Blog

For Avery Sands ’26, environmental science is inseparable from the cities, public spaces, and communities people belong to. Through her Marcuss Fellowship, Avery designed an independent honors thesis investigating whether Hartford’s former waste incinerator was linked to mercury concentrations in Hartford County ponds. Combining fieldwork, lab analysis, and community engagement, her project reflected a deep commitment to urban environmentalism and environmental justice. Her findings offered valuable insight into the overlapping environmental pressures shaping urban ecosystems. Based in Hartford and driven by scientific curiosity and public impact, Avery’s work shows how undergraduate research can connect rigorous environmental science with the everyday realities of community life.

Zeynep Oguzer ’26, a double major in Human Rights and Psychology with minors in Urban Studies and Philosophy, spent the past year investigating why people remain unprepared for disasters even when the risks are well known. Through a Marcuss-funded project shaped by both personal experience and academic rigor, she examined how trust in government, religiosity, fatalism, and political ideology influence earthquake preparedness in Türkiye. Her research revealed that preparedness is not one-size-fits-all, but deeply shaped by how different communities understand risk, authority, and responsibility. Rooted in urgent human questions and carried out with impressive methodological care, Oguzer’s work shows how undergraduate research can generate insights with real-world relevance

Two Trinity students have been awarded 2026 Projects for Peace grants to lead community-based initiatives in Costa Rica and Paraguay. Rooted in personal experience and local partnership, their projects focus on expanding educational opportunity for young people, while building resources and relationships that will last well beyond the summer.

Neo Khambule ’26, a triple major in Urban Studies, Anthropology, and Arabic, has combined classroom learning with hands-on work in Hartford and abroad. Her time studying in Morocco and at Oxford, along with her collaborations with local organizations, has shaped her academic focus. As she graduates, she is deciding between Oxford and Cambridge for her next step in graduate study.

Students in Professor Amanda Guzmán’s “Anthropology of Museums” course transformed environmental justice research into a traveling banner exhibit that brings Hartford’s waste-management history out of the classroom and into public conversation. Debuting at the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History, the exhibit blends archival research with PhotoVoice and oral histories, inviting visitors to reflect, respond through an anonymous survey, and join facilitated dialogues about environmental justice and regional responsibility.

Trinity sophomore Bennet Gessler grew up in Germany, spent two years at UWC Costa Rica, and found his academic home in East Asian politics. This year, a research assistantship with Prof. Reo Matsuzaki sparked something bigger: a CUGS-funded month in Taiwan, where Bennet interviewed people working in business and trade to understand how the “One China” policy shapes identity in everyday life. In this post, he shares what he learned, how he found interviewees, and why the project is only just beginning.

Why do so many Americans describe college as the best years of their lives? Drawing on Jan Gehl’s Cities for People, this piece suggests the answer has less to do with youth and more to do with walkability, proximity, and life at human speed — something many leave behind after graduation.

José Ginocchio Moraiz ‘23 has been using his creativity and advocacy to advance human rights since before he came to Trinity. An international student from Argentina, José attended United World College of the Adriatic before coming to Trinity as an anthropology and human rights major. As a teenager, he volunteered in humanitarian shelters for displaced populations and undertook leadership roles in civil society organizations. The breadth of his activities and depth of his commitment to disadvantaged communities has only grown since then. After working on human rights issues for the last couple of years, José applied for and was accepted to Schwarzman Scholars, a prestigious one-year, fully funded master’s degree program in global affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. 

Urban Studies welcomes development sociologist Dr. Mushahid Hussain, whose work spans topics from agrarian change to urban life in cities from Dhaka to Hartford.

What happens when one class reshapes your entire perspective on cities? For Nellie Conklin ’26, it meant finding her academic passion and setting her on the path to becoming this year’s President's Fellow in Urban Studies. Her work since then has spanned from neighborhood walks in Hartford to on-site field study in Rome, and from classroom projects to collaborations with local housing organizations. Nellie brings curiosity and focus to every part of her work, and she plans to bring that approach with her as she returns to Boston after graduation to pursue a career in affordable housing.