Anna Kozloski, Class of 2025

Jess Brier, Curator of Photography

This summer, I conducted full-time research for Curator of Photography, Jess Brier, in the Loeb. My findings will guide a future exhibition with the working title, Photo-Design: Making the World New, which highlights the ways in which communities have used photography and design to imagine alternative futures in the wake of profound loss and devastation.

For the first four weeks of my Ford experience, I explored promising case studies for Photo-Design. My research ranged anywhere from climate activism in Antarctica to the AIDS epidemic and queer activism in America. Jess encouraged me to pursue any historical moment that we could relate to unorthodox applications of photography and design. Although the initial breadth of the project was daunting, taking the time to explore every possible direction we could take the exhibition helped clarify what “photo-design” might look like and what specific historical moment I might want to focus on. The annotated bibliography I created during this period will guide future research on this exhibition.

For the second four weeks, I narrowed down my research topic to postwar, avant-garde architectural design in the 1960s and ‘70s. My findings paid specific attention to the ways in which architects used photomontage, collage, and combination printing to articulate an evolving relationship between humans, nature, technology, and consumerism amidst global rebuilding projects. For example, I considered the rise of Metabolist architecture in Japan after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Italian architects’ experimentation with “architecture-less architecture” as a reaction against the hyperrationality of pre-WWII, Modernist designs, and English architectural designs for the Golden Lane Estate rebuilding project of 1953. In addition to Japan, Italy, and England, my research also explored architectural design in America, Austria, and Venezuela in the postwar period. I identified over 60 artworks (both at the Loeb and other museums collections or archives) that might be included in the final exhibition.

This project culminated in a research report that amassed my extensive research into one cohesive document. My essay, notes, artwork proposals, and annotated bibliography will serve as vital references for Jess and future interns when work on Photo-Design resumes. Thank you, Jess, for your mentorship and this wonderful opportunity to explore my historical and creative interests in a museum setting.

Abigail McLaughlin ’26

This summer I worked with Professor Esteban Argudo in the economics department to explore the effect of business cycles on the income and employment nativity for immigrant and native populations in the United States. The ultimate goal was to formally quantify the differential effects of business cycles on labor market outcomes for native and immigrant populations.

I began by collecting data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) through IPUMS to complement the analysis done using the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data. Since the time series dimension of the data analysis requires the harmonization of variables, IPUMS was the best option for data collection, despite the fact that it required new code.

I replicated figures from existing literature (Albert 2021) to ensure the IPUMS data (right) was the same as the raw CPS data (left).

Job Finding Rate Gap to Natives

There is a slight discrepancy between the figures, attributed to a difference in the number of observations. Since the Census Bureau releases the basic and supplement files as separate files and IPUMS integrates and releases the supplement files as a part of the data, IPUMS has slightly more observations.

The CPS data (right) was then used to complement the findings from the SIPP data (left). It indicated that the unemployment rate for immigrants was consistently higher than natives up until 2008. A similar story is true for wages, the average wage of immigrants becomes higher between 2010 and 2015. Further regression analysis and data visualization will help to explain why.

SIPP & CPS Data Skilled Workers Unemployment Rate

SIPP & CPS Data Skilled Workers Wages

My experience with this project reinforced the importance of data in forming a qualitative argument. Data provides numbers that tell a story, however, it is further analysis that explains what that story is.

Julian Funaro 25′

This Summer, I have assisted Professor Ge in his ongoing undergraduate level textbook project entitled Industrial Organization: Theory and Practice, 6th Edition. My work consisted of three key concepts to industrial organization.

First, I wrote an outline for a section on two-sided markets. Two-sided markets consist of one or more intermediaries, called platforms, that allow for transactions between two groups. For example, eBay is a platform that allows for transactions between buyers and sellers. Much of the required mathematics to model two-sided markets is not suitable for undergraduate economic students. Hence, my task was to select a basic model and derive the necessary math needed to find profit-maximizing prices for two-sided markets that can be understood by students who have taken an introductory class in microeconomics. Then, I used the model to explain the pricing strategies of Yellow Pages. 

Next, I expanded the content on network economics. The network effect occurs when the value of a good or service increases as more people use it. For example, a larger number of agents on a social media platform increases the number of possible connections, thus increasing the potential benefit agents gain from joining the platform. We can describe a network with a graph consisting of a series of nodes connected by links. I used my knowledge in graph theory to help students’ further understanding of network economics.

Finally, I wrote an outline for a section on status quo bias. In standard theory, agents are assumed to be rational. However, their bounded rationality limits their ability to make rational decisions all of the time. One shortcut agents use is a bias towards the status quo, resulting in many economic consequences. 

I will be continuing my research with Professor Ge in the Fall 2024 semester.

This summer I spent two months studying Medea and sharing my discoveries with Professor Gil-Sheridan, who is beginning work on a new adaptation of Euripides’ Medea in which Medea’s two sons grow up, rather than being killed at her own hand. 

I spent the first four weeks doing traditional research on Medea, focusing on translations and adaptations throughout history, scholarly commentary, and versions of Medea before Euripides. I read 22 different translations and adaptations of the original 431 BC play, gained a general understanding of the historical context of ancient Greece, read scholarly theories on themes and characters in the play, and looked at extant primary sources dated before Euripides which mention Medea in order to understand possible ways in which Euripides’ version may have fit in with widespread or popularized versions of the myth. 

During the second four weeks, thanks to the Ford Scholars program and Creative Arts Across Disciplines at Vassar, I was given the opportunity to travel to Greece and participate in One Year Lease’s Apprentice Program, in which we developed and performed a new adaptation of Medea written in Greek by Meropi Papastergiou and performed in five villages around Zagorohoria: Vikos, Ano Pedina, Agios Minas, Aristi and Megalo Papingo. I also met with Professor Gil-Sheridan in Papingo, where we discussed what I had learned through both my earlier research, and my participation as an actor in a production of Medea — specifically anything new I had gleaned about the play and about Greek theatrical traditions.

Going forward, Professor Gil-Sheridan will be using my compiled notes and resources to begin work on his adaptation. As a playwright myself, who is also currently working on an adaptation of a Greek tragedy, this work has also given me invaluable information for my work, which will culminate this fall semester in the Steerman Festival. 

This summer I worked on researching the settlement history of Iceland. The current settlement history of Iceland states that Norwegian Vikings were the first settlers, however there are archeological and medieval literary hints that suggest Iceland’s first settlers were Irish monks who dug mysterious artificial caves in the south of Iceland. However Iceland’s first historical written records state that these Irish monks were driven out of Iceland by Norwegian vikings and the act of the settlement of Iceland was placed on Norwegians, not on the Irish. 

I focused on reading Iceland’s first pieces of historical writing on how the country was settled in order to learn more about the settlement of Iceland and why perhaps, history seems to be disregarding the presence of these Celtic Christians and dismisses the story as myth. These first Icelandic texts have a mysterious background as well, as it is unclear who actually wrote the sagas themselves and the topic of how the information was acquired is discussed and considered in the academic field heavily. I also read about caves in Ireland and the British Isles to potentially make a connection between the artificial caves in Iceland. 

This interdisciplinary project will continue in the fall both through research and on-site investigation. A small class travel intensive will continue research and will travel to Iceland in October to observe and record the markings on the caves walls as well as learn about the family history and stories of the people whose land the caves now occupy.

Ruby Funfrock ‘24, Ford Scholar & Pindyck Summer Fellow
John Murphy, Philip and Lynn Straus Curator of Prints and Drawings

For eight weeks this summer, I worked on two curatorial-based projects that allowed me to explore different aspects of exhibition design. With guidance from John Murphy, I considered the importance of art historical research in better understanding the Loeb’s permanent collection and discovered the intricacies involved in the care, research, interpretation, and display of works as part of the curatorial process. 

The first project consisted of researching the bequest from Philip and Lynn Straus (Class of 1946). The couple had generously donated over one hundred works from their personal collection since 1981 up until Lynn’s passing in 2023. Since the Straus Bequest contains a wide temporal, stylistic, and geographic range of prints, I narrowed my research to works by Edvard Munch and the German Expressionists. I ended up with more questions than answers, as many of the artists and subject matter are highly problematic: Emil Nolde’s support of Nazism, the Die Brücke group’s interest in primitivism, and the use of adolescent girls as models. What does it mean to have these works and artists a part of a museum’s collection, especially at a collegiate institution? As a space that builds community, how can the museum environment reckon with these complex histories? My hope is that my research will provide a foundation for the Loeb staff and Vassar community to continue to challenge and contemplate these layered questions. 

The second project centered on the gallery space, as I curated the Fall Works on Paper Rotation that would supplement John’s Art History seminar, “Revolutionary Art and Global Politics in the 1930s.” Upon surveying the Loeb’s collection, I became fascinated with art produced under the Works Progress Administration. In selecting five works, I aimed to consider government-sanctioned prints and photographs while balancing the personal and political motives of the artists. 

I am grateful for the support and mentorship of John and the Loeb staff and the generosity of the Bruce Eben and Maryellen Pindyck Fund.

Shyasia Arnold ’26

Being a black woman is a thing unto itself, separate and apart from being a woman and separate and apart from being black. The intersectionality is really important.

A Black woman judge’s response to a question asking about her identity

A judge’s impartiality is essential to upholding justice. However, can judges fully divorce their experiences and identities from themselves? For this summer’s project, I worked alongside Professor Means. The project, Researching, Writing, and Publishing in Law and Courts, examines the effects of judicial diversity–or absence of–by generating patterns and themes between Black and White judges. The themes drawn from the data, combined with research, challenges the notion of judicial impartiality and affirms the importance of judicial diversity.

Between 2019-2021, data for this project was initially gathered through a survey of an equal number of Black and White state court judges. Additionally, there were interviews with around 100 Black and White state court judges. Judges were asked to share their upbringings, pre-adulthood life experiences, judicial behavior, philosophies, perspectives and more. This summer’s work involves the continuation of organizing, cleaning, anonymizing, analyzing, researching, and writing up the data analysis.

The data analysis will then be written into a paper that I am co-authoring with Professor Means and others. The paper focuses on Black women judges and is broken up by race and gender. My contributions toward the paper focus on the history of Black women in politics and the ways in which Black women judges behave on/off the bench. Additionally, I wrote a data-analysis on judicial projects that Black women judges are involved in, which highlights patterns of Black women judges’ values in relation to their identities and the programs that they start.

Overall, using the gathered data to illuminate the importance of judicial diversity while challenging notions of judicial impartiality, the data and project aims to provide insight into how judges’ backgrounds, gender identities, and racial identities impact their roles as judges.

Mette McKinney ’26

This summer I worked with professors Lisa Paravisini-Gebert and Michael Aronna and a fellow student – Abbie Houton – on Vassar’s Oviedo Project. This project aims to publish a translated version of Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo’s General History of the Indies in its entirety. Sections of the work have been translated over time but the text has never been translated in its entirety. Thus, for the past few years, Vassar students and select faculty members have been working to do exactly that. During the school year, students work on translating the text from Spanish to English. In the summer, the work is handed to the professors and select students, this summer, me and Abbie. 

For the past 8 weeks, we worked on editing 40 chapters from Volume II of the General History and uploading them to the project’s website. Each chapter was edited twice using the original text to confirm the translation was accurate before it was edited again, ensuring that it flowed well into English. The final version was then added to that book’s manuscript and upon thorough edits to every chapter, it was sent to me to upload to the project’s website. 

My work focused on doing the second edit of several chapters and uploading completed books to the website. Through my work this summer I gained a greater appreciation for what goes into preparing texts for publication and the intricacies of translation. I had translated 3 chapters during the school year and seeing the slight differences within each student’s chapters helped me to appreciate the nuance of language and the different ways it can be understood by different people. Finishing this project will be a major milestone. As I am going into my sophomore year, I look forward to continuing to work on it for the next few years!

Mentor: Qi Ge (Department of Economics)

Scholar: Shijun Hong (Class of 2025)

Professor Ge and I are Interested in the impact of labor unions on merging firms’ product quality and prices. For the summer project, we devoted our attention to related theories and literature. Theoretically, both the product quality and the price effects of labor unionization on merging firms are a priori indeterminate. Consistent with the theoretical prediction, the existing empirical literature does not agree on the direction of the effects. More importantly, a significant challenge arises from the concurrent incidence of merger events and unionization episodes, a phenomenon commonly observed across various industries. Our literature review highlights two key observations: 1) There is a limited amount of research focusing on the quality impact of unionization, and 2) none of the existing literature adequately distinguishes between the effects of mergers and unionization. The goal of our study is thus to bridge these two major gaps in the literature. As part of the project, I also constructed detailed timelines visualizing the timing of the airline unionization and episodes considered in our project. In the next stage of our project, we plan to conduct a separate and comprehensive analysis of the impacts of mergers and unionization using data from the U.S. Airline Industry.

In the end, I hope our research can adequately distinguish between the effects of mergers and unionization. Through this way, we can not only make contributions to the limited amount of relevant research focusing on the US Airline Industry but also help the later studies related to unionization and mergers effects.