Melissa Jo Zambrana '16 describes her summer working at Tufts University’s Summer English Language Program. Imagine trying to develop skills in a language different than your own in a country where you know no one. Melissa Jo worked with college-aged students from 15 countries who were hoping to craft, improve, and refine their English language skills. There were daily excursions into Boston, presentations and workshops on American history and culture, and classes on idioms and world events....

This summer, Jeanne Gallée '16 worked as a full-time research assistant in MGH professor Evelina Fedorenko's neurolinguistics laboratory at MIT. She participated in a brand-new project that has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the language center of the brain. In an effort to combat the issues that different experiments, subjects, MRI scanners, and data analyses of different laboratories pose, the EvLab’s “ALICE" project will undertake the creation of a universal language...

Lisa Hsieh '16 interned at Hitachi TechnoInformation Services in Tokyo. She participated in several projects involving Hitachi's patent research database system. Many of these projects required Japanese-to-English translation. She realized that translating the original Japanese passages in a way that was consistent with the customary English usage was far more important then literal word-for-word meaning of the text.

Erin Nealer '15 worked on the Competitiveness and Enterprise Development Project at Babson Global this summer. "Enterprise Cities" are new, relatively autonomous cities on greenfield sites in developing countries that will grow through sustainable economic practices. Erin's research focused on anticompetitive market distortions that are common in developing countries, and the way in which they can be avoided in the future as young cities form.

Liza David '15 describes her internship with Ashoka, an enterprise for social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurship is the intersection of private and public sectors to pursue innovative solutions to societal problems. Ashoka works on health, education, environmental problems, and more. Liza describes her work on the Changemakers team, which runs worldwide competions looking for the next great innovation to solve pressing world problems.

Noorah Al-Eidi '15 recounts her internship with the Information Office of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, DC. She highlights joint Saudi-U.S. efforts to combat regional threats, and assesses some of the Kingdom's internal progress and challeneges in securing its own stability.

Alyssa Brody '16 and Charlotte Benishek '16 describe their internships that were coordinated by the Lumpkin Summer Institute for Service Learning. Alyssa worked in the Office of Senator Harriette L. Chandler. Charlotte interned with the Crittenden Women's Union. The Lumpkin Summer Institute challenges Wellesley students to explore and participate in social change in the Greater Boston Area. During the 10-week program, students reside together in Boston while undertaking full-time internships...

Bella Nikom '17 and Emily Chun '17 describe their summer in Jerusalem studying Hebrew in an intensive language immersion program. They saw firsthand the Israel-Hamas conflict that erupted shortly after they arrived.They discovered that a whole system of opolitics can be built around language. They learned how the use of Hebrew (or lack thereof) reflects the different desires of groups involved in this conflict.

Claire Tam '15 describes her Albright internship with the Belfash Interface Project, an independent peacebuilding organization in Northern Ireland's capital. She highlights her research on spatial segregation in Northern Ireland. Her time in Belfast revealed how power sharing enables social reconstruction; the way in which socioeconomic disparities continue to trap sectors of society in patterns of suspicion, mistrust, and civil unrest; and the centrality of youth engagement and community...

As part of the Wellesley in Washington summer program, these four students spent the summer working within different health departments at the state and federal levels, at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and at the District of Columbia Department of Health. By reading and analyzing policy, regulations, and legislation they learned about disparities in health quality in vulnerable populations. Through data analysis, they saw how numbers could be turned into action and learned...

As the first and sole intern for Austin Achieve Public Schools in the summer of 2013, one could say that I wore many hats. Hired to create a social and emotional learning (SEL) curriculum (based on my on-campus job at Open Circle), I began my internship endeavoring to build a curriculum for Austin Achieve that not only aligned with common SEL standards, but that fit the needs and hopes of this new charter school system. As with any new charter school, however, my responsibilities expanded in...

StudentsFirst, founded by former DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, is a national grassroots movement of more than 2 million parents, teachers, students, administrators, and citizens fighting to improve the current state of the American education system. As a communications associate, Lauren gained perspective on contentious education reform issues and the policy pillars that StudentsFirst rallies behind: elevating the status of teaching, empowering parents, and spending public...

Education in the Dominican Republic is not accessible to everyone. Factors such as poverty and legal status prevent thousands of children from receiving an education. Mabelly spent the summer working with Caring Foundation, a nonprofit based in New York City that runs a school of 485 children in the poverty-stricken community of Bayaguana, Dominican Republic. She expected to just learn more about poverty and the Dominican Republic's educational system. Instead, she left with a deeper...

Kellen Kartub '14 explains how cyclotides, peptides with a unique structure, could prove very useful to medicine. This presentation looks in depth at a small portion of the chemistry behind their synthesis.

Kaley Haskell '14 reflects on teaching 110 "young teachers" at a Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center childcare program, where she confronted educational issues outside the college classroom, such as multi-ability students and language barriers.

Tijana Trkulja '13 interned for the Democratic Governance and Gender Equality department at the United Nations Development Program in San Jose, Costa Rica. Tijana shares research she did at the UNDP, exposing problems women face in the country.

Valerie Soon '13 talks about how empirical research in psychology can help inform our understanding of the way we make moral judgements, offering some perspectives on the burgeoning field of experimental philosophy.

Sara Kramer '15 researched the booming cloud computing sector as a summer analyst at Spencer Stuart. Sara discusses the origins of "Software as a Service", its development, and the future for the industry.

Christina Rozek ’15 discusses her experiences working as an EMT and firefighter-in-training, including the obstacles for women in firefighting, the culture of brotherhood in the firehouse, and tips for gaining respect in a predominantly male profession.

Erin Kim '09 describes the challenges she experienced and lessons she learned while in the unique Korean ETA program through a Fulbright Fellowship. She shares her insights with other students interested in the Fulbright Fellowship.

Meredith Stoner '13 details her experience in bringing a gender perspective to her internship on underbanked and unbanked populations in the Eighth District of the Federal Reserve System at the St. Louis Fed.

Ama Adi-Dako '14 shares her insights on the politics of behind-the-scenes Hollywood, which she witnessed while reading and analyzing scripts on the Warner Bros. lot during an immersive summer internship. With the support of the Lin Pictures team, Ama gained tools that will someday help her make it in the harsh film industry.

Stella Odewumi '13 and Njweng Yagni '14 launched and advanced their menswear business, Hespoke, during the Babson Summer Venture program. Hespoke is an online retail store that curates an eclectic mix of street wear and preppy brands.

Hayley Malkin '13 discusses how basic science skills learned at Wellesley translated to her work on a clinical research project with the cerebrovascular disorders and stroke program at Boston Children's Hospital.