Synaptic Scholars
2017 Scholars
Khuyen Bui | Adriana Guardans-Godo | Hande Guven | Maude Plucker | Nesi Altaras | Miriam Israel | Kelsey Ames | Justine Marie Aquino | Elise Cabral | Ki Ki Chan | Judy Chen | Lydia Collins | Evan Cook | Anna Del Castillo | Mallory Grider | Anne Hall | Eva Kahan | Charles "Slide" Kelly | Danielle Kong | Ana Manriquez | Shaan Merchant | Kensey Olsen | Zara Rancheva | Henry Stevens | Maia Tarnas | Gabe Terrell | Nathaniel Tran | Vincent Tsang | Yoojin Yoon
Khuyen Bui lets his inclination to question reign. So far it has led to his interest in people and learning, which pretty much includes everything. He is considering majoring in Philosophy, which promises him with no easy answer but at least better questions in his quest to seek truth. Two things that have irreversibly altered the course of his life are English and Googl-ing: knowing these two skills opened a whole new world of knowledge and opportunities for him. For that reason, he's also thinking of double majoring in Computer Science as he believes that only with a good understanding of technology can he leverage the positive impact on more people. Plus he always has a not-so-secret admiration for the techies - these wizards of 21st century are fascinating.
Khuyen grew up in the lovely city of Hanoi, Vietnam and spent 4 years of high school to study in Singapore under a scholarship by the Singapore government – one of the best decisions in his life. Tufts is another, and he's eternally grateful for this opportunity to continue his journey to learn more about himself, about the world and of course about how to live it best.
In Tufts, he's very happy to be part of the Synaptic Scholars (such a sexy name for the action-oriented nerds like him). He's also a mentor for Compass Fellowship, a group aimed at helping freshmen get more exposure to social entrepreneurship (aka doing good well). He is also involved in South East Asian Service Leadership Network (SEALNet), a non-profit organisation with the mission of developing young service leaders in South East Asia. He often thinks that he's the luckiest guy on earth to have received so much help from amazing people, so not giving back is unthinkable for him. His lifelong goal is to build a community of learners who care about one another. So far his approach has been to stay curious, to build connection with one person at a time and to write to share. About 3% of his writing can be found at his blog khuyenbui.com; the rest he's probably too shy to share.
If all these sound too grandeur, fret not. He can talk to you about anything. His motto is "Failure is when I meet someone whom I can't learn from." In his free time, he breathes deeper to enjoy life and its beauty, engages in conversations with others and with himself. He believes the most important thing to do at all times is to do good with the people he is with, right at that moment.
Adriana Guardans-Godo is a member of the class of 2017 from Barcelona, Spain born in New York City. She is pursuing a major in International Relations with a regional concentration in Europe and the Soviet Union and a potential English minor. On campus Adriana is an editor of Voces, the language department’s annual publication, a vice-president of HerCampus and a member of the History Society. Adriana is addicted to joining different clubs in order to discover her passion and make the most of the intellectual and creative energy that thrives at Tufts. Although she is still working on finding a medium or cause in which to fully focus her energies, she is motivated, eager to learn and confident that she will eventually discover what makes her “tick.”
Adriana is an ardent traveler and has visited diverse countries such as Paris, Senegal and Beijing. Having attended an international school for most of her life and having had the opportunity to be immersed in new environments has opened up her world perspective and allowed her to keep a very open mind. Adriana is also passionate about communication; whether it be through a shared language, a written narrative or an artistic expression, she strongly believes that success and happiness are intrinsically tied to the personal connections you make with the people and the background that surrounds you.
Occasionally Adriana likes to “forget her phone” and go on a walk outside to reflect in silence, write in her journal or read a good book. Adriana’s restless energy makes it difficult for her to sit still and she needs a good balance of social and alone time in order to keep her introvert-extrovert dichotomous nature in check. A fan of food, a lover of the ocean, a sunlight-junkie and a compulsive list maker, Adriana loves a good sense of humor and an honest conversation.
Hande Guven is a member of the class of 2018 and is majoring in International Relations with a concentration on the Middle East, and minoring in Computer Science. She is from Istanbul, Turkey which means she has a high tolerance -- and even an affinity -- for chaos. Academically, she is interested in Middle Eastern politics and culture, political philosophy, international development and law. However her interests and passions lie in a wide array of fields, which is one of the reasons she feels so at home in Synaptic Scholars and Tufts community at large. She know Turkish, English, French and is currently studying Arabic at Tufts.
On campus, Hande is a co-coordinator for LCS Shelters. She tries to keep up with local events in and around Boston including lectures, museum exhibits and concerts. Although she misses the bustle of Istanbul, she tries to make up for it by exploring Boston.
Hande also loves to read about art, linguistics, film and technology. She often finds herself having heated conversations about these topics with friends and strangers alike. As an amateur writer, she experiments with personal essays and poetry but she is working on sharing her writing with other people without becoming self-conscious. An ardent cinephile and a traveller, she tries to document her travels through photography and video projects. The impossibly curious and intellectually stimulating student body at Tufts is one of her favorite aspects of the school. She is a firm believer that innovative thinking and collaboration between people from different backgrounds is our best hope for great ideas. She hopes to further facilitate this kind of conversations at Tufts throughout her time as a Synaptic Scholar.
Maude Plucker was born in Brussels, Belgium, and has moved frequently, never spending more then three years in one country since she was ten years old. While French is her mother tongue, Maude learned English in Connecticut as a child and has attended school in both English and French. She also learned to speak Spanish when she lived in Barcelona, Spain. Having attended international schools in Belgium, Spain and the U.S., Maude enjoys learning about other cultures through socializing and traveling. The latter, in fact, is one of her greatest passions; she feels very fortunate to have traveled so extensively with her family, and cannot wait to plan her next trips. After college, Maude plans to return to live in Europe.
She is greatly inspired by the United Nations, as her mother works for UNICEF and she graduated high school at the United Nations International School in New York City. She is undeclared at Tufts, but hopes to pursue a major in community health, and possibly double major with child development, too, in addition to completing a minor in philosophy. These studies, she hopes, will eventually lead her onto a career working for the United Nations.
At Tufts, Maude is on the Women’s Varsity Crew team. Indeed, she loves the water. She is an avid scuba diver, having done so in Egypt, Jordan, Punta Cana and Cuba. After college, Maude sees herself taking a year off to become a scuba instructor before attending graduate school. In addition, she adores photography and film, two passions she hopes to utilize as means of communicating with targeted groups while working in the public health industry. She is working at New York Methodist Hospital this summer of 2015, as well as working as a journalist for ICARE4Autism, the International center for Autism Research and Education.
Nesi Altaras is a member of the Class of 2019 from Istanbul, Turkey. He is majoring in International Relations and Economics and he is interested in the Middle East and behavioral economics more specifically. Born and raised in Istanbul, Nesi is a member of the small Sephardic Jewish community of Turkey and one of very few Sephardic Jews at Tufts. He is very passionate about politics and is involved with Tufts Democrats, NIMEP, the European Students Association and serves on the TCU Senate. He speaks Turkish and English, some Spanish and is studying Arabic at Tufts. Nesi is enjoys reading in Turkish and English, as well as writing short stories and poems primarily in Turkish. He spends time watching numerous television shows and movies, and reading. He enjoys listening to Turkish music and classic jazz. An avid traveler, he is trying to see as much of the US during his four years at Tufts.
Miriam Israel is from Chevy Chase, Maryland (as of yet there is no known connection between the town and the actor). She specializes in being Undecided and has recently come to the realization that it is unfrotunately impossible to major in “Assorted Languages”. She will probably settle for the next best thing, International Relations, with Arabic or Middle Eastern Studies as possible double majors. She loves studying languages and has varying levels of proficiency in five of them. Traveling and learning about new places has always been important to her and she took a gap year before college to live in Muscat, Oman where she was able to study Arabic in-depth and gain a deeper understanding of what 40 degrees Celsius feels like. She is also interested in studying the experience of refugees around the world and how culture and conflict impact each other.
She is active in the Jewish community at Tufts, serving as the Hillel Interfaith Chair and even occasionally making it to Saturday morning services. She is also a part of the Tufts Model United Nations team and is a member of the Secretariat for Tufts first ever high school Model UN conference – scheduled for Spring 2016! Additionally she is a proud employee of Tufts University Dining Services and has enjoyed learning the secrets of the school kitchens.
Outside of school, Miriam enjoys making sarcastic remarks, exploring the great outdoors, reading the New Yorker, eating anything without meat (she is a lifelong vegetarian) and taking pictures.
Kelsey Ames is a member of class of 2018 from Scotch Plains, New Jersey. She is a mechanical engineering major also on the pre-med track. Academically, she is fascinated by everything from nuclear engineering to global mental health to deep space to ecology. She is also a member of ATO at Tufts and is currently training to become an EMT.
Outside of school Kelsey is a veracious reader, a lover of film, art, and animation and is known to dabble in adventures such as skydiving, scuba diving and horseback riding. She speaks French pretty poorly and her Russian is even worse, though she insists on always turning the subtitles off in foreign movies. Additionally, Kelsey is currently writing (and rewriting and rewriting) her first (very frustrating) novel and is also known for her award winning gingerbread houses, bad card tricks, and insatiable curiosity.
Justine Marie Aquino is a member of the class of 2019 tentatively pursuing a double major in Psychology and Child Development, and hoping to minor in English. She was born in Mandaluyong City, Philippines, but has spent most of her life in a small border town, Brownsville, Texas, right by the beach and the fence. This means that Justine definitely knows what it feels like to be stuck in 3 hour traffic jams in the middle of monsoon floods as well as how it feels to go 100 mph on long, Texan highways as acres of flat nothingness rush beside her. Growing up right next to Mexico has also fascinated her with Latino culture and Spanish language, and she aspires to continue this fascination by expanding her understanding of the language and cultures through studying abroad eventually. Justine very much celebrates her identity as one of the few Filipino-American immigrants blessed enough to study at Tufts, and is always excited to hear from other people of vastly differing backgrounds.
When she’s not sweetly suffering under the stresses of college, Justine enjoys playing her ukulele, guitar, and singing. She likes to watch films and Mad Men. She also likes to write prose and read from her favorite postmodernist authors. She also likes to do theater, but you’ll never see her because she’s behind the scenes. When the sun is out you will find her napping in the lawn. When she gets paid you will find her eating out in greater Boston. She enjoys the innocence and energy that younger children have to offer, and she hopes that in her time on the planet she will somehow impact the impoverished and underprivileged children from both her homes. Relationships among people also interest her, so she also hopes to observe the dynamics of diversity here at Tufts and in America, and be a part of the ongoing discussions to remedy disparities.
Justine acknowledges that there is an infinite amount of knowledge and understanding that this world and its many voices have to offer. She hopes to somehow tackle at least a small percentage of that infinity during her short time here at Tufts, and beyond. That’s why she wanted to join Synaptics in the first place, because there’s so much to be said and to be explored. What better way to learn about this world if not through the voices of others who are just as passionate about knowledge?
Elise Cabral is a member of the class of 2018 and is pursuing a major in Child Study and Human Development, and double minoring in English and Portuguese. She is originally from Praia, Cape Verde, but has called Massachusetts her home for most of her life. She frequently marries her practical experiences in childcare settings, whether as a recreational counselor in youth programs or as a volunteer at Boston Medical Pediatrics center, with academic her interests in developmental-behavioral science. She believes that there is balancing act to understanding people(children especially): there is a pragmatic, scientific basis to studying human nature, and also an interpersonal one that can only be obtained through sociality and cultural exchanges.
Her passions include painting and drawing portraits with traditional art media, but she appreciates the fine arts of many other kinds. She is unabashedly a literature enthusiast, and gets a thrill out of writing essays for her classes, no matter the discipline. At Tufts, she is a member of the ASO(African Student Association) and vice president of CVSA(Cape Verdean Student Association). She also enjoys playing club and intramural soccer. Other ways she spends her free time include listening to music, watching movies and having long conversations with friends and family members.
Ki Ki Chan is a student from Hong Kong seeking to challenge the ways in which the community at Tufts thinks. She studies International Relations and Entrepreneurship Leadership Studies Program, is the social chair of Hong Kong Student Association (Tufts) and a host advisor for the Global Pre-Orientation program 2015.
Ki Ki is passionate about fighting human trafficking, and with that she also fights to promotes gender equality. Back in Hong Kong, she was the marketing director for the 24 Hour Race 2013, where over 30 schools from HK, Singapore and Malaysia participates in 24 hour endurance race to raise awareness for the issue of modern day slavery. Seeing that sexism fuels trafficking, Ki Ki attempts to baring issues of sexism into her academic subjects, writing papers relating to topics of The Shame with Female Self Pleasure, College Hookup Culture, Rape culture. She hopes the community at Tufts can see how institutionalized sexism is, in addition to other issues like racism, having a savior complex, and colonialism. In addition to her academic interests, Ki Ki enjoys backpacking and traveling. Once during spring break, shebooked a ticket Istanbul on the day it left, making a spontaneous decision to travel alone for the first time. She flew to London and Dublin from there and it ended up being probably the world's shortest backpacking trip but the most memorable one (Sorry mom).
Judy Chen is a member of the Class of 2019. She was born in Taipei but moved with her family when she was four to Suzhou, China, where she lived for 15 years and attended international school. At Tufts she is pursuing Environmental Studies Track II with a potential second major of Cognitive & Brain Sciences, though her heart pulls her many places for all the things she wants to pursue.
Judy is a Third Culture Kid, and as it goes with TCKs, home and belonging are ideas that she’s constantly negotiating with. She finds home in great people and purpose; she also finds home in mountains and lakes, bookstores and coffeeshops, or cozied up with a Magic Wand. The west coast U.S. also calls out to her heart as do other corners of the world.
Poetry is love, as are tea and mountains and strangers who drink tea and climb mountains. With the goal of one day completing ≥one ultra marathon, Judy enjoys running (such as with the Marathon Team) and other practices that cultivate mindfulness, like meditation and yoga. She is interested in psychedelics and their potential for spiritual as well as therapeutic and psychiatric uses. Kink and polyamory and other alternative forms of human relationship and human connection deeply interest her, and she hopes to be part of networks of great relationships in co-living and -working, friendships, family, and romance, and more. She sometimes makes podcasts about blind dates among other juicy topics. She also strives to live minimally and is absolutely obsessed with the #vanlife and tiny houses, and other environmentally minded topics. Art and design are also important to Judy, who in addition to writing poetry, photographs, makes videos, makes weird digital art things and love, doodle, and create.
Lydia Collins is a Sophomore who hails from Evanston, IL, birthplace of the ice cream sundae. Though she has a possible lactose intolerance, she loves Evanston nonetheless and all the Midwest glory of next door neighbor Lake Michigan. When she is not swimming in sub-zero lake water or taking the “El” train to explore Chicago, she is doodling architectural sketches, running, cooking beans and granola (not together), reading the newspaper, and telling her dog how cute he is. She has also spent parts of her life outside of the borders of her beloved hometown. When she was in 6th grade, her family lived in Spain, when she was 18 she took a bridge year in Ecuador, and this past summer she worked in Panama. She has also been blessed to study at Tufts, where she is (very tentatively) majoring in International Relations and minoring in Urban Studies and Arabic. At Tufts her interests include being one of five people in Carm on Saturday morning, Urban Planning Club, BUILD, Gap Year Club, meeting new people, and snow days. Things that excited her: being not inside, international terminals in airports, picking classes, efficient, sustainable, and beautiful architecture, compost, school lunches, and Synaptic Scholars. She is more than thrilled to be part of Synaptic Scholars this year and cannot wait to be part of this unique community.
Evan Cook is a member of the class of 2019 from Columbus, Ohio interested in studying International Relations and Community Health. His inquisitiveness and indecisiveness has led him to interests in study ranging from gender in international policy and peacemaking to the effects of viral dormancy in mice. Consequently, he has found ways to weave his different interests into the variety of activities and organizations he is involved in on and off campus. This includes his work with Timmy Global Health, an organization that seeks to empower local Guatemalan clinics in sustainable medical efforts that target underserved and indigenous populations.
Having been raised in the small city of Bexley, Ohio, Evan developed a strong understanding of the ways in which his community intersects with his local government. His understanding motivated him to engage his neighbors in collective actions to address pressing issues in and around his community. These efforts mainly came in the form of volunteer coordination with the help of local leaders and directors. During high school, he also became interested in the ways in which philanthropy can affect his school district and community, serving on the Youth Philanthropy Program’s board of advisors. As an advisor he reviewed and allocated grant monies in support of the Bexley School District. From all of his experiences, he has gained an understanding of the ways in which institutions with certain privileges can influence policy and work in their self-interest. Going forward, he hopes to use his knowledge to make positive change on and off Tufts’ campus.
Anna Del Castillo is a member of the Class of 2018 and hails from Ocean Springs, Mississippi. She graduated in the top 5% of her class and served as class president for all four years of her high school career. Anna is studying Peace and Justice Studies as well as International Relations. Anna enjoys the performing arts, fashion design, social justice activism, and exploring foreign cultures. Anna loves to travel and recently studied at Oxford University through a Tufts summer program, and hopes to study abroad in Madrid, Spain during her junior year. Anna celebrates her identity as a Peruvian-Bolivian student, making trips to South America to visit family and learn more about her heritage.
Anna embraces diversity and is a member of the Bridge to Liberal Arts Success (BLAST) program at Tufts. She is a member of Tufts United for Immigrant Justice, a student representative on the Equal Educational Opportunity Committee, a member of Chi Omega Fraternity, a student caller for the Tufts Telefund, a Synaptic Scholar, and a member of the T.C.U Senate, serving on the executive board as the Diversity and Community Affairs Officer.
Outside of academics, Anna’s love of the outdoors prompts her many adventures hiking, kayaking, and observing nature. She is also an avid music festival attendee, foodie, and museum junkie. Anna is passionate about immigration justice as she has witnessed the struggles of the immigrant community at home on the M.S. Gulf Coast. She hopes to use her education to help improve the lives of others. She intends to travel as often as possible and seize every opportunity offered to her while at Tufts.
Mallory Grider is a member of the Class of 2019. Mallory balances her love of numbers and narrative at Tufts University, where she studies Mathematics, Computer Science, and History. She hails from Sandy, Oregon, a rural town near Mount Hood, though she thinks of Boston as her adopted hometown. Mallory spent half of her high school career studying mathematics at Reed College, in Portland. At Reed, during a project on elliptic curve cryptography and its practical application, she developed an interest in number theory and cryptanalysis.
On campus, Mallory is an editor of the Tufts Historical Review, an academic journal of history, a member of the Chi Omega sorority, and a writer for the music magazine Melisma. Mallory hopes to welcome the Class of 2020 as an Orientation Leader, helping incoming freshmen navigate the college transition. In her free time, she can be found touring a museum, or on a beach with an air tank and regulator in tow.
Anne Hall is the only student from the class of 2019 that is from South Dakota! Although it was a pretty interesting 18 years, I am so happy to call Tufts my new home. I plan on majoring in Community Health and Sociology and major passions of mine include global women’s health, family dynamics, people, travel, romance languages, and music. I’m currently involved with Jumpstart, GlobeMed, BUILD India and MAPS and have enjoyed my experiences thus far. I love embarking on spontaneous adventures, engaging in meaningful conversations, and evening nature walks. In addition, most of my favorite things start with the letter S: sun, sea, skating, studying, strawberries, singing, smiling, Spanish, socks, snow, sunrise yoga and the Synaptic Scholars Community! I am so excited to join this extremely caring, authentic and intellectually challenging group of individuals and find my “sweet spot” in the world.
Eva Kahan is a member of the Class of 2019 from sunny Mountain View, California, still bewildered as to what brought her across the country to the cold, dreary, beautiful hill (with absolutely no views of mountains) which has become her home. She is hoping to major in International Relations and History, and is super excited about the opportunities she has at Tufts to learn an absurd amount about niche moments in the past which have either an enormous amount of significance for today or none at all.
Having lived in Israel and France and studied Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Arabic she is aspiring to gain some even more useful skills and is thus brushing up her Esperanto and would be happy to converse poorly in any of the aforementioned languages with anyone interested. Eva grew up in a family of academics, and hopes to work bettering the lives of others through the skills of pestering others through words and maybe also research until she falls into academia like the rest of her family. She found Tufts through a series of extreme strokes of luck and hopes to continue stumbling around the world until she finds communities like this one.
Eva has a strong interest in civil-military relations as they effect national security and American foreign policy, and on campus is involved with Tufts ALLIES (Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services) and the International Relations Director's Leadership Council. She has continued these studies through attendance of several civil-military relations conferences through ALLIES and the Fletcher School, and through courses in the Military through MIT. Her love for the push and pull between various countries extends to the individual, artistic level, in which she passionately explores relationships built by Ballroom dance on the Tufts Ballroom Dance team and the words sung by the Tufts Concert Choir. Eva is also strongly involved in the Tufts Hillel community, and has a life-long goal of being about to read and speak enough Semitic languages to slip seamlessly between them in Friday night services.
On a day-to-day basis, Eva can be found making herself loose-leaf tea, reading in bed, and taking 15-minute power naps on the Prez Lawn when it's sunny out. She wants to see the ocean more often and would love to someday both drive across the country and sail around the world, and if you see her around she is *always* open to hearing a new perspective on anything from purpose to the weather, so feel free to say hello and start a conversation!
Charles "Slide" Kelly is a member of the class of 2017 from Morrison, CO. While he plans on double-majoring in Economics and Architectural Studies at Tufts, his true interests are at the intersection of the two, and the application of other disciplines, in the field of Urban Planning and Design. Slide is deeply interested in how the spaces we live in have the ability to affect our economic prosperity, sense of community, and ability to live sustainably. He is fascinated by how cities grow and what we can do to shape their development in beneficial ways, and loves walking around urban spaces looking out for what’s working, what could be improved, and all the unique little forgotten spaces that have amazing potential.
In addition to how the planning and design of urban spaces affect the way we live, Slide is interested in how the coexistence (or lack thereof) of different social identities within communities affects our daily lives. He is committed to social justice issues and education as a means to improve himself and the world around him, and the formal and informal ways in which we can improve injustices in our communities. At Tufts he has done work through the LGBT Center and Asian American Center and hopes to use the knowledge he’s gained to influence the work he does in the future and to share that knowledge with those around him.
Growing up, Slide was always fascinated by other cultures around the world, and as a result has reached fluency in Spanish and is in process of learning French and Arabic. This fascination, along with a love of international sporting events instilled by a childhood of watching the US Ski Team with his parents, has generated in him an interest in the effects of big games like the Olympics on the development of the cities that host them, and hopes to travel to Rio de Janeiro in 2016 to study the effects of the highly controversial games.
In his free time, Slide loves spending time outside doing mountain sports like skiing, rock climbing, and mountain biking: interests that have led him to become a member of the Tufts Ski Team and the Tufts Mountain Club, as well as a staff member for Tufts Wilderness Orientation. He has performed in circuses since the age of 12 and specializes in the aerial arts such as aerial silks and trapeze. He has loved to sing his whole life and grew up singing with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. He has also been a part the Tufts Bhangra Team, a dance group that specializes in dance from the Punjab region of India, and hopes to participate in other dance groups in his future at Tufts. He also loves cooking, doing street art, completing wooden jigsaw puzzles, and creating adventures for himself in his everyday life.
Danielle Kong is looking to major in Cognitive and Brain Sciences. She is drawn to the interdisciplinary nature of the program, which combines psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. She was born in New York City and raised in a New Jersey suburb near the City. Living near a great cultural melting pot has afforded Danielle the opportunity to experience the myriad flavors of the city and its different neighborhoods, perspectives, and foods.
Danielle is passionate about neuroscience, art, sociology, photography, technology, social entrepreneurship, design, travel, and foreign cultures. She is excited to be part of the Synaptic Scholars community and hopes to discover the intersections between these different interests. In high school, Danielle was involved with her local Amnesty International chapter and conducted original independent biology research projects. The summer before her freshman year at Tufts, Danielle received a full scholarship through the International Summer Science Institute program to work as a research assistant at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. She assisted her mentor with studying lipoproteins and angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels) in development and disease. She was intrigued by the experiments she worked on in the laboratory and enjoyed being able to immerse herself in a different culture. Danielle has taken every opportunity she could to travel and looks forward to her future journeys, wherever they may lead her.
At Tufts, Danielle teaches health education classes to high school students through Peer Health Exchange and currently serves as the Community Outreach Co-Chair for the Asian American Alliance. Danielle enjoys making art, watching movies, being outdoors, sampling new food, spending time with friends and family, and exploring Tufts and the surrounding areas.
Ana Manriquez was born in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico and moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin when she was six years old. Moving to the United States shaped Ana to become and independent strong-willed woman. Her experiences as a Latina in an American society fueled her passion to succeed in order to one day help others in similar situations. She is a first generation student since her parents did not attend high school or college, and she takes pride in that since it has led her to be a trailblazer for her four younger siblings as well as her sixteen younger cousins. Ana hopes to one day advocate for other first generation students as well as other Latinos who, like her, have left their country of birth in search of a better life.
The work ethic exemplified by Ana’s family is something she highly cherishes and emulates. She was the first Latina salutatorian of her graduating class at Pius XI High School in Milwaukee. During her four years at Pius she participated in Student Forum, Model United Nations, Multicultural Club, National Honor Society, and founded Hispanic Connection with the goal of increasing hispanic involvement in the school. At Tufts University Ana is involved in Partners In Health Engage at Tufts, United For Immigrant Justice, Association of Latin American Students at Tufts, she is a Questbridge Scholar, and a BLAST Scholar. She is also a Big Sister for a young girl named Amelia in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a Latino Peer Leader for the Latino Center.
Ana hopes to major in Community Health so that she can one day return to both of her home towns and advocate for the many people, particularly Latinos, affected by social determinants of health. Growing up without health insurance and being a first generation immigrant to this country greatly shaped Ana’s career interests as she hopes to aid in the healthcare needs of undocumented immigrants in the United States.
Ana’s family serves as her motivational force and she hopes that during her four years at Tufts she will not only leave her mark in the local community, but also make her family proud and represent Latinos everywhere.
Shaan Merchant is a member of the class of 2019. He grew up in Nashville, TN surrounded by amazing food, sweet tea, and friendly people. At Tufts, Shaan hopes to double major in Film and Media Studies and do an Interdisciplinary Studies Major combining his interests in American Politics and Ethnic Representation. He is beyond excited to be a part of Synaptics, and also participates in a couple comedy groups, culinary groups, and mentorship programs. He is loving every second of his Tufts experience so far and can’t wait for more.
When it comes down to it, Shaan is passionate about creating and the many ways it can manifest itself: creating delicious meals, creating unexplored worlds through improv, creating closeknit communities, creating funny screenplays, creating political theories, creating intricate itineraries, creating farfetched stories to explain the missing cheese to his suspecting mother, creating lasting memories, creating opportunities. It is in the hopes of pursuing opportunities to “create” that he joins the Synaptics community.
Kensey Olsen is a member of the class of 2018, and is pursuing a major in physics and a minor in finance. Kensey hopes to combine these areas of interest and concentrate on the idea of econophysics to solve economic problems and study trends in the stock market using mathematics. As the youngest of six children, she has been privy to all sorts of experiences, from her brother’s love of nature to her sisters’ love of business, law, and advertising. These experiences have influenced and fueled her desire to learn and understand the world around her. At Tufts, she is a member of the Tufts Physics Society, Tufts Financial Group, Chi Omega sorority, Daughters of the American Revolution, and is establishing a “Women in Physics” club in the fall of 2015. In her free time, Kensey loves exploring the Boston area, playing classical piano, reading, eating chocolate, and playing lacrosse.
Kensey grew up in the rural town of Tewksbury, New Jersey where her neighbors had alpacas, sheep, and horses. Fun fact: her favorite animal is an alpaca! Being from a small town, Kensey loves to explore new cultures through travel and meeting new people. Kensey has also modeled and acted in the past. She met and worked with people from all over the world, each with a fascinating story. It was this experience that fueled her desire to travel. Kensey also has a slight obsession with Iceland and London. In Iceland, she admired being immersed in nature. She was humbled by the beauty surrounding her; at any given moment she could be surrounded by both a volcano and a glacier. It was incredible! On the weekends, she loves to discover new cafes to study in and attend shows at the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Zara Rancheva is a member of the Class of 2018 from Karlovo, Bulgaria. Growing up in a small town has taught her one is personally responsible for broadening their perspectives and cultivating a deeper understanding of the world, regardless of physical limitations. She believes a rich family library, painstakingly accommodated into a modest living space, together with her mother’s enlightening literary guidance, played a central role in the formation of her values and beliefs.
From 2009 to 2014, Zara attended the American College of Sofia as a recipient of the Oberbauer Full Scholarship and was awarded a Leslie and Bruce Male Scholarship at Tufts. Pursuing her intellectual aspirations was only possible because of the trust and generosity shown by others, which prompted her to view quality education as a gift, rather than a granted privilege, as a collective, rather than a single- handed, feat.
She intends to major in Political Science and minor in Philosophy, hoping to investigate how people perceive their political environment and arrive at their conceptions of liberty and justice. Moreover, though, she is convinced these sciences provide us with the unique power to look both into the past and into the future of our civilization with greater clarity, given that our theories are sufficiently sophisticated and objective.
Zara is a member of the Tufts Debate Society and frequently travels with her teammates to compete. Her reflections about the overall experience are fully in line with J.S. Mills’ assertion that it only when we need to actively defend our beliefs that we can obtain insight about their true grounds and content. She is also involved with the Compass Fellowship, a group of students exploring the concept of social entrepreneurship and its applications, and the Fencing team. Both have revealed the importance of strategy, focus, and decisiveness in different, but equally illustrative ways. Lastly, Zara devotes time and efforts to creative writing, striving to capture daily frustrations and fleeting affects in such a way that they remain both intimate and relatable. During her last two years of high school, she received national awards for her works, and is currently exploring novel sources of inspiration.
Henry Stevens is a proud member of the class of '19. He lives for birding, and speaks the universal language of soccer. Over the years he has explored a chunk of Latinoamerica, spending extensive amounts of time in Honduras, Ecuador and Belize. He loves his family (brother, mom, dad) and owes his life to them for crafting his the way they have. Upon entering Tufts, Henry wasted no time in establishing a community dedicated to celebrating birds of the world -- the Tufts Ornithological Society. Now with weekly meetings and biweekly field trips, the developing club has successfully immersed many members of the Tufts community into the magisterial habitat that surrounds us all.
Henry is studying biology and environmental science at Tufts, and hopes to pursue a career in the ornithological field. He has always enjoyed traveling, and plans to visit the most remote areas in the world to not only appreciate new sights and cultures but striking biodiversity as well. Henry loves hearing about exotic stories and adventures, so feel free to reach out to him about, well, anything.
Maia Tarnas is a member of the class of 2019, hailing from the center of the Pacific Ocean in a small cattle-ranching town on the Island of Hawaii. She plans on majoring in Community Health and Middle Eastern Studies in order to explore the intricacies that connect the two. Through this, she hopes to examine the relationship between cultures and the spread of diseases, specifically those found throughout the Middle East and North African region.
Her love for the Middle East stems from plates of Arab food, Arab Idol, and her summer spent in Amman, Jordan at age 15 through the National Security Language Initiative Scholarship given by the State Department. Maia expresses her artistic side through her work in costume design in both the 3Ps at Tufts and professionally through Hawaii’s Kahilu Theatre. She also rows on the Tufts Women’s Crew Team and serves as a Reading Comprehension Tutor through Tufts Literacy Corps.
Because of her upbringing in Hawaii, Maia has a passion and respect for nature, interpersonal relationships, and the inherent vivacity deeply rooted in communities. She is a licensed SCUBA diver, hikes barefoot through valleys and beaches, and, in the past, interned in her local Emergency Room and taught debate in order to help foster direct, respectful dialogues.
Maia believes that happiness is not a limited resource, and that profound change can come by shifting our focus onto others while maintaining an introspective manner.
Gabe Terrell is a member of the Class of 2017, and is pursuing a double major in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics (or as he likes to think of it, the marriage of mind and machine). He fell in love with programming his senior year in high school, and is just beginning to understand the true power and flexibility of computer science. When he took Linear Algebra his first year at Tufts, he began to start seeing strong correlations between human proofs and equations and how it can be combined with the raw force of computer calculation to produce stunning results. As such, these experiences have shaped his academic pursuits into what they are today. Outside of the realm of programming and math, however, he also has many other academic interests. He is very inquisitive about child development, psychology, and behavioral analysis, and his curiosity led him to working with Americorps' Jumpstart program, where he spent a large portion of his first year at Tufts teaching young children literacy skills. He often wanders into guest lectures being presented around campus, hoping to learn more about a different area of study in which another human has devoted his/her life to.
Born and raised in Colorado, he is an avid lover of hiking, rafting, and observing nature (he is know to get lost in his own thoughts gazing at a beautiful landscape). If you were to see him at Tufts, you might find him coding at a Hackathon, exploring the campus or the Boston area, helping prepare a talk for the annual Tufts Idea Exchange, hanging out with friends, getting lost while jogging, enjoying a good meal, taking the occasional ballroom dance lesson, or trying out something completely new.
Nathaniel Tran is a member of the Class of 2017 who was born in California, but moved to Arizona at age 8. In high school, he was an International Baccalaureate diploma candidate where he developed interests in Spanish poetry, baking, and neurobiology. With the intention of eventually pursuing medicine, Nathaniel entered Tufts as a biopsychology student but hated psychology after Psych 1. He is now studying biology and Spanish.
Nathaniel is interested in pursuing medicine as an OB/GYN to aid Latina women or a pediatric surgeon to help underserved low-income children. In his free time he has dedicated over 500+ hours as a child needs specialist, clinical volunteer, medical interpreter at the Banner Thunderbird Pediatric ER and Sharewood Health Clinic. Aside from academics, he enjoys singing with the Tufts Third Day Gospel Choir and Concert Choir. If not singing, he can be found sneaking into someone’s kitchen to bake eclectic deserts such as rosemary-raspberry cookies or spicy mocha brownies.
Vincent Tsang is from Temple City, California and is a member of the Class of 2018 majoring in computer science. He became interested in computer science after participating in MIT’s ZeroRobotics Competition in high school, where he wrote programs to control MIT’s SPHERES microsatellites onboard the International Space Station. He enjoys learning about mobile app development because mobile applications can positively impact many lives and wishes to develop apps on his free time. Within computer science, he is also fascinated in the topic of artificial superintelligence because the ability to programmatically create intelligence 1000x smarter than the human brain is incredibly dangerous, but pretty cool.
His first year at Tufts allowed him to explore different areas. As a freshman, Vincent was part of the Compass Fellowship, which provided insight into the field of social entrepreneurship. His favorite memory as a fellow was the Shift Series National Conference, where he gained insight on networking and bonded with other fellows by touring Washington D.C. at night. During his first year, he also started a personal journal in which he writes to self-reflect, understand, and improve.
Apart from academics, Vincent enjoys casually throwing Frisbees with friends, long-distance cycling, and hiking/exploring national parks. He also enjoys reading, cooking, and recently discovered an interest in design and photography. He wishes to retain more memories with friends and families through photography, and hopes to merge his interests in design and computer science to create aesthetically appealing products.
Yoojin Yoon is a member of the Class of 2019, pursuing a double major in Biology and Community Health. She is fascinated by science and hopes to help many people through exploring her passions in biology. She was born in Incheon, South Korea and currently resides in Hamden, Connecticut. As a first generation student in America, YooJin perseveres and does not take her opportunity to attend Tufts University for granted.
Some of YooJin’s other passions include art, ceramics, badminton, tennis, photography, humanitarian works, and exploring foreign cultures. At Tufts, she is a member of the Women’s Varsity Fencing team, fencing for the foil team. She is also a big sister for a Korean adoptee through Tufts’ KSA BBBS, volunteers as a tutor once a week for the underprivileged Greater Boston Area through Earthen Vessels, a part of Hello Umma (an organization translating letters for Korean adoptees and their biological parents), and is a freshman representative for Tufts’ Primary Care Progress. As a first year joining Synaptic Scholars, YooJin is thrilled to be a part of this scholastic group. As a person with eclectic interests and passions, she believes that her intellectual juxtapositions will create for interesting explorations and projects. Through the guidance of mentors in Synaptic Scholars, YooJin wishes to take intellectual risks that she may not be able to take if not for the program. She is excited to discover new possibilities through her experiences in Synaptic Scholars, while teaching others of her own passions.