2020 Senior Award honorees

Majors: Community Health, Anthropology
Minor: Food Systems and Nutrition
Hometown: Fairfax, VA

Madeleine is graduating with a double major in Community Health and Anthropology and a minor in Food Systems & Nutrition. Her academic interests are rooted in her desire to be part of the movement to create a more just and equitable global food system. Beyond academics, Madeleine a varsity athlete and team captain for the Women’s Rowing team. She also holds leadership positions in both the Tufts Food Rescue Collaborative and SYNS, a student-led experimental think tank supported by Tisch College.

Majors: Computer Science, Cognitive and Brain Sciences
Hometowns: Belmont, MA and Seoul, South Korea

Barry is a senior studying Computer Science and Cognitive and Brain Sciences at Tufts. Prior to Tufts, he has lived in Korea, Japan, California, and most recently, Belmont, MA. During his underclassman years, Barry was active in Leonard Carmichael Society, Integrative Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, and Tufts TAMID Group. Junior year, he founded Tufts’ first data science and AI organization and directed the Tufts Tech & Data Industry Night, an event focused on ethics in the tech industry. Currently, he is working with twelve Tufts students to create an online platform to prevent high risk domestic violence cases for Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center. Upon graduating, Barry will join Spotify as a Product Manager intern and EY-Parthenon as an associate. Barry’s dream is to pivot the technology industry to embrace innovation founded on ethics and respect for human vulnerabilities.

Major: Computer Science
Hometown: Queens, NY

Prince is a computer science major aspiring to make an impact in education policy in his hometown of New York City. Since graduating from the City's public schools, he has worked extensively with first-generation and low-income students at both the high school and college level. At Tufts, he has served as the president of the First-Generation Collective and the Bengali Student Association, volunteered with the Americorps Jumpstart program, and studied abroad at Oxford, UK. Prince has also served as an inaugural peer leader for the FIRST Resource Center and as a student advocate on the Tufts Financial Aid Advisory Board.

Majors: Political Science, Economics
Hometown: Queens, NY

Shannon is a Political Science and Economics double major and hails from Queens, NY. In her first year, she was a key player in starting the Swipe it Forward meal bank program, a program that allows students to anonymously request meals from a community-sourced bank of meal swipes. Her sophomore year, she successfully advocated to increase student access to the Asian American Center, a space that was underutilized but is now frequented by students for club meetings and social space. As the current TCU President, she spends numerous hours each week speaking with administrators about student issues in an effort to strengthen the student experience for all students. After graduation, Shannon will be working for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a Director’s Financial Analyst.

Major: Chemical Engineering
Hometown: Reading, MA

Emma Meehan is a Chemical Engineering student from Reading, MA interested in biotechnology. She has spent the last two summers working at a start-up gene editing company focused on curing rare genetic diseases. After graduation, she is doing a two-year rotational program at Pfizer in Andover, MA focusing on Engineering and Manufacturing. At Tufts, Emma is involved in the Society of Women Engineers, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and Greek Life. She has also been involved in the Tufts with Rwanda program, intramural sports, WMFO radio, and the Tufts Mountain Club. She studied abroad in Aberdeen, Scotland and has aided many Tufts Chemical Engineers to study abroad there as well.

Major: International Relations
Hometown: Boca Raton, FL

Justin is a Dominican American from New York. He began his studies as a member of the inaugural Tisch 1+4 cohort, working at a foster home in Madrid. As a Tisch Summer Fellow in India, Obama Foundation Peer Adviser, ExCollege Professor, and Rwanda Fellowship coordinator, Justin has worked in furthering education around the world. In Chile, he interned at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, researching and curating an exhibition on migration. With his International Relations major, Justin wants to continue being a global citizen, working internationally and pursuing higher education in Public Administration and International Development. He hopes to one day become a professor.

Majors: Studio Art and Interdisciplinary Studies (Art History, Food Systems, Latinx Studies)
Hometown: St. Paul, MN

Michaela transferred into the SMFA at Tufts Combined Degree program in Fall 2018, after taking time off to study Spanish at Universidad de Belgrano in Buenos Aires and travel around Argentina and Chile. Previously, she studied Apparel Design at the University of Minnesota, her home state, and worked as a costume technician, including with a division of Cirque du Soleil. Once at Tufts, Michaela began developing her studio art practice and designed an Interdisciplinary Studies major as research for her creative production. Taking a material culture studies approach, she intersected the areas of art history and visual media, food systems and environmental studies, and Latinx and Latin American studies. Her senior honors thesis is looking comparatively at the use of food materials in contemporary Latinx artworks. She is reflecting on her own art in this process, and has enjoyed exhibiting work in galleries over having models on the runway.

Part of the SMFA Senior Thesis Program and a member of the Sustainability Committee, Michaela collaborated with the SMFA Library Coordinator on the SMFA Garden, which received a Tufts Green Fund grant to establish pollinator-friendly garden sites of native plant species at the SMFA. The gardens will be integrated with the school’s curriculum, involving students in their design and functioning as outdoor exhibition spaces.

Michaela has worked at the Tufts Office of Sustainability since moving to Massachusetts, interning under various titles until becoming their Lead Communications person this year and managing a team of interns in lieu of a full-time communications specialist. She plays oboe in the Tufts Symphony and Chamber orchestras and is the SMFA Yoga Club coordinator. Michaela strives to be a conscious citizen and live a low-waste, plastic-free lifestyle. She can be found biking to farmers markets and local businesses year-round in pursuit of these goals.

Major: Environmental Health Engineering
Minor: Entrepreneurship Leadership Studies
Hometown: Muhanga, Rwanda

Magnifique is a senior from Rwanda studying environmental health engineering and entrepreneurship. She has a passion for economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Magnifique co-founded an organization called To The Waters, which tackles issues related to poor water & sanitation and poverty in Rwanda. At Tufts, she was a Laidlaw scholar, an Empower fellow, a president of the National Society of Black Engineers, a donations chair for Timmy Global Health, and a student representative for the Engineering Committee. Magnifique has received several honors such as the Montle Prize, the Anne E. Boghersani Memorial Prize, and the Cataldo Research scholarship.

Majors: Economics, International Relations
Hometown: Nairobi, Kenya

Rabecca came to Tufts University from Nairobi, Kenya and is majoring in Economics and International Relations. She is passionate about economic development and hopes to work in international food and agriculture policy. At Tufts, Rabecca was a Tisch Scholar , Tisch Summer Fellow at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and served as Co-President of Leonard Carmichael Society (LCS) . She was also the Public Relations Chair for TCU's Elections Commission and was awarded a $10,000 UWC Davis Projects for Peace grant to implement her mentorship project in Kenya. Rabecca is now writing her senior honors thesis, which aims to examine the motivations and impact of U.S. humanitarian food aid in East Africa.

Major: Clinical Psychology
Minor: Portuguese
Hometown: Miami, FL

Leticia is from São Paulo, Brazil and her family moved to Miami, FL when she was nine. At Tufts, she pursued her passion for social justice and strengthening communities through United for Immigrant Justice, the Latino Center, and the LGBT Center. She served as the Latinx Community Senator on TCU Senate and Treasurer for the Association of Latin American Students. She was President of the Tufts Questbridge Chapter for 2 years, fostering community and building resources for first-generation students like herself. As a Clinical Psychology major, she worked at several research labs focused on bridging the gap between science and treatment for under-served communities. She pursued a thesis on Brazilian immigrant adolescent mental health as the foundation for future interventions. Leticia will eventually pursue a PhD in Clinical Psychology, establish her own practice, and continue researching accessible, culturally-relevant mental health interventions for immigrant youth.

Major: Biopsychology
Hometown: Voorhees, NJ

Emily is majoring in Biopsychology and plans to apply to medical school in May. During her gap year, she plans to work in Camden, New Jersey trying to fill the gaps in healthcare disparity within the community.

Emily is a 4-year member of the varsity softball team. She also runs an on-campus diabetes group called “PUMPD” through the College Diabetes Network that focuses on raising awareness for Type 1 Diabetes as well as works to make Tufts a more diabetes-friendly place for incoming students. She volunteers with the Sharewood Project, works as an academic resource center tutor on campus, and interviews incoming students for the Tufts Admissions Network. 

She has participated in many different types of research, including animal research done in the Comparative Cognition lab where she investigated the cognitive abilities of pigeons. She has worked at the Joslin Diabetes Center where she presented her research at the ISPAD conference (International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes). She has also interned at Boston Children’s Hospital where she investigated nutritional deficits in female athletes.