Summer Experiences
Every May, Brown students leave the classrooms of College Hill behind to pursue a wealth of transformative summer opportunities — from internships and fellowships to research projects and entrepreneurial startups.
Summer Experiences
Every May, Brown students leave the classrooms of College Hill behind to pursue a wealth of transformative summer opportunities — from internships and fellowships to research projects and entrepreneurial startups.
2024
From supporting environmental legislation to educating community members about sustainability, the rising Brown sophomore is taking a deep dive into local environmental advocacy this summer.
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Science and Technology
Ilija Nikolov: Bringing a quantum leap to Boston’s largest investment company
A condensed matter researcher and Brown Ph.D. student, Nikolov is spending his summer at Fidelity Investments, exploring how quantum-inspired neural networks could revolutionize financial analysis and security systems.
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Science and Technology
Isabel Tribe: Examining ancient sediment to predict Earth’s future
Working with a 3-million-year-old Colombian sediment core in a research lab at Brown this summer, the rising sophomore is extracting ancient biological data to inform future climate models.
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Through an internship with the Television Academy Foundation, the rising Brown University senior is learning the ins and outs of the TV industry while paving the way for a future generation of creatives.
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Through a summer internship with Rhode Island Latino Arts and Trinity Rep, the rising Brown senior is helping to stage a free, outdoor bilingual performance series for Rhode Island communities.
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Through a summer internship at the nonprofit organization Progreso Latino, the rising Brown sophomore is assisting local community members who are navigating questions related to immigration.
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Health and Medicine
Petranea Smith: Engaging with the community to help people get vaccinated
With a commitment to community engagement, the public health graduate student and aspiring physician is spending her summer helping underinsured Rhode Islanders access protective health care.
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2023
Knee-deep in prairie grasses, the rising Brown University senior is collecting plant samples and bison waste to expand biologists’ understanding of animal nutrition in the wild.
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Science and Technology
Anoop Kiran: Helping to shed new light on the aerodynamics of drone flight
Inside Brown’s Prince Laboratory, the engineering Ph.D. student is delving deeper into his passion for flight and working to solve one of the biggest challenges of drone aerodynamics.
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The rising Brown junior and aspiring doctor is in Busan for the summer to take intensive Korean language courses — and to investigate the surprising similarities between traditional medicine in Korea and her home country of Ghana.
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The Brown University master of public health student is developing tools that first responders can use to de-escalate a mental health crisis and connect people to the resources they need.
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The rising Brown University junior is making math fun for Providence Public School students through an AmeriCorps teaching fellowship this summer.
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To acquire clinical experience as part of her journey to becoming a doctor, the rising Brown University senior is working as a medical scribe in Providence emergency departments this summer.
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Building on a deep interest in synthetic biology, the rising Brown University senior spent his summer helping to develop a sustainable alternative to arsenic detection and removal methods.
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Science and Technology
Kyle Paul: From Vienna, India and Providence, advancing understanding of amphibian behavior
The rising Brown University junior and pre-med concentrator was eager to dive into field research to study how frog species respond to stimuli in their environment.
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The Brown University junior explored policymaking and governance through a hands-on internship with the office of the Rhode Island governor.
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2022
As a summer intern at the Nuclear Threat Initiative in Washington, D.C., the rising Brown junior is combining his love for science with a driving interest to ensure that policy decisions on complex issues are evidence-backed.
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As an iProv summer fellow, the rising Brown sophomore created a new coding class for local students attending summer day camp at Providence recreation centers.
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As a summer research assistant in Brown’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, McClain is supporting research and building community connections.
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Under the shade of redwood trees, Victor Beck and other queer students of color from Brown are working with a Black and Indigenous land collective to restore and steward a 900-acre forest.
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Science and Technology
Rebecca Ward-Diorio: Diving deep into research in the Galápagos
In a culmination of her Brown biology education, the rising senior is studying the biodiversity of marine life in the Galápagos Islands for the effects of decreased human presence due to the pandemic.
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Science and Technology
Allen Dufort: Coding a cutting-edge space telescope
As a software engineer intern, Allen Dufort is supporting a Brown physicist’s NASA-funded project to help build a telescope that will enable the study of distant planets.
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As an iProv summer fellow, the rising Brown sophomore led pop-up farmers markets with the Providence nonprofit to bring locally grown, affordable produce to communities where fresh foods are harder to access.
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As a research assistant in the Brown Community Noise Lab, Nina Lee has spent years monitoring noise levels across New England, advocating for environmental justice every step of the way.
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2021
Brown-RISD dual degree student Justin Li led efforts to revive Pride Month activities in Rhode Island this year after challenges related to COVID-19 threatened to cancel the longstanding tradition.
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Arts and Humanities
Jeremy Chan: Gamifying the scramble for Africa
As a teaching assistant in the history course African Experiences of Empire, Chan is designing board games that deepen students’ knowledge of everyday life in sub-Saharan Africa as European powers were seizing control.
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Arts and Humanities
Halle Bryant: Indexing Rhode Island’s Indigenous history
The Class of 2021 graduate is working with Rhode Island’s Tomaquag Museum to index 1930s issues of a Native American magazine that sheds light on the lives of Indigenous people in New England and beyond.
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As a member of B-Lab — the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship’s summer startup accelerator — Terrill is developing the Reem Company, an insurance carrier that benefits the greater good, as outlined by her Islamic faith.
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With dogs important contributors in everything from rescue operations to assisting people with disabilities, the rising senior is spending her summer in a Brown laboratory researching the reasoning abilities of man’s best friend.
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Science and Technology
Nathan Brown: Toward a better, more versatile wheelchair
With the help of a Royce Fellowship from the Swearer Center, Nathan Brown is developing a wheelchair design with the aim of increasing mobility for users on both indoor and outdoor terrain.
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As a summer research assistant, the rising senior is analyzing decades of data to investigate whether increasing spending on state public defender programs could lower America’s uniquely high incarceration rate.
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Health and Medicine
Parisa Afsharian: Translating research into actionable health advice
As a Hassenfeld Summer Scholar, Afsharian is researching the connection between language and health outcomes – and using her multilingualism to improve the health of families.
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2020
Arts and Humanities
Kate Reed: Finding a niche in biomimetic design
The Brown-RISD dual degree student is pursuing several summer projects that use cutting-edge technology to connect people to the natural world and to each other.
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This summer, members of HOPE at Brown, a student-run Swearer Center program that combats homelessness, are contributing to community-based research that identifies discrimination against housing-insecure individuals.
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As a member of B-Lab — the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship’s summer startup accelerator — Brown has developed Figured, a venture that offers customized natural hair care guidance to women with Afro-textured hair.
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Science and Technology
Portia Tieze: Conducting science research from home in a pandemic
Novel coronavirus and its effect on University science laboratories has kept engineering student Portia Tieze from working on campus this summer — so she brought the lab to her apartment to continue her research.
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Health and Medicine
Cesar Orduña: Delivering free virus tests to Rhode Island’s underserved
Since May, a Brown senior and other students have played an instrumental role in providing COVID-19 tests to low-income, uninsured Rhode Island residents, many of whom are working on the front lines amid a global pandemic.
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With support from a Royce fellowship, two undergraduate students are teaching middle-schoolers in rural China how to express themselves and transform their communities through photography.
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Arts and Humanities
Ali Dipp: Building a platform for ‘borderlanders’ in the Southwest
Through digital marketplaces, murals and storytelling, the Brown-RISD dual degree student and El Paso, Texas, native seeks to celebrate the unique character of the Southwest.
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As part of the BrownConnect Summer Institute, Brown students and recent graduates considered the creative and practical challenges of transforming the bestselling novel “Wonder” into a Broadway musical.
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2019
Social Sciences
Translating philosophy into political action in Chile
One semester after Bleeding Heart Libertarianism, four Brown students are working with political scientist John Tomasi to make connections between political philosophy and conditions on the ground in Chile.
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Science and Technology
Undergraduate research team builds robotic arm for a pint-sized satellite
With a passion for space and space engineering, two engineering students spent the summer working to design a robotic arm that may fly on Brown’s next student-built satellite.
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Health and Medicine
Modeling hurricane effects on Rhode Island
Working with the Rhode Island Department of Health, Brown MPH student Joyce Pak is interviewing hospital and other critical facility managers to inform a real-time computer model of storm consequences.
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Social Sciences
Using data to spark creativity
In a summer internship at the Swedish advertising firm NORD DDB, rising junior Harshita Agarwal unearthed surprising insights that revealed decision-making patterns and biases among Swedes.
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Health and Medicine
Investigating plant growth with CRISPR gene-editing technology
On a quest to unearth insights about ethylene production and plant growth, Adrian Lee spent his summer applying the revolutionary genetic engineering tool alongside Brown faculty.
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2018
Science and Technology
Sarah Bawabe: Untangling the fabric of the universe
Using pencil, paper and computer, rising sophomore Sarah Bawabe is spending the summer working side-by-side with Professor S. James Gates Jr. on some of the biggest questions in theoretical physics.
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News and Events
Michael Fuller: Fighting for incarcerated mothers
Michael Fuller, a rising senior, is one among a handful of Brown students interning for nonprofit organizations in Oklahoma this summer as part of the Brown in Tulsa Kaiser Fellowship Program.
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News and Events
Aaron Cooper: Training the next generation of engaged citizens
Through his work with Generation Citizen, rising Brown sophomore Aaron Cooper is helping young people in Providence cultivate leadership skills as they work with local institutions.
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Science and Technology
Azeeza Hasan: Democratizing the stock market
At NASDAQ’s Global Technology Center, the rising Brown junior and applied mathematics concentrator is working with nine other students to create streamlined, smarter online marketplaces.
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News and Events
Catherine Campo: Educating through performance
As an intern at CNBC’s “Mad Money,” the Brown theatre and performance studies concentrator is helping viewers improve their financial lives.
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Science and Technology
Undergraduate team helps to develop drone-based intro robotics course
With the help of a Brown summer research grant, a team of undergraduates is helping to develop a course that uses simple drones as a gateway into autonomous robotics.
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Environment
Marcos Rodriguez: Analyzing forest growth
For the ecology and evolutionary biology concentrator, a summer spent in a Massachusetts forest offered the chance to explore forest ecology and a future career in research.
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News and Events
VIDEO: Hannah Rosenstein: Putting policy into practice
Through a BrownConnect internship, Rosenstein spent the summer interning at a Boston-based refugee resettlement center.
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2017
Social Sciences
Profiles in Summer Research: Ellen Cola
Only a year into her studies at Brown, undergraduate Ellen Cola has spent her first semesters and summer on campus unearthing connections between the experiences of slaves and present-day movements to celebrate black women in America.
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Health and Medicine
Profiles in Summer Research: Gary Chien
Driven by a passion for computer vision, Gary Chien has learned new programming skills this summer to help make Brown’s “smart playroom” even smarter.
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Health and Medicine
Profiles in Summer Research: Michael Demanche
Combining data collection in the field with work in lab, Michael Demanche is developing techniques for using satellites to monitor a key environmental indicator in Narragansett Bay.
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Social Sciences
Profiles in Summer Research: Gray Brakke
Urban studies concentrator Gray Brakke is using his technology know-how to shed light on the understudied subject of welfare services available to low-income residents in the suburbs.
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Arts and Humanities
Profiles in Summer Research: Antonia Shann
By merging learned experience with lived experience, Antonia Shann co-created a French studies course on refugees that will be offered this fall.
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2016
Science and Technology
Profiles in Summer Research: Nari Lee
A progression of summer experiences with faculty has left the rising senior with an expanding set of research skills and medical school aspirations.
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Arts and Humanities
Profiles in Summer Research: Jacob Ihnen
A summer class, a transfer to Brown and an inspiring professor led rising senior Jacob Ihnen to an UTRA project focused on the rhetoric of Abraham Lincoln.
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Social Sciences
Profiles in Summer Research: Molly Sandstrom
For the history and education studies concentrator, a summer-long dive into the lives of early Unitarians in England meant the chance to contribute to faculty scholarship and an upcoming book.
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Science and Technology
Profiles in Summer Research: Sophia Gluskin-Braun
With a passion for problem-solving, the engineering concentrator is focused on the fundamentals of light and playing a role in promising research on next-generation solar cells.
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Arts and Humanities
Profiles in Summer Research: Jennifer Shook
The rising sophomore took part in an intensive research project that not only piqued her interest in colonial-era history, but diversified her academic interests.
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