Sabrina came to Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences as a sophomore transfer student broadly interested in art and biology. Wanting to combine the two fields, she was drawn towards the field of bioarcheology due to its interdisciplinary nature in art, culture, and biology. Studying beyond the boundaries of campus, Sabrina conducted research on juvenile skeletal assemblages from the 15th century through an osteology workshop in Romania during summer 2019. Coming back to Cornell in the fall, she knew she wanted to continue studying osteology and expanded her interest from studying the osteology of humans to studying the diverse osteology of fishes. Since then, Sabrina has co-organized and presented at the 2020 Undergraduate Virtual Fishes Conference and has been pursuing her honors thesis research on the cranial osteology of Bonefishes under the advisement of Professor William Bemis and Dr. Kate Bemis.

The College of Arts and Sciences provides its students with the unique option to custom create a truly interdisciplinary curriculum for themselves in the spirit of Ezra Cornell’s “Any Person, Any Study.” Nick came to the College of Arts and Sciences with interests in both the humanities and the natural sciences, and with the ambition to complete a degree in both Asian Studies and Biological sciences. He was especially interested in intersections between the two fields, specifically Asian representation in science and the history of science in Asia. Learning about the contributions to the understanding of DNA replication made by Dr. Tsuneko Okazaki in BIOMG 1350 and the organic reactions developed by Dr. Akira Suzuki in CHEM 2080, Nick fostered this interest in Asian science history throughout his undergraduate career. During his senior year, he decided to draw upon this interest and begin a senior honors thesis on Asian science. By examining the research of Asian Nobel Laureates, he came to the conclusion that Japanese organic chemistry was one of the most prolific scientific fields in Asia, and he chose to center his thesis around the history of organic chemistry in Japan. Nick completed his honors thesis under the guidance of Prof. Andrew Campana and Prof. Nick Admussen of the Asian Studies Department, and the thesis has been awarded summa cum laude honors in recognition of its completion.