March 4, 2019

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

Global engagement provides huge benefits for our students, not only when they leave our campus to study abroad, but when they have a chance to learn from and collaborate with international students who come here to study.

For example, all three teams representing our University in this year’s Hult Prize competition (the world’s largest social entrepreneurship contest) include current engineering or computer science students. And of those students, 6 are international students. They bring a firsthand perspective of overseas challenges and have an extra incentive to apply the engineering and computing skills they’re learning in labs and classrooms to address those challenges.

Team Fourty-Two is an education startup that aims to introduce a newly formed tutoring platform to reshape education in the Mediterranean. Its members are Marc Haddad ’21, a mechanical engineering major from Beirut, Lebanon; Ahmed Boutar ’22, a computer science major from Tunis, Tunisia; Ifigeneia Stathaki ’21, a biomedical engineering major from Athens, Greece; and Cherine Ghazouani ’21, an optical engineering major from Tunis.

Team BestBeing is an online platform that matches those seeking to better themselves with the widest range of well-being service providers available. Its members are Fernando Parnes ’19, a computer science major from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; John Bissonette ’20, a data science major from North Kingstown, Rhode Island; Jillian Penfield ’20, a computer science major from Mendon, Massachusetts; and recent graduates Kelsey Daly ’18 of brain and cognitive sciences and business; Matt Hood ’17 of computer science; and Aaron McClure ’18 of computer science and business. Ashlee Daniel, a junior at Rochester Institute of Technology, is also a member.

Team Boodana’s goal is to combat child sex trafficking in India by creating 100 healing centers there over the next 10 years. Each center will employ 100 girls who are at risk of prostitution, giving them paid internships to become certified yoga or meditation instructors. Its members are Xueying (Shelley) Chen ’19, an international relations and business entrepreneurship dual major from Zhoushan, China; Yaocheng (Sparrow) Tian ’22, an optical engineering major from Qinghai, China; and biomedical engineering alumnus Matthew Stein ’17 (’20 TEAM), now a labratory technician in the department.

We wish these teams all the best as they compete in regional competitions starting this week.

Four more Hajim students who studied abroad last semester have provided testimonials of how they benefited from the experience.

Julia Carr ’20 of biomedical engineering studied at the National University of Ireland at Galway, completing four classes to count towards her major and fulfilling her wish to learn more about a country she fell in love with during a previous visit.

Nathan Ward ’20 of biomedical engineering completed three courses toward his major at the University of Western Australia at Perth, plus another course on aborginal encounters. He enjoyed attending a conference for biomedical engineering students at Queen Elizabeth II hospital and had an interesting encounter with an emu that almost ate an ice cream cone he was holding!

For Forest Davis-Hollander ’20 of electrical and computer engineering, a semester at IES in Madrid, Spain was the culmination of years of studying and admiring Spanish as a language and a culture. He completed three courses toward his ECE major and another in Spanish history that he will count toward the major in Spanish he is now inspired to pursue as well.

Mark Westman ’20 of mechanical engineering says it was relatively easy to look up the courses he could take at University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, that would count towards his major. One of his professors, it turns out, was a former Kodak employee here in Rochester. Among Mark’s many memorable experiences was a trip to the Cook Islands.

Of course, the benefits of study abroad extend beyond taking classes and having great experiences. For example, Mark discovered he had more free time in New Zealand, and used it to start cooking new recipes, playing guitar, learning to follow rugby, and reading consistently. “This was all while balancing schoolwork during the week and traveling on the weekends,” he says. With so much free time, he became adept at planning and organization, he says. “I think my grades will vastly improve now that I have returned, simply due to the fact that I use my day so much more efficiently now.”

“Living independently in another country really helped me become more self-sufficient and ultimately grow as a person,” Julia says.

Thanks to all four for sharing their experiences!

Our students who study abroad invariably return with some great photos. Click here to see the latest winners of the Education Abroad Photo Contest, including honorable mentions for Erik Patak ’19 of biomedical engineering who spent Fall 2017 in Auckland, New Zealand, and for Samantha Okinow ’20 of mechanical engineering who participated in the Ghana Field School last summer.

Five other mechanical engineering students who participated in the Ghana Field School, along with professors Christopher Muir and Renato Perucchio, will give a presentation on the structural engineering research they conducted at Elmina Castle and Fort Amsterdam during the field school, starting at 6:30 p.m. this evening in Sloan Auditorium (Goergen 101). It’s been fascinating to read the blogs these students have posted the last two summers from Ghana. So it will be especially interesting to hear what they’ve learned from their research. Pizza and soft drinks will be provided.

Here’s a last call for submissions to our Art of Science Competition. As mentioned in an earlier Hajim Highlights, thanks to the generosity of Edmund Hajim ’58, former chairman of the University Board of Trustees and Hajim School benefactor, we have increased the prizes to $1,000 for first place, $500 for second place, and $250 each for third place and the People’s Choice award. University students, faculty, and staff are invited to submit photographs, illustrations, visualizations, renderings, and posters that best illustrate themes of science, engineering, technology, math, and sustainability. Click here to see winning entries from last year. High resolution jpeg entries (300 dpi, at least 3,000 pixels wide) can be submitted anytime between now and March 18, 2019. Please direct questions to artofsciencecontest@gmail.com.

Have a great week!

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman