young Southeast Asian scholars.
These students—citizens of Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia—afforded Chase a unique perspective of the issues surrounding sustainable agriculture in a world rapidly evolving due to climate change. Moreover, in learning with these students about climate change in Montana and the greater United States, and the similarity and relevance of this change in relation to their own environs, has lent focus to what Chase hopes to explore in his research.
At Tufts, Chase has found his passion in architecture. He has been able to blend his newfound, though deeply-rooted, passion for architecture with his more venerable interest in international relations. He hopes to seamlessly integrate the two, using his skills in architecture to further global development, especially in relation to sustainable agriculture and urban growth in light of our changing environment.
Chase is also a member of Tufts Energy Forum, and of the Tufts Architectural Society.
BEN PERLSTEIN is a sophomore at Tufts University studying International Relations and Cognitive and Brain Sciences. Originally from Acton, Massachusetts, after graduating high school in 2008, Ben spent a year living in Jerusalem as a student on the pre-college program Kivunim: New Directions, through which he studied Hebrew, Arabic, Middle Eastern history, politics and culture, and international Jewish communities. As part of the program's curriculum, throughout the 2008-2009 academic year Ben traveled to ten countries. This international experience, culminating in a trip to India, served as a natural springboard for Ben's participation in the Institute for Global Leadership's 2009-2010 EPIIC Colloquium on South Asia.
Ben's belief in the importance of interdisciplinary exploration is most actively expressed in his interest in the interaction between public policy and the human brain. He hopes to help optimize that interaction through education policy and school design reform one day. Accordingly, Ben spent the summer of 2010 working in Washington, D.C., as a Junior Associate in the Chancellor of DC Public Schools' Urban Education Leaders Internship Program. This experience offered him critical exposure to the complex relationship between the urban community of Washington and its radically changing school system.
Ben is looking forward to launching an international inquiry and action initiative focused on education issues in the near future at Tufts, and to having these explorations challenged, enriched and complemented through his participation in the Synaptic Scholars community.
ALEXA ROSENTHALL is a member of the class of 2013 planning to major in International Relations. While she is specifically interested in international affairs, she also has strong interests in journalism, environmental sustainability, and global health. Alexa was born in Connecticut but has moved between towns, states, and countries throughout her life. She spent the majority of her childhood in England where she attended an international school. There, she garnered a passion for exploring cultures. Living abroad gave Alexa a strong appreciation for all ideas, beliefs, and traditions. Today, she continues to love traveling and the opportunity to juxtapose different communities.
At Tufts, she is a participant of the Tisch Scholars Program, contributes to and edits for the non-partisan journal the Tufts Roundtable, and volunteers as a student director for the anti-poverty organization LIFT Cambridge.
For the Summer of 2010, Alexa is interning at the Boston headquarters of the online news agency GlobalPost. From this experience, Alexa hopes to learn more about news and the future of online media.
To enjoy life outside of the academic arena, Alexa loves hiking, practicing yoga, eating delicious foods, reading periodicals, finding new music, exploring places on foot, and having enlightening conversations. She is excited to learn from and talk with her fellow Synaptic Scholars about the intricacies of life.
DHIREN SHAH is a member of the class of 2013.
Before his graduation from Tewksbury Memorial High School, Dhiren garnered an interest in a variety of topics from history to engineering. Apart from academic interests Dhiren also participated in activities he was passionate about and instigated change where he thought necessary.
For example, during his senior he planned, executed, and presented a plan to eradicate student fees for all volunteer organizations. By collaborating with fellow students and school administrators, Dhiren was able to convince the school committee, within a mere three months, to approve the plan, eliminating student activity fees for over 13 organizations.
In addition to an academic setting, Dhiren has also pursued change in the professional world.
During this past summer, Dhiren interned at eSecLending, a securities lending company in Boston. During his internship, Dhiren discovered an opportunity for improvement within the firm, and catalyzed a change for the company. By talking to fellow colleagues, he realized that the firm could not track earnings for specific markets, and as a result, he implemented a system that tracked the firm and their clients’ earnings in established and emerging markets.
At Tufts, he plans to major in Quantitative Economics and Computer Science.
Having served as captain of his track team at Tewksbury High, Dhiren still finds enjoyment in playing sports in his free time. He also takes pleasure in reading biographies as well as non-fiction books.
Eventually, Dhiren plans to pursue a career in finance and management.
EMILY WYNER is a proud member of the class of 2013 majoring in Anthropology. She is passionate about uncovering the roles of people, technology, and nature in social change. In spring of her freshman year, she taught an action-based civics class at Malden High School as a mentor through Generation Citizen. That summer, she continued her work with them as an intern, conducting evaluations, developing a new curriculum, and teaching a class at Year Up, among other things. This past summer, as an Empower Fellow through the Institute for Global Leadership, she conducted case study research in Kenya for FrontlineSMS, an organization that specializes in mobile technology for development. More recently, she has shifted her focus to all things food and farming. She co-founded Food for Thought last semester, a branch of the Tufts Sustainability Collective that addresses contemporary food issues through a variety of lenses, including environmental, political, social, ethical, economic, and nutritional. She is currently interning with environmental journalist Simran Sethi and will be going out to Colorado this summer to work at Chimney Rock Farm, where she hopes to help bridge the gap between farm and community.
Emily is a leader for the Tufts Wilderness Orientation and feels most at peace under the stars. In her spare time, she enjoys watching documentaries, exploring new board games, cooking, climbing, traveling, doing puzzles, and finding hole-in-the-wall thrift stores.