Summer 2013

Alexzander Hudson Raises Awareness of Mental Health Issues

Alexzander “A.J.” Hudson ’13 can say he was accepted to the College, not once, but twice. Though offered admission the first time he applied, he was unable to enroll due to a last-minute problem and matriculated at The George Washington University. A year later, on a whim, he reapplied to the College and was thrilled to be among the small number of transfer students — less than 10 percent — accepted each year.

“I wanted the most challenging city in the world and the most challenging school in the world and they are both here,” says Hudson.

The Indianapolis native made the most of his second chance at a College education. Honored as a Senior Marshal, Hudson majored in psychology with a concentration in sociology — “I love understanding how thoughts work, how they are processed and where certain things arise in the brain,” he says — and was among the 10 percent of the graduating class initiated into Phi Beta Kappa.

Alexzander “A.J.” Hudson ’13 PHOTO: CHAR SMULLYANIn October 2011, Hudson helped start a Columbia chapter of Active Minds, a national nonprofit that raises awareness about mental health among college students. “Our programming revolves around explaining the common mental illnesses that are in the popular dialect, which people don’t know as much about as they think they do,” says Hudson, who also joined the University’s NAACP chapter upon arriving in the College. This year, Hudson was recognized for his extracurricular efforts with the King’s Crown Leadership Excellence Award in health and wellness from Columbia Student Affairs, which recognizes students who “exemplify the spirit of caring for and about the members of our vast and diverse community.”

Hudson’s fascination with the human mind led him to pursue several psychology research opportunities in his senior year. With funding from the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, he took a role as a research assistant at the Earth Institute’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED). His initial task was to review “The Psychology of Climate Change Communication,” the center’s guide on how to effectively inform the public of issues such as global warming. Hudson now is conducting independent research at CRED on the motivating factors behind prosocial behaviors such as recycling. Since October, he also has recruited subjects for a study at the Mailman School of Public Health that examines the use of mobile dating applications among gay men.

This fall Hudson will begin a stint as a science teacher at a public middle school in Brooklyn through Teach For America. He hopes to enter a Ph.D. program in which he can study the intersection of psychology and education. “I want to get some perspective and I feel there’s a lot I can learn by teaching at a middle school,” says Hudson, whose long-term goal is to “pursue social policy for education using psychology research.”

Nathalie Alonso ’08

Eric Kutscher Plots Path To Opening AIDS Clinic

Eric Kutscher ’13 was struggling with how to integrate his love of biology, health, humanities and human sciences until he traveled to Africa during his junior year to study sexual health.

In Kenya, Kutscher, a history major with a concentration in African studies, lived with a family, studied Swahili and conducted field research on male circumcision and HIV risk in the Luo tribe. He walked throughout Kisumu, a port city, conducting surveys and discussing perceptions of circumcision with male residents.

“Circumcision is against the Luo culture, but western campaigns funding male circumcision there have been very successful,” he says. “I wanted to find out exactly why so many men were lining up to get circumcised.”

Eric Kutscher ’13 PHOTO: STELLA GIRKINS ’15Kutscher discovered that Luo men believe circumcision leads to more pleasure and that it also increases condom use, lowering HIV/AIDS risk. The project showed Kutscher that he could merge the social and biological sciences and led to a dream: getting an M.D. and an M.P.H., then starting an HIV/AIDS clinic in New York City.

Kutscher ascribes his interest in Africa to two classes he took to satisfy the Global Core requirement, “Major Debates in the Study of Africa” and “Africa in Cinema.” His interest in sexual health was more personal: In 2011, Kutscher was rejected from donating blood in NYC because he identified as a gay male.

“After this incident, I became fascinated by the public health policies around AIDS,” he says. “It got me really interested in the idea of ‘acceptable risk.’”

Kutscher honed this interest during his junior year through classes at the Mailman School of Public Health. He also participated in The Hertog Global Strategy Initiative, a summer program in the history department that in 2011 focused on “The History and Future of Pandemic Threats and Global Public Health.”

The following summer, after returning from Kenya, Kutscher interned in the policy department of Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), but he missed the interaction with patients that he had in Kenya and realized his interests would be best applied as a doctor. So six days after graduation, he will start at Goucher College’s one-year Post-Baccalaureate Premed Program. From there, he hopes to attend medical school to study infectious disease and open his clinic.

“What I would want to be unique about my clinic is the quality of care. By mixing a private infectious disease practice where patients receive top-notch care with a general STI and HIV clinic, I think the ease in which someone can come to one place and get every­thing done will increase,” he says. “Likewise, it brings people from all backgrounds to the same center … decreasing the stigma against HIV/AIDS.”

Even in his final College days, Kutscher did not take time off. He volunteered as a peer advocate at Columbia’s Gay Health Advocacy Project and as an HIV tester and counselor at GMHC. His recently completed thesis on the history of public policy and gay bathhouses in San Francisco and New York City received the history department’s Garrett Mattingly Prize.

Stella Girkins ’15

Swimmer Katie Meili Aims for 2016 Olympics

Katie Meili ’13 might have been in the 2012 Summer Olympics. But 20 days before the Olympic Team Trials, on June 1, 2012, the record-breaking Columbia swimmer broke her hand during a meet warm-up.

She opted for surgery over a cast so she could get back in the water in only a few days. And while she didn’t make it to the Olympics, and considers the injury her most trying moment, she often reminds herself how lucky she was just to compete.Despite the setback, Meili plans to pursue professional swimming after graduation. This summer, she will compete to join the USA Swimming National Team. If she makes it, she might have another shot at the Olympics in 2016.

Katie Meili ’13 PHOTO: CHAR SMULLYAN“It’s hard to think about the Olympics because it’s just a long time and a lot of things can happen between now and then,” Meili says. “But I’m definitely training in the summer. Once you start swimming, you’re in it for the long run.”

Raised in small-town Colleyville, Texas, Meili started swimming competitively at 8. She followed in the footsteps of her older sister, who, she says, “would never let me win.” With passions for art and theatre, Meili always wanted to move to a big city. And since arriving at the College, she hasn’t lost momentum in the pool.

This academic year alone, Meili won first place in the Ivy League Championships in three events — the 100-yard breaststroke, the 200-yard breaststroke and the 200-yard individual medley — as well as placed third in the National Collegiate Athletic Association for the 100-yard breaststroke and competed in both the Olympic Team Trials and the U.S. Open Swimming Championships. Her 200-yard individual medley record outpaces Cristina Teuscher ’00, a 1996 Olympic gold medalist and the University’s best-known swimmer.

Meili loves to win, loves to race and is willing to make sacrifices to be successful.  “People have told me that they have never seen someone as competitive as I am,” says Meili. “I often go 40–50 days at a time without taking a day off. … As you get older, you learn to push your body in different ways. You can push your limits and see how far you can go.”

That’s not to say that everything has been smooth sailing. Waking up for 6 a.m. practice every day, committing time to train and travel for meets, all while taking five or six courses at a time was exhausting, Meili says. But she attributes most of her success to her coaches and teammates.

“I always say that if I hadn’t come to Columbia, I wouldn’t have gotten this good at swimming,” she said. “It was definitely hard when all your friends are going out, and they can stay up as late as they want, and they can eat whatever they want … when I had to go to bed because I was exhausted or I had practice the next morning ... It’s a hard sacrifice when you are going through it, but it’s so worth it in the end.”

[Editor’s note: Another senior has set her sights on the 2016 Olympics. Read about rower Nikki Bourassa ’13.] 

Grace Lee ’14 PH

Gerard Ramm Studies His Native American Heritage

With the support of the College’s Henry Evans Travelling Fellowship, Gerard Ramm ’13 will devote several months immediately after graduation to exploring his Native American heritage.

Ramm, a registered member of the Quapaw tribe, will live with relatives in Quapaw, Okla., while studying the tribe’s language with an elder. He also will assess online Quapaw language databases, which he hopes to expand. “I want to learn the Quapaw language as fluently as possible,” says Ramm, who claims tribal ascendancy through his father. “Many Native American languages are in dire threat of extinction.”

Gerard Ramm ’13 PHOTO: CHAR SMULLYANRamm’s desire to strengthen and preserve the Quapaw language stems from the independent summer research he conducted with funding from an earlier fellowship, the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, awarded each spring to five sophomore minority students with the goal of preparing them for doctoral study. Fellows meet faculty, learn about the process of choosing and applying to Ph.D. programs and receive yearly stipends and summer research funding for the remainder of their College careers. Ramm spent summer 2011 in Quapaw, simultaneously studying and helping to organize his tribe’s yearly powwow, which he fondly recalls witnessing as a child. Then, last summer, he attended the Dhegiha Gathering in Quapaw, which brings together speakers and teachers of the Dhegiha family of indigenous languages. “I was exposed to the ways people teach and learn language and the stakes for language revitalization and survival,” says Ramm.

An English and comparative literature major, Ramm wrote his senior thesis on the treatment of Native American figures in contemporary American literature. “There is a lot of Native American literature that gets overlooked in curricula and a lot of Native American traces and symbolism that get overlooked in contemporary literary criticism,” Ramm says. “How we deal with the presence of indigenous figures in the larger transnational literary canon is interesting to me.”

Ramm, who felt alienated from his Native American roots while growing up in Old Saybrook, Conn., is grateful to the College for enabling him to explore his personal history in an academic setting. “Coming here was an opportunity to rediscover a lot of issues,” he says. “There are a lot of resources here, a lot of Native American students and Native American events and professors from whom I learned.”

While Ramm, a Junior Phi Beta Kappa inductee, chose the College for its academic reputation and location, he also sought a school where he could nurture his lifelong passion for music and theatre. He played the saxophone with the Columbia University Jazz Ensemble and appeared in several plays with the Barnard theatre department. His most enjoyable portrayal, however, was Bottom in the King’s Crown Shakespeare Troupe’s spring 2012 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “It’s a huge comedic part and it was so much fun,” recalls Ramm.

During the next year, Ramm plans to apply to graduate programs in either literature or Native American studies. “My goal is to bring perspectives on Native American culture and politics into a discourse of current cultural studies,” he says.

Nathalie Alonso ’08

Pre-Med Ashley Shaw Connects Students with Elderly Patients

The elderly nun, a resident at ArchCare at Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center (TCC) in New York City, was quickly declining. A once-gregarious teacher, she had lapsed into near silence by the time Ashley Shaw ’13 delivered an envelope in July 2012..

“She held my hand and gripped it,” recalls Shaw, a pre-med student who was then interning at the extended care facility for the terminally and chronically ill. “I asked if she wanted me to open the envelope for her. She indicated that she did. A friend had sent her $5 to buy a Diet Coke — she loved Diet Coke. I remember the sort-of smile on her face. I sat with her for an hour or more, in silence, just holding her hand.”

Ashley Shaw ’13PHOTO: CHAR SMULLYANSuch experiences had prompted Shaw to start the volunteer At Your Service program, which connects Columbia students with elderly TCC residents to provide long-term companionship for those nearing the end of life. With grants from the Columbia College Alumni and Parent Internship Fund and the Work Exemption Program, Ashley devoted summer 2012 to laying the groundwork for At Your Service. Now, each semester approximately 30 College and post-baccalaureate students devote four hours a week to TCC, two of which are spent engaging residents in recreational activities.

“TCC could really benefit from extra hands and extra people to talk to residents who might not have many friends or family who visit,” says Shaw. “And there was also the need of pre-med students [at Columbia] who yearned for meaningful patient interaction.” 

Shaw, who majored in biology with a concentration in art history, became involved with TCC during summer 2011 through an internship offered by the Earth Institute Center for the Study of Science and Religion. She has accepted post-graduation employment at TCC and hopes to enroll in medical school in fall 2014.

In addition to palliative care, Shaw is interested in adolescent medicine as a result of her involvement with Peer Health Exchange, a national teen-oriented health education organization. During the last four years, through the organization’s Barnard/Columbia chapter, Shaw has taught more than 45 health workshops in public high schools throughout New York City. As a senior, Shaw also was president of the Columbia University American Medical Students Association – Premedical Chapter and community adviser for McBain residence hall.

The Torrance, Calif., native chose the College for the opportunity to live in New York City, a decision she relishes every time she escapes to Lincoln Center to catch a performance by the New York City Ballet.

A dancer herself since she was 4, Shaw sees a direct connection between her love of art and her work at TCC. “A lot of people at the end of life start to think about what makes life meaningful. Learning about art and what has inspired people to make art throughout the ages — whether it is religion, politics or just the need for expression — is what makes life meaningful. I feel those two areas of my studies are congruent and complementary.”

Nathalie Alonso ’08