Alissa Aron, Haverford College
A Chemistry major at Haverford College, Alissa's interest in science has been strong throughout her life. Alissa has conducted independent research in several labs, being named an Intel International Science and Engineering Fair Finalist and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Interdisciplinary Science Scholar, in fields ranging from stem cell biology to environmental chemistry. Alissa realized the potential to marry her passion for science with her oenophilic tendencies when she overheard a winemaker casually throwing around chemistry jargon, and this connection was confirmed when she first visited a winery laboratory -- the ideal setting for the union of science and wine.

Nell Bang-Jensen, Swarthmore College
Nell's interest in names stems from a childhood love for dolls and grew to a broader curiosity about people and their stories. She has pursued this interest as an Honors English and Theater major at Swarthmore College. In recent years, Nell participated in the Breadloaf Young Writers Conference, volunteered on a French organic vineyard, served as a dramaturgy intern at a Philadelphia theater, taught acting to elementary school pupils, and co-founded the Telephone Bronco Theater Company, with whom she performed in the 2010 Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Nell is also a Resident Assistant, Writing Associate, and member of a sketch comedy group.

Sara Bates, Davidson College
Daughter of former international development workers, Sara was raised in Cashiers, North Carolina but grew up curious about a village in Sudan where she believed she should have been born. At Davidson College, Sara majors in Political Science. She co-led the Women's Leadership Conference, served as president of a campus service organization, Engage for Change, and received the Gladstone Award for "exhibiting high potential for service to mankind." While interning with World Vision International, Sara created a tool to help community health workers follow healthy postpartum practices. She has explored public health issues in South Africa, Ghana, India and Zambia.

Michele Bornstein, Wellesley College
Michele first gained experience in the world of glassblowing as a young teen. She trained in studios including Snow Farm, Corning, Pittsburgh Glass and Penland. A History and Judaic Studies major at Wellesley College, she has studied ancient glass, the history of Jewish communities throughout the Middle East through the Diarna Mapping Project, and researched the impact of British withdrawal policies in Israel/Palestine. Fluent in Hebrew, she works as a teacher, translator and cook. She hopes to continue her education working towards a PhD. With this degree she wishes to pursue a career in public service, whether it be through a diplomatic core, teaching, or opening a glassblowing facility as part of a conflict resolution project.

Jeremy Carter-Gordon, Bard College
The son of folk dancers, Jeremy grew up dancing, singing, and playing instruments. He discovered his passion for Rapper Sword Dancing in middle school and has since founded several teams, winning "Best Display Dance" at the Dancing England Rapper Tournament in 2006. The first Ethnochoreologist at Bard College, he runs Vermont Harmony Project, a program using music as a tool to build cross-cultural understanding in Vermont's immigrant communities. On campus, Jeremy is the Head of Student Government, does circus, and leads contra dances. He hopes to continue studying dance and music as a means for social change.

Debbie Chen, Wellesley College
Debbie Chen is an Economics major and Madeleine Albright fellow at Wellesley College. She has been training in the martial art of Wushu since age eleven. She founded the Wellesley Wushu team in her sophomore year. Wushu encompasses virtually all universally acknowledged branches of the martial arts, and Wellesley Wushu has garnered an on-campus reputation for the intensity and finesse of its all-women performance acts. Debbie is the Co-President of the Wellesley Chinese Students Association and devoted to promoting cross-cultural understanding. In collaboration with the Latina and African Student Organizations, she organized a Cultural Exchange program in Fall 2010.

Austin Davis, Middlebury College
Austin Davis has an undemanding sense of humor. He has spent his whole life plotting to flee his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, and has made remarkable strides in doing so. He studied political science and Arabic in Middlebury, Vermont as well as Alexandria, Egypt, and will be returning to the Middle East for his Watson year. The last time he was in Egypt, he got hit by a train which tore off both his legs. He's planning to avoid that this time.

Blake Davis, College of the Atlantic
Self-employed since he entered high school, Blake was making and selling handcrafted fly-fishing lures before he could drive. He has had numerous news articles and photos published in Maine, where he attended College of the Atlantic as an undergraduate student. In 2010 he received a Kathryn Davis Advanced International Studies travel grant to edit and report news in Istanbul, Turkey. He has been awarded for his reporting on education by the Maine Press Association. Blake hopes to use his experience writing and photographing to document fly fishing in urban centers around the globe.

Jessica Emory, Wheaton College
Born in Barnstead, NH, Jessica was raised in a world of wool, fiber arts, conversation, and creativity. By night she's a knitting and spinning fiend, nestled beside the warm wood stove. By day, she's a scientist, exploring how our world works and always asking 'why?'. Regardless of knowing the chemistry behind the dyes used to color wool, there is no greater magic than throwing wool in the dye pot and seeing how it comes out. The Watson is an opportunity to throw herself in the dye pot. She can't wait to see how it all turns out.

Ross Eustis, Whitman College
At Whitman College, Ross is known as a man of many coats. As a Chemistry major, he dons a lab coat by day. Off the clock, he wears jazz threads, sits in the solo chair as a trumpeter for the Whitman Jazz Ensemble, gigs with the Whitman Jazz Collective, and serves as music director for KWCW. In high school he enjoyed the spotlight at Lincoln Center, taking top national honors with his band at the Essentially Ellington Festival. Ross' composing is informed by his travels. He has written jazz suites that capture his experiences in Costa Rica and Hawaii.

Matthew Fink, Carleton College
I am an International Relations major looking forward to a future in medicine and health policy and I have a passion for Starcraft. I am currently coached by Geoff "iNcontroL" Robinson and Jake "LzGaMeR" Winstead of Team Evil Geniuses. My disability and my faith are part of what makes me who I am and I look at my disability as a blessing rather than a handicap. I have also spent some time abroad in China studying health care delivery and the disabled and time working for various non-profits and political entities in Minnesota on similar issues.

Samuel Gold, Pomona College
At Pomona College, Sam majored in theatre with a focus in physical performance studies. A member of Phi Beta Kappa and an NFAA Merit Award Winner, Sam's performance work has ranged from Shakespeare to Martha Graham to artistic statue posing. He has worked with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company, and has taught and performed Corporeal Mime in France. He hopes to spend his life in the theatre, using performance as means to share and connect with others.

Isobel Grad, Haverford College
Isobel was born and raised in Seattle, before heading east for school. Growing up in Seattle instilled a deep love of the natural world, which influenced how she thinks about her own role in society and her place on the planet. Her early interests in cuisine and ingredients developed into a passion, while her environmental-focus raised her awareness of the impact this passion could have on the world. Her Watson is a culmination of these two loves -- understanding humans as part of geographical place and time, and the culture of food.

Sophia Herscu, Colorado College
Seeing her first play at age eight, Sophie was inspired to explore the world of performing arts, pursuing her passion through singing, dancing, and acting. The older sister of two brothers, she has a natural ability in leadership roles, from athletics to community building, and in the world of performing arts. At Colorado College, she majored in Sociology and Drama/Dance and was involved in the Aspire Leadership Program. She participated in and directed numerous vocal, dance, and acting performances each year, and captained her college's successful Ultimate Frisbee team for three years. She is inspired by the empowering and trust-building aspects of the performing arts.

Joanna Johnson, Oberlin College
As a cross country and track athlete, with 5 NCAA Division III All-American titles, Joanna Johnson has earned the designation as "the greatest runner in Oberlin College history," by the Oberlin College Athletic Department. In addition, she is an honors candidate in both her Biology and French majors. She worked as an intern in the proteomics unit of the Basque Center for Cooperative Research in Biosciences and has presented her laboratory research at the national meeting for the Society of Developmental Biology. She is also a guest sports writer for The Oberlin Review.

Adam Karas, Carleton College
Adam Karas will graduate from Carleton College summa cum laude with a degree in International Relations and a focus on security studies and language study. As a Boren Scholar, Adam studied Mandarin Chinese in Harbin and completed the Middlebury Language School's intensive Chinese program. He has also studied Arabic as a Critical Language Scholar in Oman, Yemen. In 2009, Adam received a Larson Fellowship to retrace the path of Ibn Battuta in India. In 2010, as a Hawkinson Scholar, Adam continued this research in China, examining the extent to which Islam impacts Sino-Middle Eastern relations.

Afshin Khan, Pomona College
The only girl child to have ever received education in her entire tribe, Afshin believes in the power of education to improve healthcare. The pursuit of knowledge has taken her from the rugged mountains of Khyber to sunny California. Although her career interests lie in medicine, Afshin has devoted her summers to exploring the painful social issues that haunt Pakistan and has produced several documentaries. Majoring in Biology, Afshin has also been a Senior Interviewer, the co-editor of Extravaganza magazine and a Biology Research Assistant at Pomona College.

Davis Knittle, Wesleyan University
Davy Preston Knittle is a poet, writer and editor of the Stethoscope Press Chapbook Series. His work has appeared in elimae, Euphony, Natural Bridge, Jai-Alai and Philadelphia Stories. As an English and African American Studies double major, Davy wrote a senior honors thesis in poetry on the legacy of the MOVE bombing in West Philadelphia and the relationship between changes in public space and the formation of location-based individual and collective identity. At Wesleyan University, Davy also served as a writing tutor and thesis mentor and as the Junior Fellow for Wesleyan's Writing Programs.

Kai Knutson, Carleton College
Kai grew up making foods from his Scandinavian heritage and explored the connection of food traditions to storytelling as a Larson Fellow in Iceland. There, he encountered skyr, a yogurt variety cultured only in Iceland but historically linked to a greater Scandinavian foodway. Stirred, Kai renewed his family's yogurt-making tradition. This passion complemented Kai's study of Biology and in particular his research of the gut microbiome. Kai has twice been awarded the Kolenkow/Reitz Fellowship for Undergraduate Research and is a National Merit Finalist. Kai has performed in the American College Dance Festival and the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

Drake LeBrun, Rice University
As a Rice University/Baylor College of Medicine Medical Scholar, Drake majors in Biochemistry and Cell Biology while pursuing surgical research. He has published multiple papers in peer-reviewed biomedical journals, played on the men's rugby team, and volunteered as a Spanish translator at MD Anderson Cancer Center. While researching at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, he spearheaded an effort to quantify surgical workforce deficits in developing nations. He nurtures an intense desire to understand disease holistically, and seeks to advance surgery as a revitalizing form of personal and social medicine that can positively impact resource-poor communities around the world.

Joshua Magno, Bowdoin College
Joshua's project combines the two most prominent facets of his life: dance and community service. In seventh grade, he started volunteering at his church's creative ministry that regularly performed puppet shows. In high school and college, he traveled around the U.S., Jamaica, and Ecuador to repair houses, make fitness trails, teach classes, and build playgrounds. Before he began dancing in high school, he had been practicing karate since age seven. After choreographing state-awarded dances in high school, he started his own dance group in college, choreographing in a style that fused martial arts, hip hop, and lyrical dance.

Sarah Midzik, Middlebury College
Most often found in her favorite neon yellow lab coat acting out cell processes as a Biology TA, Sarah still gets goosebumps when she looks through microscopes. She considers herself "Jequakelic" (that's Jewish-Quaker-Catholic) and is member of Religious Life Council and Hillel and an equal-opportunity appreciator of matzoh ball soup and Easter ham. She is the recipient of a Public Service Leadership Award and runs the breakfast and delivery initiatives at her Vermont town's free community supper program. She also has worked at the Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, and has spent time abroad in the city learning Arabic and how to survive Egyptian traffic.

Mary Phillips, Hamilton College
Mary, a life-long Girl Scout, is a Senior Fellow at Hamilton's community service office. There, she is an Alternative Spring Break leader and was assistant director for Urban Service Experience, a pre-orientation program. She was the inaugural recipient of the Class of 2009 Community Service Award. The inspiration for her Watson project came while interning at Madre where she learned about women's human rights issues around the world. She is a Comparative Literature and Hispanic Studies major who spent her junior year in Madrid. An avid reader, Mary is a tour guide and is learning to play the piano.

Alexander Reich, Grinnell College
Co-founder of Grinnell College's EcoHouse, leader of a community agriculture Project for Peace, and water management volunteer in rural India, Alex has consistently worked for environmental causes. He was a ceramic studio instructor, cross-country conference champion, and co-founder of a Nordic ski club. A Biology major at Grinnell, Alex has studied endangered frogs, urban air pollution, and the psychology of endurance runners. He has long considered becoming a vegetarian, but will wait until after his time in the Arctic. He hopes to study the human-environment interface to promote social solutions to environmental issues.

Deivid Rojas, Swarthmore College
Gates Millennium Scholar and Drum Major Scholar, Deivid Rojas is a Colombian-American majoring in History and Latin American Studies at Swarthmore College. He co-founded, Taller de Paz, an organization that works with the internally displaced in Colombia. As reflected in his work in Club Despertar (mentoring for children of farm-workers), Student Council, Swat Overlaps (student publication), Enlace (Latino organization), Deivid is interested in community organizing, the intersection between art/film and politics, minority politics, civil rights, immigration issues, gender and sexuality, and international relations.

Nathan Schneck, Hamilton College
A listener and learner, Nathan loves to discover the world through the lenses of Biochemistry and faith. At Hamilton College, he has engaged fellow classmates in service experiences at a local men's shelter and built homes with Habitat for Humanity. A deep believer in the importance of exploration, creativity, and emotive expression, he enjoys backcountry skiing, riding concrete waves on his longboard, and playing the jazz trombone. Inspired by his time partnering with a Peruvian NGO, Nathan dreams of sharing hope with a broken world as he tackles larger social and systemic issue of inequality.

Jesse Schupack, University of the South
Jesse grew up overseas, living in Kyrgyzstan between the ages of two and seven and in Kazakhstan between the ages of seven and thirteen. In lieu of his senior year of high school he received his GED at the age of sixteen and enrolled at the University of the South, where he is a Russian and Philosophy double major. His Watson project combines the study of the culture of gaming with the study of the games themselves, and thus combines the logical, analytic thinking that he loves in his Philosophy major and the study of culture and place integral to his Russian major.

Courtney Sheehan, Grinnell College
When Courtney isn't watching movies, there's a good chance she's reading, writing, or talking about them. She created her own major to study film, and had a hand in just about everything film-related at Grinnell College, from writing reviews for the student newspaper to organizing Grinnell's first ever Animation Film Festival. She spent her senior year chairing the committee that programs film screenings in the campus movie theater. Courtney has interned at the Children's Film Festival in Seattle, the Boston Jewish Film Festival, and the online film magazine, The Independent. The Watson year will be her first venture abroad.

Margaret Shelton, University of Puget Sound
A native of Tacoma, Washington, Margaret's passion and joy for the past fourteen years has been playing the harp. She is an active member of the American Harp Society and has performed with several musical groups, currently serving as principal harpist for the Olympia Symphony Orchestra. In Spring 2010, Margaret spent a life-changing semester in Vienna, Austria, taking lessons with Russian harpist Anna Verkholantseva. Beyond music, Margaret loves reading historical fiction, writing letters to pen pals, hiking, and ballroom dancing, especially waltzing. Margaret plans to pursue a career in harp performance and education.

Morgan Sleeper, Macalester College
A Welsh name and Irish hair can't keep Morgan from being a Floridian at heart. Falling in love with the Celtic languages, however, after hearing Welsh rock music, sparked his interest in the lands of his ancestors. Growing up in a family of musicians fueled a passion for music and songwriting, and living in Italy after high school began a chain reaction of learning new languages, leading to a Linguistics major at Macalester College, focused on endangered-language revival. He's also currently co-authoring and writing songs for an Irish textbook geared towards North American learners.

Hannah Sohl, Colorado College
Hannah began river guiding in Southern Oregon while in high school and has worked on rivers such as the Grand Canyon of the Colorado and the Rogue. She studies Sociology and Field Biology at Colorado College, where she is a co-captain of the Women's Ultimate Frisbee team. Hannah also works as a news intern at the local public radio station and plays guitar in a bluegrass ensemble, pursuing her love of good, old-time music.

Allison Swaim, Oberlin College
This documentary artist grew up in Salisbury, NC, not far from the Blue Ridge Mountains. Trained in radio storytelling at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, Allison spent the past couple years at Oberlin making sound art and experimental music. When she is not earning rent money by substitute teaching in the public schools, she is working on a multimedia documentary project on the M.V. Calumet, a cargo ship that hauls stone, coal, and steel between ports on the Great Lakes. She's also having a blast helping coach the high school track team.

Anne Temmink, Davidson College
As the daughter of an artist and a carpenter, Annie grew up learning to think with her hands and with her eyes. The sewing skills handed down from her mother have developed and expressed themselves in projects from grade school through college, culminating in her senior solo show of sewn sculpture at Davidson College. In addition to her work coordinating an art program for elementary students, she has spent the last two summers supplementing her math minor researching bacterial computers and analyzing microarray clustering.

Natalie Truong, Grinnell College
Interested in human rights and speechwriting, Natalie has interned for The Center of Constitutional Rights, The Office of the First Lady of the United States, The Iowa Department of Human Rights, as well as several political organizations. Her interest in human rights and speechwriting began while she was a member of the National Forensic League in high school, where she placed at national debate and speech tournaments. Later, she established the first human rights publication for her Vietnamese community in Davenport, IA and prepared speeches for the Vietnamese Freedom Mutual Association. Natalie majors in political science and English at Grinnell.

Toni Tsvetanova, Colby College
A Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School and a founder of the Migrant Workers Children Initiative at Beijing University, Toni is dedicated to fighting for human rights. Growing up near a poor Roma neighborhood in Bulgaria has inspired Toni to pursue options for helping the homeless and the destitute. In high school, she volunteered in city orphanages. In college, she founded the Colby Social Entrepreneurs club that often works with a local homeless shelter, and she assisted a professor in writing a volume on social innovation. She also conducted independent study on social entrepreneurship in China.

Jacqueline Ward, University of Puget Sound
As a professional contortionist, Jacki has performed and taught circus skills in the US and abroad. She recently graduated with honors in Anthropology of the Performing Arts and is a recipient for the E. Ann Neel Award for Excellence in Gender Studies. While in school, she founded the on-campus Circus Club, performed in theatre and dance productions, was a two-time Resident Assistant and conducted ethnographic research of American contortionists as a recipient of the AHSS Summer Research Grant. She hopes to have a thriving circus career before continuing on to pursue a PhD in Performance Studies.

Julia Wilber, Hamilton College
At Hamilton College, Julia's fascination with community movements grew into an Interdisciplinary Major entitled Social Justice, Peace & Development. While studying abroad in Nepal, she distinguished herself through her research on Fair Trade communities in Kathmandu and decided to continue pursuing those interests in ethical fashion. Julia is president and a founder of her a cappella group, a repeat principal role in the college's musical theater productions, a member of the campus Residential Cooperative, a Student Director of Hamilton's Outdoor Pre-Orientation Program and a writer for the college's Alumni Review.

Emanuel Yekutiel, Williams College
An Orthodox Jew from Los Angeles, raised by an Afghan father and a Polish mother, Emanuel is a Political Science major with a concentration in Leadership Studies at Williams College. As Student Body President, New Leaders Fellow at the Center for Progressive Leadership, and as the highest ranked street canvasser in the country, Emanuel has a passion for activism, politics, and getting things done. As a Gaudino Fellow, Emanuel traveled to Israel to write an ethnographic report on the last remaining Afghan-Jewish community. He can be found hip-hop dancing, drinking lots of coffee, or having lunch with someone new.

Keren Yohannes, Macalester College
As a second generation American, Keren has lived and studied in six countries and speaks four languages. She attends Macalester College, where she majors in International Studies, Anthropology, and African Studies. At Macalester, Keren coordinates programming for multicultural life and organizes human rights awareness campaigns. She has also worked as an ESL teacher, intern with human rights and resettlement organizations, and mentor for young minority students in the Twin Cities, Kentucky, and abroad. Keren is a Pickering Fellow and looks forward to a career working in the field of conflict resolution in Sub-Saharan Africa.