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

On April 10, 2025, Rio Smith presented his project “Understanding Urban Margins: How Statistics and Urban Policy Police Tokyo’s Homeless Geographies” as a 2025 Marcuss Fellow. Smith’s project examined how Tokyo’s state statistics represent the homeless population and their motivation in choosing how to represent these populations.

Isabella Paris is an Urban Studies and International Studies double major and one of the 2025 Marcuss Fellows. On April 10, 2025, she presented her project “Transnational Lives and Opportunities: An Analysis of Immigrant Experiences in New York City and Barcelona.” Paris describes the bulk of her project as analyzing immigrant community development and assimilation in both cities.

This year’s Marcuss Fellows worked on global urban studies research projects from two different lenses. Rory Trani ’24 was inspired by having her first tastes of freedom as a teenager on the Portland, Oregon area metro system (known as the MAX) and by her experience of the efficient, modern metro system while studying away in Copenhagen. Rory used these experiences, an extensive literature review, and interviews conducted on the trains in both cities to compare the two transit systems under the guidance of Professor Garth Myers. Hannah Lorenzo ’24 was inspired by her identity as a Filipina American to investigate the role and importance of Asian-owned food businesses in the Hartford area. While Rory took a comparative global approach, Hannah investigated the importance of complexities of diasporic communities in Hartford while being advised by Professor Keavy McFadden.

Julius Benthin is a senior urban studies and economics double major who recently presented his research on the HafenCity development in Hamburg with a grant received as a Marcuss Fellow. ...

As one of the first Trinity students to receive the Rosemary and Stan Marcuss ’63 Fellowship for Research in Urban Studies, Kendra Keelan ’23 recently completed her senior thesis on academic and institutional community engagement at Trinity and other colleges.