Faculty Spotlight
Does seeing images of Taylor Swift actually affect people’s feelings about the NFL? Psychology professor Steven Fein and students in his Experimentation and Statistics class conducted research to try to answer this question, as well as to identify which kinds of people are the most negatively affected by her appearances.
Student Spotlight
Hikaru Hayakawa ’24 is vice president and deputy executive director of Climate Cardinals, a nonprofit that makes scientific literature more accessible to non-English speakersand which recently became one of the first-ever youth-led organizations supported by Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org. Hikarua says he hopes the recognition “encourages others to redirect more resources towards empowering the next generation of environmental leaders.”
Alumni Spotlight
Appointed by U.S. President Joe Biden to chair the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan ‘10 is implementing plans to transform the agency and bring forward big enforcement actions against the technology industry. During her tenure, the FTC has pushed to ban non-compete agreements, filed lawsuits against healthcare companies engaging in anti-competitive practices, and blocked a record number of mergers on antitrust grounds.
Student Spotlight
In the introductory course Oceanography, Vanya Funez ’26 and her classmates spent the semester studying topics including the archive of Earth’s history contained in seafloor sediments, the transfer of energy and matter in ocean food webs, and how ocean basins are created and destroyed. A highlight was exploring the shores of Connecticut and Rhode Island during a day-long trip facilitated by the Williams-Mystic Program, where hands-on research and guest speakers brought to life the concepts they learned in the classroom.
Faculty Spotlight
English professor Bernie Rhie teaches classes on the conception of the self, Buddhism’s influence on American literature and culture, and Asian American literature, among other subjects, and leads the weekly Williamstown Meditation Group. The creator of popular Instagram account @Zen_Prof discusses the value of incorporating contemplative practices into his teaching.
Alumni Spotlight
Jenny Jackson ’01 went from studying Esmerelda Santiago and Sandra Cisneros at Williams to publishing them at Knopf—and now has written her own wildly popular book. Pineapple Street, a fictionalized look into an ultra-wealthy New York family, became an instant bestseller and has a TV adaptation in the works.
Student Spotlight
The Log Lunch, a beloved Williams tradition run by the Center for Environmental Studies, has literally provided food for thought for nearly 50 years. Held on Fridays, the lunches bring together students, staff and faculty across all disciplines for a locally sourced, vegetarian meal prepared by students, followed by a half-hour talk on a host of environmental topics including water contamination issues, farmworker justice and oyster harvesting.
Alumni Spotlight
A tech-based internship with the Williams College Museum of Art helped Will McCormick ’23 draw connections between his seemingly disparate majors and influenced both his artistic practice and his next steps after college. “It’s hard to discover your niche and figure out how to pursue it. It’s been interesting to learn photogrammetry and RTI and have these techniques that unlock new pathways for me within my personal art practice.”
Alumni Spotlight
Devon Parfait '22, coastal resilience analyst for the Environmental Defense Fund and chief of the Grand Caillou/Dulac band of Biloxi Chitimacha Choctaw, spoke to Rolling Stone about how his geoscience research at Williams and post-graduation professional experiences have empowered him to advocate for his tribal community and protect Louisiana’s crumbling coastline.
Faculty Spotlight
Psychology professor Victor Cazares credits his career in academia to his community college experience. At Williams, he has aimed to recreate that same close-knit learning environment both inside and outside the classroom through his work with the Transfer Student Union and SUBE, a student-run organization focused on empowering Latinx students to develop professional pursuits in STEM+ fields, where they are historically underrepresented.
Student Spotlight
More than a third of the Williamstown Fire Department volunteer force consists of Williams students—the highest percentage in nearly 50 years of the partnership—thanks in large part to Grant Gattuso ’23 and Will Titus ’23, who founded the Williams College Firefighters’ Association in 2022. Now, student volunteer firefighters including Alexandra Riggs ’26 and Kendall Rice ’25 are filling a crucial need in the community and gaining important life skills in the process.
Alumni Spotlight
As CEO and president of the innovative Greyston Bakery, Joseph Kenner ’96 carries forward the organization’s Open Hiring strategy and teaches other businesses how to eliminate barriers to employment. “This is…part of your business strategy. It’s actually economic development. We just have to have a mind shift in terms of how and where we look for talent and how we bring that talent into the organization.”
Faculty Spotlight
In her course, Opioids and the Opioid Crisis: The Neuroscience Behind an Epidemic, psychology professor Shivon Robinson ’11 and her students delve into the clinical, societal and historical contexts of opioid addiction, with the intention to help shift public perception about those who suffer from addiction. “When you’re able to inform other people, hopefully that’s when we’ll see some positive change.”
Alumni Spotlight
As Laura Wang ’21 found her way to the pre-med track at Williams, she was determined to incorporate the ideas she was engaging with in her other courses into that field of study. Now enrolled at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, she credits visiting professor Ahmed Ragad's courses with helping her understand the intersection of medicine and public health through history, literature and religion.
Faculty Spotlight
“Is there a way that I can create jazz scholarship and scholarship on African diasporic cultural expression, where people can learn about performers’ stories but also feel it?” Africana Studies professor Rashida Braggs embarks on multidisciplinary explorations of Black women jazz musicians in Paris, combining ethnography, archival research and music to explore their experiences.
Student Spotlight
At a time when artificial intelligence seems to be developing with increasing speed, Sneha Revanur ’26—whom Politico calls “the Greta Thunberg of AI” and who was named the youngest member of the Time 100 Most Influential People in AI—and the group she founded, Encode Justice, urge policymakers to set some humanistic ground rules.