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The College of Arts & Sciences
<p>For José Armando Fernandez Guerrero ’18, two strong women – his grandmother, Apolonia, and his mother, Josefina – believed that his education would open opportunities. A third – a high school French teacher – showed him how to use his education, and the passion for languages and linguistics it inspired, to help him embrace and move beyond his past.</p>
<p>Zhiyu Gong (linguistics) will travel to China to record some of the last remaining speakers of the critically endangered Daur language. Kara Fikrig (entomology) will go to Colombia to study the feeding habits of mosquitoes that carry dengue fever and other diseases. Ali Abbas (applied economics and management) will spend time in Pakistan exploring collusion between citizens and the state in the property tax market.</p>
<div><div><p>Why is expertise that used to be authoritative now sometimes dismissed as “fake news”? Is it possible to save an endangered language by bringing a native speaker to Cornell to document it? And what does it mean to work in a Bosnian weapons factory when the source of one’s livelihood is lethal to others and the environment?</p></div></div>
<h3>Lauren Levine</h3><h3>Computer Science & Linguistics & Asian Studies</h3><h3>Lexington, MA</h3><p><strong>What was your most profound turning point while at Cornell?</strong></p>
<h3>Jose Armando Fernandez Guerrero</h3><h3>Linguistics & Anthropology & College Scholar</h3><h3>Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico</h3><p><strong>What Cornell memory do you treasure the most?</strong></p>
Six of 10 Mellon Mays undergraduate fellows graduating from the College of Arts and Sciences are headed directly to graduate school, higher numbers than ever.
<p>Recently awarded Engaged Graduate Student Grants will support 21 Cornell doctoral students and their community partners researching a range of topics, including arts and agriculture, education and the environment, health and history.</p><p>Grant recipients come from both the Ithaca and Cornell Tech campuses and represent 15 fields of study – the most since the program launched in 2016, with a particular increase in projects from the social sciences.</p>
<p><em>This story is the last in a series, checking in with some of our seniors as they plan for life after Cornell. </em></p><p>From medical school to exciting jobs to a time of discovery, the five seniors <a href="http://as.cornell.edu/news/senior-year-finding-future-relishing-each-moment">we profiled earlier this year</a> are moving on to new adventures after they graduate this weekend.</p>
<p>Four Cornell faculty members have received Kendall S. Carpenter Memorial Advising Awards, which recognize sustained and distinguished contributions of professorial faculty and senior lecturers to undergraduate advising. The awards were established by Stephen Ashley ’62, MBA ’64, in honor of his adviser, Kendall S. Carpenter, a professor of business management at Cornell from 1954 until his death at the age of 50 in 1967.</p>
<p>Thanks to a fellowship from Cornell’s <a href="https://seap.einaudi.cornell.edu/">Southeast Asia Program</a>, Javier Agredo’19 is spending the summer studying Thai at the University of Wisconsin Madison’s Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute. Agredo, who has a passion for language documentation and preservation, has also had the chance to attend Gamelan performances, a traditional musical ensemble from Indonesia, and explore the city of Madison.</p>
Graham Cohen '20 built an app for the Executive Office of the President of the United States.
The tech world is realizing the importance of a new definition of diversity – that of fields of study.
<p>Linguist and A.D. White Professor-at-Large <a href="http://adwhiteprofessors.cornell.edu/2017/08/17/john-rickford/">John Rickford</a> will address race, class and speech in a series of campus events Sept. 17-21 that include public talks and a screening of his 2017 film, “<a href="https://www.talkingblackinamerica.org/">Talking Black in America</a>.”</p>
<p>Sydnie Chavez '20 and Sophia Evans '20 have each been awarded a Harry Caplan Travel Fellowship worth $5,000 to study and conduct research in Greece and Spain, respectively.</p>
<p>Twenty-six Cornell graduate students have won more than $42,000 in fall 2018 Research Travel Grants, which provide students up to $2,000 to conduct thesis or dissertation research away from campus. In a typical year, 70 to 80 students receive these competitive grants from the Graduate School. More grant winners will be announced in the spring.</p>
Cornell PhD candidate Carol-Rose Little has had a long-standing fascination with languages of other cultures. “I've had an interest in languages since I knew other languages existed in the world,” Little said. “During my undergraduate time (at McGill University), I started working with a community out in Eastern Canada and that's what really opened my eyes to how my love of language can be beneficial to communities that are trying to preserve their language.”
<div><div><p>Two minutes into Jason Schmitt’s documentary “Paywall: The Business of Scholarship,” a pop-up window flashed across the screen, demanding payment. At the free Nov. 29 screening at Cornell Cinema, the gag coaxed uneasy laughs from students, professors and scholars all too familiar with running into paywalls during their research. The screening was followed by a discussion.</p></div></div>
When linguistics Ph.D. candidate Simone Harmath-de Lemos started studying the indigenous Bororo language of Brazil, she was excited to expand her knowledge of her own culture – she has relatives who were members of the Bororo community.
<p>Aditya Deshpande ’22 performed Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major to win the 16th Cornell Concerto Competition, held Dec. 9 in Barnes Hall. He will perform the concerto with the Cornell Symphony Orchestra at a concert on campus in March.</p>
<p>Students, staff and faculty members who exceeded their job responsibilities to enhance the atmosphere for women at Cornell were recognized at the 20th Cook Awards luncheon March 12 in Warren Hall. Colleagues, family and academic leaders including deans, vice provosts, President Martha E. Pollack and Provost Michael Kotlikoff attended the celebration.</p>
An implementation committee will explore the integration of public policy academic areas and the creation of "superdepartments."
Doctoral students Ryan Hearn and Joseph Rhyne created the alien language Torfan, used in the new "Captain Marvel" film.
<h3>Javier Agredo</h3><h3>Linguistics & Classics</h3><h3>Miami, FL</h3><p><strong>What is your main extracurricular activity--why is it important to you?</strong></p><p>My extracurricular activities and priorities have changed over the years but I would say any club I've been in that supports social awareness or social justice. It's always important to use your voice to help spark change in the world.</p>
The ISS’s Spring 2019 Small Grant Awards are designed to assist scholars as they develop new research and seek external funding.
