2008-2009 Steinbrecher Fellows

Adrienne Adeyemi, a sophomore from Providence, Rhode Island, will travel to Nigeria where she will take film footage and photographs of the scenery, ways of life, and culture, which she will use to create a documentary film and a photographic portfolio. This will be Adrienne's first trip outside the United States, and she is particularly eager to explore and capture visual images of life in Nigeria because her father was born and raised there and has told her many stories about its landscape and people since she was a young child.

Hannah Caruso, a junior from Florence, Massachusetts, will do an internship this summer in Worcester at the main office of EPOCA, a non-profit organization that provides resources and opportunities for ex-prisoners to become involved in constructive, productive community activities. Hannah will work on developing educational programs and lobbying efforts on issues such as reforming the Criminal Offenders Records Information (CORI) law.

Sasha Chait, a sophomore from Sunapee, New Hampshire, will use her Fellowship to go to Ghana this summer, where she will assist the Against Malaria Foundation with the distribution of long-lasting insecticidal mosquito nets to families with young children in order to protect them from malaria. Sasha will also work with a community nurse in the Greater Accra Region to assess how the nets are being used and to help instruct people on how to use them correctly. This is an especially exciting project for Sasha to be pursuing since she did an internship last summer with the Women's Trust, a small microfinance organization based in Wilmot, New Hampshire, that raised $10,000 to pay for many of the nets that will be distributed in Ghana this summer.

Peter Gray, a sophomore from Cincinnati, Ohio, will travel to Indonesia to conduct field research on the effects of tourism on cultural landscapes in Central Java. This area, in which many sacred sites in Javanese folklore and mythology are located, has experienced rapid growth in tourism in recent years. Peter's research will examine how growing pressures from the tourism industry have affected the sacred landscapes; the tension between preserving mportant religious and ritual spaces and attracting recreational tourism; and how people's perceptions of these places may be changing.

Amy Levine, a junior from Durham, North Carolina, will be traveling to Ireland this summer, studying, experiencing, and participating in local fiddling traditions in three cities located in culturally distinct regions of the country: Cork, Dublin, and Galway. Amy has been playing the classical violin since she was four and has played with Old-Time string bands at festivals in North Carolina and West Virginia for a number of years. Her Steinbrecher Fellowship will enable her to explore the role that fiddling plays in Irish culture and to take fiddling lessons with expert fiddlers in different regions of Ireland.

Duc Nguyen, a junior, will use his Fellowship to create a website that will provide information on organizations and programs that help homeless, disabled, and other needy children in Viet Nam, his family's home country. His goal is to facilitate communication and coordination among the hundreds of international and local non-profit organizations that are working to assist children in Viet Nam; help them publicize the services they provide; and connect potential volunteers and donors to them.

Andrew Ninnemann, a sophomore from Menlo Park, California, will conduct research on how students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) adjust to college life and deal with the transition from high school to "emerging adulthood." Andrew's project will integrate aspects of clinical and developmental psychology by examining the effects of, and reactions to, living with a disorder in a new, intellectually rigorous environment, in which a high degree of independence is the norm. His research will fill a void because while many studies have been conducted on children with ADHD, little work has been done on the experiences of college students with ADHD.

Dushani Palliyaguru, a junior from Sri Lanka, will conduct experimental research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School on the role of an insulin receptor protein in the regulation of the apelin gene in breast cancer metastasis. The ultimate goal of the research team she will be working with is to determine if apelin can be used to develop a successful drug for treating breast cancer that is mestastasized by insulin receptor tumors. Dushani also plans to do presentations to high school students aimed at exciting them about lab research and encouraging them to consider pursuing careers in science.