THE PLACES LEARNING TAKES YOU

Maddy Goldstein 27B

TODAY Show Intern
NBCUniversal, NEW YORK CITY

For Maddy Goldstein, summer meant going live.

The Goizueta Business School senior, who studies film and media management and marketing, spent the summer interning with NBCUniversal at TODAY, getting a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to produce one of the country’s most iconic live television programs.

No two days looked quite the same. Goldstein worked alongside producers on the third and fourth hours of the show, creating research packets for upcoming guests and segments, contributing potential interview questions and ideas, and shadowing segments from initial research and pre-interviews through their arrival in Studio 1A.

She also worked with the research team on fast-turnaround segments, welcomed and helped coordinate fans on the TODAY Plaza and assisted with the Citi Concert Series. On National Intern Day, the experience came full circle when Goldstein appeared on TODAY herself, representing Emory on national television.

As president of eTV, Emory’s student film and television production club, Goldstein has already put her interests into practice on campus.

“Getting to take what I’ve learned at Emory and apply it at a program as iconic as TODAY has made me even more excited to pursue a career in television and entertainment after graduation,” Goldstein says.

Gina Cutlip 27C and Aaron Ta 29C

Journeys of Reconciliation
VIETNAM

For Gina Cutlip and Aaron Ta, a two-week trip through Vietnam became a lesson in how faith, conflict and identity intersect.

The Emory students joined 10 others on Journeys of Reconciliation, an interfaith travel-learning program exploring peacemaking across religious traditions. Traveling from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, the group visited Buddhist monasteries, a Catholic cathedral, a mosque, a Hindu sanctuary and sites connected to the Vietnam War.

Cutlip, a biology major, was especially moved by Từ Hiếu monastery, where renowned Buddhist monk and peace activist Thích Nhất Hạnh began his monastic life.

“His work was so tied to the mission of the program,” she says, “to help us understand the systemic roots of conflict and how messy and long term the process of peacebuilding can be.”

For Ta, a religion and neuroscience and behavioral biology double major whose parents grew up near Ho Chi Minh City, the trip offered a new view of a country he had visited before. Encountering Vietnam’s religious diversity left him thinking about “how there’s so much I don’t know and so much I want to know,” he says.

After returning home, both students found the journey continuing through conversations with family and friends — including, for Ta, deeper discussions with his parents about their own experience of the Vietnam War and its aftermath.

Sia Vij 25Ox 26C

Sociology-Comparative Health Program at University College London
LONDON, ENGLAND

For Sia Vij, six weeks in London offered a chance to see healthcare from both sides of the microscope.

The Emory fourth-year student studied in the university’s Sociology-Comparative Health Program at University College London, exploring how culture, policy and scientific research shape healthcare systems around the world.

Her experience took her well beyond the classroom. Vij visited health sites across the United Kingdom and conducted research at a University of Oxford laboratory, examining healthcare through both scientific and sociological lenses.

“Studying abroad gave me the chance to see how healthcare can start with discoveries in the lab, but becomes ultimately molded by the communities it serves and the policies that govern it,” she says.

And there was plenty of time to experience British life beyond health care. Vij sampled local cuisine, learned to navigate the Tube, attended plays and traveled beyond London to Edinburgh, Canterbury and the seaside town of Broadstairs.

Sydni Demester 29C and Briana Castillo 28C

Jewish Studies in Poland
KRAKÓW and WARSAW, POLAND

Sydni Demester had never even been on a plane when she decided to spend 12 days studying Jewish history and culture in Poland.

The Emory College sophomore was among a dozen students traveling through Kraków and Warsaw with the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, complementing the “Jews of Eastern Europe” course she had taken in the spring. The group explored historic Jewish neighborhoods, visited Auschwitz-Birkenau and met with university students, community groups and others working to preserve and renew Jewish culture.

Demester, a history and philosophy, politics and law major, expected the experience to focus largely on suffering and loss. Instead, she was struck by contemporary Jewish life.

“It’s surprising to me how vibrant the community has become by how they memorialize their full history,” she says.

For junior Briana Castillo, an international studies and music performance major, visits to archives revealed historical layers often overlooked.

“A lot of people know the surface of the Holocaust but not the layers of success and suffering that came before and after it,” Castillo says. “I think it’s important to understand those layers to understand Jewish life in context today.”

Ashritha Kalakuntla 28C

Community Building and Social Change Fellow
CLARKSTON, GEORGIA

Ashritha Kalakuntla wanted to get outside the “Emory bubble.” She only had to travel a few miles.

The environmental sciences major and Woodruff Scholar spent her summer working with New American Pathways in nearby Clarkston through Emory’s Community Building and Social Change Fellows Program.

Working as a third-party researcher, Kalakuntla conducted surveys with refugees about their experiences and how the organization’s services could be improved.

“This was a unique opportunity to really get ingrained in the community,” she says. “I wanted to get outside of my Emory bubble. Atlanta is a city of such history and cultural diversity, so it was important for me to experience that.”

The experience also revealed how much more complicated community-building becomes outside the classroom.

“My biggest takeaway from the program is how complex community building can be,” Kalakuntla says. “Being able to put what we learned in the fall into practice in the spring and summer really helped me understand the gravity and importance of the work.”

Vivian Marcus 29C

Tibetan Mind/Body Sciences Summer Abroad
INDIA

Vivian Marcus spent five weeks in India exploring a question Emory has been asking for decades: What can modern science and Tibetan Buddhist traditions learn from one another?

The Emory sophomore joined 11 other students for the Tibetan Mind/Body Sciences Summer Abroad Program, an immersive experience combining science, Buddhist philosophy, meditation and Tibetan culture.

Students spent the first half of the program in Dharamsala, home to the Tibetan exile community and institutions devoted to preserving Tibetan culture. There, Marcus learned from monastics and scholars while exploring subjects including Buddhist philosophy, meditation and traditional Tibetan medicine.

The second half took the group south to Drepung Loseling Monastery in Karnataka, where students lived at the monastery and participated in the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative. The program puts Emory students in conversation with Tibetan monks and nuns who themselves are studying neuroscience, biology and physics.

Marcus says the experience gave her a broader perspective on how different traditions approach questions about the mind, while allowing her to learn firsthand from the communities that have sustained those traditions.

Anish Thota 27Ox 29C and Ethan Miller 26Ox 28C

Summer Research Projects
OXFORD, GEORGIA

Anish Thota mapped conflicts over religious freedom. Ethan Miller synthesized compounds in a chemistry lab. Their projects had little in common except a summer devoted to research.

Thota, an Oxford College student majoring in politics, philosophy and law with an artificial intelligence minor, worked with Florian Pohl, associate professor of religion, through the Summer Oxford Research Scholars program. Thota’s project uses ArcGIS and StoryMaps to document opposition to mosques, Islamic cemeteries and other places of worship used by Muslims, combining his interests in technology, law and public policy.

“I’m interested in the intersection of tech and law,” Thota says. His work uses technology to create data that could help civil liberties and other organizations protect minority groups’ ability to practice their religions.

Miller, now an Emory junior studying chemistry, spent his summer in the lab through Oxford’s Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE). Working with Austin Scharf, assistant professor of chemistry, Miller synthesized novel dipyrrins, purified compounds and used nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to analyze the results, troubleshooting reactions when things didn’t go as planned.

The intensive lab work strengthened Miller’s interest in pursuing a PhD in medicinal chemistry. Thota, meanwhile, found a practical way to combine technology and law while making complex information about religious freedom easier to understand and use.

Ansli Hennings 28C and Brendan Vasquez 26Ox 28C

Study Abroad
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA

Ansli Hennings fell in love with Spanish in middle school. This summer, she found another love: Argentina.

The Spanish and neuroscience and behavioral biology (NBB) double major spent a month in Buenos Aires through Emory’s Argentine Studies program, combining her interests in language, health and medicine. Living with a host family made immersion part of everyday life, from conversations with her host mom to long dinners and merienda.

“Living in Buenos Aires this past month completely shifted my perspective,” Hennings says. “Being immersed in a culture so different from my everyday life in the United States allowed me to grow not only academically, but personally.”

Fellow NBB major Brendan Vasquez spent a semester studying at Universidad del Salvador. The junior, who plans to become a neurology physician assistant, says Emory’s global opportunities were one reason he chose the university.

“The experience of being abroad for the semester has taught me more about myself than my entire undergraduate time so far,” Vasquez says.

Hennings returned with experiences she says will help her better connect with future patients, while Vasquez describes his semester abroad as a defining part of his global education.

Wesley Leong 27C

Summer Research Assistant, Dou Chemistry Lab
ATLANTA

Wesley Leong spent his summer chasing a different kind of light.

The Emory senior and chemistry major worked as a research assistant in the lab of Letian Dou, Paul & Phyllis Fireman Professor of Chemistry, studying spin LEDs — light-emitting devices with potential applications ranging from biomedical sensing to 3D displays.

Inside the Atwood Chemistry Center, Leong generated the LEDs through thin films of chiral crystals to test the effects of circularly polarized light. The work was complex, challenging and, for Leong, unexpectedly clarifying.

“Before this lab experience, I didn’t have a long-term goal in mind,” he says. “But doing this has helped me understand what I want in the future: to continue conducting research in graduate school, and maybe even become a professor one day.”

The experience also changed the way he looks at technology outside the lab.

“There’s so much that goes on behind the scenes, the years of development,” Leong says. “It’s opened my eyes.”

And summer left room for a few experiments of another kind: baking, crocheting and salsa dancing.

Henley Adams 28C

Exploring History and Justice
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA

Henley Adams studies political science and history. This summer, she encountered both up close — and beyond the pages of a textbook.

The Emory College student traveled to Montgomery with members of the Emory community for a day focused on history, memory and justice. Organized by Emory Global’s International Student and Scholar Services with university partners, the trip centered on two Equal Justice Initiative sites: the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

Through exhibits, historical artifacts and personal stories, Adams confronted the history of slavery, segregation and racial violence — and the ways those histories continue to shape American society.

The experience was intensely emotional, bringing her to tears more than once.

More importantly, seeing those histories presented in the places where they happened changed how she thought about her own fields of study.

Visiting the sites “brought history to life in a way that no textbook ever could,” Adams says.

She returned to Emory thinking differently about how societies preserve difficult histories — and how that process can encourage reflection, empathy and conversations that continue long after a visit ends.

Story by Roger Slavens. Photos provided by students, faculty, academic programs and Getty Images. This roundup draws on original reporting by Daniel Christian, Amber Cordell, Jessie Han 27Ox, April Hunt, Fiona Kuo 26Ox, Kate Sweeney and Emory’s social media team. Click through the links in each vignette to read their more in-depth stories.