What brought you to Bowdoin? What has your experience at the College been like?
I toured Bowdoin by chance as a freshman in high school, during a foggy and cold fall break. Despite the weather and empty campus, every student I encountered was incredibly kind and welcoming and wanted to genuinely tell me about the college they loved attending. To my parents, I articulated why I wanted to apply to Bowdoin as “good vibes.” Upon further reflection, I’ve always been interested in an extremely broad range of things, from visual and musical art to sports to marine science to history to English. Bowdoin matches this and has offered me both the opportunity to pursue these seemingly unrelated subjects and the overwhelming support to explore other interests that I will inevitably find. Bowdoin attracts students who excel in the classroom (aiding their peers as well), but also students who will support and explore the world with their classmates, as everyone grows and changes throughout their years here. Thus, I have been comfortable to grow as a person and a scholar here and felt encouraged to branch into new subjects without feeling behind or unwelcomed. It’s an incredibly clichéd answer, but I do think Bowdoin’s “good vibes” are because of its students and staff. I’ve truly met some amazing friends here. Whether it is staying up late to talk about the universe, watching my friends carry out a ridiculous bet that they lost in a pepper flip (walking across campus in a towel to take a shower in Studzinski Hall), or having a rolling-across-the-Quad contest on the first sunny, forty-degree day in April, the group of people that Bowdoin curates is truly so lovely. My friends push me further everyday while simultaneously supporting me to grow into myself.
What drew you to the long list of varied activities you participate in here?
The activity that has taken up the most time in my years here has been the swim team, and I think my Bowdoin experience would not be nearly as complete without my experience swimming. I could swim before I could walk, but I wasn’t planning on swimming in college as I couldn’t seem to find the right team. When I met Brad [Burnham], my coach, it all made sense. He spends time getting to know every swimmer individually, he has quiet but persistent support, and he has a wicked sense of understated humor. Bowdoin’s swimming and diving team is truly awesome, and I feel fortunate to not only have my All-American titles and NCAA trophies but also consistent support from such a great team. My other activities were all quite sudden decisions! My roommate signed me up for swing dancing, as she saw that my random dance parties in the dorm and on the pool deck would be put to better use in a dance studio. I have played violin since I was three but stopped formally playing in college. My friend invited me to every single orchestra concert, and through her gentle convincing I ended up joining and loving it again, eventually playing in fiddle ensembles, student chamber groups, and contradance jam sessions as well. I took a class about Romantic-era poetry, and my professor supported my own poetry until I was ready to submit it to various student magazines. My academic interests, such as marine biology and English, were fostered through many of the classes I took. In general, I think I just show up to things that sound interesting and if I am indeed interested, then I just go for it!
I’ve read that you pride yourself on your ability to gauge wind speed just by standing outside? Tell me about that! How did you discover that about yourself or develop that ability?
It amuses me highly that this is the fun fact known about me! Originally, I started telling people this as a random fact when asked for something about myself, so it’s very interesting that it is now “my thing.” I’m from the front range of Colorado, poised just between the Rockies and the plains. Winds often come barreling down the mountains, hitting my hometown at outrageous speeds. On any given day, we might experience fifty– or sixty-mile-per-hour winds, and the weather report will state that the day is “slightly breezy.” This is normal. We’ve learned not to trust the wind speed gauge on the weather apps if we want to know how windy it will actually be (for purposes such as barricading our fence and moving our cars out from under large trees). As I started going outside to see how the wind felt, I began to get better and better at knowing the speed, and then it somehow became my fun fact.
What inspires you?
People who fully embrace their individual uniqueness inspire me. When I try to integrate this into my life, this means doing things that make sense to me; whether they “make sense” to others becomes secondary. Inadvertently, this practice has brought me some of my closest friends both at Bowdoin and abroad in New Zealand. Because of this, I am surrounded by unique people, and I learn so much from them! When I think of what/who inspires me, it is usually people who do what they want to do, fully and truly. I’ve recently been on a journey that I call “senior spring spontaneity,” which helps me in embracing things I want to do. My first act was preparing high English tea, dressing up, and setting out a table of fancy confections in the middle of Thorne dining hall for my friends at lunch. My second act was submitting poems to an English department prize despite my fear of sharing my writing (I’m happy to report that I did receive the Forbes Rickard Poetry Prize!). My third act was signing up to be a violinist for a student’s multimedia publishing company promotion film. I’m not sure what my fourth act will be yet, but I think the unexpectedness is indeed the point.
Is there something about you that others would find surprising?
I know an inordinate amount about the Victorian era and fashion history. If given a photograph of a dress from 1800 to 1960, I can date the dress to within about seven years of its making using the silhouette, fabric, and construction. I also am a bit obsessed with learning about the Victorian era, sparked by my first-year seminar with Professor Briefel, “Victorian Monstrosity.” I am simply mesmerized with understanding every aspect of 1837–1902, including fashion, art movements, art styles, scientific innovations, technological fears, empire, environment, disease, pollution, industrialization, and literature, and I will spend hours researching minute details of the era. I’ve written one long-format creative writing piece on fog, fear, and Victorian connectedness and one lengthy literary analysis on the role of disease in shaping Victorian plot structures in Bleak House and Middlemarch. An unexpected side effect of this fascination is that I’ve become a sort-of Victorian Google for my friends, meaning that I get to answer a lot of random Victorian questions to which I provide very detailed answers. While I find this extremely fun, my friends probably wish for abridged versions occasionally.
What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
I’ve gotten really good at not having any spare time, as I get too excited about opportunities and sign myself up for everything I can! Recently, this has been playing in a chamber ensemble for a video about a student’s multimedia publishing company, playing in the Bowdoin Symphony Orchestra, dancing with Bowdoin Swing Dance, doing photography for various competitions, and writing poetry for The Quill, Bowdoin’s student publication. When I schedule in free time into the calendar, I love to bike around campus and say hi to everyone, hang out with people on the sunny quad, grab a meal with my friends, play Catan (or Apples to Apples Junior edition), catch up with my professors, or go for a swim in the ocean. In the spring, I love to monitor the weather for rainy, warm nights, as this means the annual amphibian migration (called “Maine Big Night”) might occur. When the conditions are right, I’ll don highly reflective gear, my rain boots, and a headlamp. I’ll then go out to a stretch of road between two sources of freshwater to move and monitor amphibians on the road. This is one of my favorite activities in the spring!
What’s next for you?
This summer, I’ll be in Maine getting my AAUS scientific SCUBA diving certification, which I am super excited about. This certification will allow me to do marine ecological and conservation field work and to collect samples underwater for analysis, with the eventual goal of obtaining my PhD in marine ecology, conservation, and communication, bridging the gap between science and understandable writing. I’ve worked frequently with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on coral microbiology and epidemiology, so I’d love to continue that work and study coral, using my scientific diving certification to look at reef health worldwide. I love being underwater, and I’m looking forward to spending the summer underwater. I’ll also be continuing my work in Professor Rogalski’s lab here on campus, looking at parasites in Daphnia. While nothing is set in stone yet, I hope to find myself in the field somewhere next year, collecting samples and enjoying the natural world.
Favorite Bowdoin memory? Or best thing you learned at Bowdoin?
One of my many favorite memories occurred in first year during an epic blizzard. My friends and I trekked to the Quad and set up a game of spike ball in the high wind, blowing snow, generally blizzarding conditions. There was a layer of ice underneath the snow, so we all kept sliding and falling as we played. We passed the entire afternoon in this manner, playing snow football and having a grand time. We have repeated this every year since, building snow forts, having snowball fights, and lying on the Quad to look at the stars when the clouds pass. I think this sums up one of the best things I have learned, which is to take advantage of the moments you have and enjoy them to the best of your ability. The times I have set aside my worries and just enjoyed the days I have with my friends are the times I best remember.
This story first appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of Bowdoin Magazine. Manage your subscription and see other stories from the magazine on the Bowdoin Magazine website.
