{"id":107809,"date":"2015-12-30T09:49:06","date_gmt":"2015-12-30T14:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=107809"},"modified":"2017-08-11T14:48:17","modified_gmt":"2017-08-11T18:48:17","slug":"a-look-back-at-2015-uconn-nation-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2015\/12\/a-look-back-at-2015-uconn-nation-students\/","title":{"rendered":"A Look Back at 2015: UConn Nation \u2013 Students"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the New Year just around the corner, UConn Today takes a look back at some highlights of 2015. The second of a three-part series reviews some student stories.<\/em><\/p>\n

UConn students excelled this year in every sphere, from academics to advocacy, art, and athletics. Here’s a selection of their stories.<\/p>\n

\"Shemona<\/a><\/p>\n

Shemona Singh ’18 (ENG)<\/a> says the opportunity to begin research during her freshman year led her to a new way of thinking. She was one of five undergraduates profiled in a video series, #WhyWeAreHuskies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"Alyssa<\/a><\/p>\n

Alyssa Merkle \u201915 (ENG)<\/a> found time to participate in the Super Bowl as a cheerleader for the New England Patriots as well as building an incubator for testing cancer cells during her last semester before graduation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"Anh<\/a><\/p>\n

Two teams of engineering seniors tapped their scientific knowledge to develop a reduced-sugar ice cream<\/a> at UConn’s famous Dairy Bar.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"Mathematics\/actuarial<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Students graduating this past May included the first to major in Chinese<\/a> at UConn.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"David<\/a><\/p>\n

Many UConn students gained valuable experience as interns<\/a>, in placements ranging from TV production and investment banking to conducting research for staff at the White House.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"Three-year-old<\/a><\/p>\n

With an IDEA grant to pursue his project \u2018Color Out Cancer,\u2019 Jonathan Markovics \u201918 (CLAS)<\/a> brought smiles to the face of a three-year-old cancer patient with a makeover of her bedroom.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"Rachel<\/a><\/p>\n

Rachel Hill \u201917 (ED)<\/a> is a junior majoring in sports management; she\u2019s also one of the premier soccer forwards in the country.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"Nichole<\/a><\/p>\n

Seven freshman students joined the search for potential new antibiotics<\/a> in a first-year seminar, \u201cMicrobe Hunting: Crowdsourcing the Discovery of New Antibiotics.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"Undergraduate<\/a><\/p>\n

After two and a half years of tracking a DNA sequence through different rodent lineages, Brendan Smalec \u201916 (CLAS)<\/a> and his mentor Rachel O\u2019Neill are about to submit a research paper to a scientific journal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"Myles<\/a><\/p>\n

Three student musicians were selected to perform as soloists with the UConn Symphony Orchestra in the annual s Concerto Competition<\/a>: undergraduates Samantha Lake \u201916 (SFA), a tuba player, Myles Mocarski \u201916 (SFA), a violinist, and graduate student Hyejin Bae, who plays flute.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Rob Turnbull \u201916 (CLAS) and Ron Tardiff \u201916 (CLAS) were among a group of UConn students passionate about finding solutions to climate change who attended the climate summit in Paris<\/a> in early December.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\"Antonio<\/a><\/p>\n

Antonio Campelli \u201915 (SFA)<\/a> was named a recipient of the prestigious Marshall Scholarship, which will enable him to earn a master\u2019s degree at the University of London.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twelve examples of students who are pursuing their passion at UConn. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":107822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1712,156,2076,2225,2458,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-107809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-profile","category-research","category-uconn-storrs","category-undergraduates","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 00:57:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107809"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108124,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107809\/revisions\/108124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/107822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107809"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=107809"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=107809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}