Untitled - Jefferson Scholars Foundation

FELLOWS

The mission of the Jefferson Scholars Foundation 

is to serve the University of Virginia by 

identifying, attracting, and nurturing individuals 

of extraordinary intellectual range and depth 

who possess the highest concomitant qualities of 

leadership, scholarship and citizenship. 

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FELLOWS IN RESIDENCE 2012-13 

WILLIAM JOSEPH DIRIENZO (2008) 

EDWARD P. OWENS FELLOW 

Department of Astronomy 

University of Wisconsin-Madison (B.S.) 

University of Virginia (M.S.) 

Charlottesville, Virginia 

Bill has been busy researching the mysteries of star formation in 

the Milky Way galaxy. His major focus is the origin of the most 

massive stars because, even though they are rare, they have the 

greatest affect on their environment and their formation is the 

most difficult to understand. He has been preparing a paper for 

publication about the identification and analysis of triggered star 

formation in several regions. The presentation of this work won 

a Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Award for an outstanding 

graduate student poster at the 218th Meeting of the American Astronomical 

Society. Bill has begun to work in depth on his dissertation 

topic, the characteristics of Infrared Dark Clouds identified 

by the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope, and how that relates to 

the presence and type of star formation. This project will use data 

taken in the infrared, radio, and millimeter wavelength ranges. He 

has recently begun collecting data from the Combined Array for 

Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy in California to study the temperature, density, and chemical structure of 

IRDCs. Bill is involved with a program to mentor students at the Central Virginia Governor’s School for Science and Technology 

. He advised students working on the astrochemistry of a giant star’s wind and two star-forming regions, as well 

as the properties of Active Galactic Nuclei. Bill has also been advising an undergraduate Jefferson Scholar working on a 

project to identify Young Stellar Objects in a star-forming region and compare their infrared colors to their X-ray properties. 

This project is a continuation of a CVGS project from the previous year. Bill was the graduate student member of 

the Astronomy Department Admissions and Recruitment Committee for the past two years. He has recently completed 

the Teaching Resource Center’s “Tomorrow’s Professor Today” program, and successfully implemented teaching methods 

from the TPT program in his first solo taught course, Astronomy 1210: Introduction to the Sky and Solar System, last 

summer. Bill is excited to be the new Natural Sciences associate editor for the Jefferson Journal of Science and Culture. 

LAURA EMILY GOLDBLATT (2008) 

JOHN S. LILLARD FELLOW 

Department of English 

Wesleyan University (B.A.) 


This past year Laura served as the president of the Graduate 

English Students Association. In addition to this departmental 

commitment, she delivered a paper at the South Atlantic Modern 

Language Association annual conference in Atlanta and at the biannual 

meeting of the Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists 

in Berkeley. This summer she will attend the Futures of American 

Studies Institute at Dartmouth University where she will workshop 

a prospective article drawn from the third chapter of her dissertation. 

She is also currently working on an article about representations 

of Native Americans on U.S. postal stamps at the turn of the 

twentieth-century which she is co-authoring with professor and 

director of Global Development Studies Program, Richard Handler. 

They plan to complete the article sometime in August. 

2012 FELLOWS SUPPLEMENT 

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THE JEFFERSON FELLOWS 

MARY ELLEN HICKS (2008) 

NEWMAN FAMILY FELLOW 

Department of History 

University of Iowa (B.A.) 

University of Virginia (M.A.) 


Currently residing in Lisbon, Portugal, Mary is conducting her 

dissertation research on enslaved and free seamen of African descent 

in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century Luso-phone 

Atlantic. Her current project expands upon recent scholarship of 

the African diaspora that conceptualizes the southern Atlantic 

Ocean as a space that united, not divided, the non-contiguous territories 

of Europe, West Africa, and Brazil. By focusing on seafarers 

and the commercial activities in which they labored and profited 

from, Mary hopes to reveal the sometimes surprising degree of 

economic agency that enslaved and free African peoples exercised 

in the early modern Atlantic world. Her study will also address 

issues of violence and coercion, ethnicity, as well as other modes 

of identification and belonging, and the centrality of skilled labor 

preformed African peoples in Portugal and Brazil. Mary is planning 

to continue her primary research in London, Rio de Janeiro, and 

Salvador, Brazil in the upcoming semester. 

LINDSAY PARSONS O’CONNOR (2008) 

IRBY CAUTHEN FELLOW 


Tulane University (B.A.) 

University of Virginia (M.A.) 


In the fall of 2011, Lindsay served as a teaching assistant for an 

undergraduate survey of modern and contemporary literature in 

English and presented a paper about William Faulkner’s portrayal 

of the 1927 Mississippi flood at the South Atlantic Modern Language 

Association’s annual conference. Her dissertation prospectus 

was approved in the Spring of 2012 so she has begun work 

on waste and disaster in 20th century American literature and 

culture. Lindsay was part of the 2011-12 class of Praxis Fellows at 

the U.Va. Library’s Scholars’ Lab, where she has been learning web 

design in a digital humanities setting. This summer Lindsay will 

again participate in the Futures of American Studies Institute at 

Dartmouth College and will continue to build design skills as part 

of the U.Va. Writing Program’s Batten Project. 

2 JEFFERSON SCHOLARS FOUNDATION


HAROLD SMITH REEVES (2008) 

ERIC M. HEINER FELLOW 

Department of Classics 

Princeton University (B.A.) 

Brooksville, Florida 

Harold spent the past academic year preparing for his Ph.D. 

comprehensive exams, a collection of 4 written examinations 

on Latin and Greek language and literature, and a two hour oral 

examination. He passed all five examinations and is now beginning 

to define a topic for his dissertation. 

CAROLYN BEANS (2009) 

TERRENCE D. DANIELS FAMILY FELLOW 

Department of Biology 

Penn State University (B.A.) 


This past year Carolyn began her dissertation research through 

an investigation of the impact of an invasive species, Showy 

Jewelweed, on the evolution of the closely-related native species, 

Spotted Jewelweed. Her preliminary results suggest that the 

invasive competitor strongly out competes the native species for 

pollinators. The competitor also alters the evolutionary trajectory 

of floral traits such as shape and color in the native plant. Carolyn 

recently won a grant from the Scientific Research Society Sigma 

Xi to continue this work. She will present her current findings 

this summer at the microMORPH workshop at Harvard’s Arnold 

Arboretum as well as at the annual Evolution meeting in Ottawa, 

Canada. In addition to her dissertation work, Carolyn has also 

studied the spread of the invasive species Japanese Honeysuckle 

in the United States. Her work suggests that in areas of high human 

influence such as cities, Japanese Honeysuckle can survive 

even in suboptimal climates. She recently published this research 

in the journal Biological Invasions. Carolyn has also continued her 

volunteer work with U.Va.’s Women in Math and Science by teaching 

science lessons to kindergarten and first grade students at Red 

Hill Elementary School. 


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BENJAMIN KAGAN BRADY (2009) 

ERIC P. AND ELIZABETH R. JOHNSON FAMILY FELLOW 


Princeton University (B.A.) 


Ben has completed his final year of coursework and passed his 

comprehensive exams. He is beginning work on a dissertation 

examining Europe’s embrace of U.S. legal doctrines after World 

War II. 

GABRIELLE KATHRYN LEE MILLER (2009) 

D.N. BATTEN FOUNDATION FELLOW 


University of Notre Dame (B.A.) 


Gaby presented the paper, “In Defense of Motherhood: Merce 

Rodoreda’s La plaza del diamante” this spring at the Kentucky 

Foreign Language Conference. She also won the Spanish Department’s 

2012 GTA Outstanding Teaching Award. In June, she will 

be teaching an undergraduate Spanish course at U.Va. She looks 

forward to traveling in Spain in July. Gaby has one more year of 

coursework before she begins work on her dissertation. As part 

of her comprehensive exams in spring of 2013, she plans to work 

on a year long project, directed by Professor Randolph, which will 

focus on contemporary Spanish novels published in the past 20 

years. 



SARAH ANNE O’HALLORAN (2009) 

EDGAR SHANNON FELLOW IN MUSIC 

Department of Music 

University College Cork (B.A.) 

University College Cork (M.Phil.) 

Queens University Belfast (M.A.) 

Washington, D.C. 

This fall Sarah began co-hosting The Listening Room on WTJU, a 

show focused on contemporary art music. In recent months her 

music has been performed by the Voxare String Quartet and the 

MICE Ensemble at U.Va. It has also been played at George Mason 

University as part of the College Music Society Mid-Atlantic 

Regional Conference and at Stony Brook University as part of their 

symposium Encountering Data. Sarah has presented her research 

on avant garde singer Tanya Tagaq at the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of 

the Society of Ethnomusicology Annual Conference at College of 

William and Mary, College Music Society Mid Atlantic Regional 

Conference at George Mason University and International Alliance 

of Women in Music Congress at Northern Arizona University. 

JASON A. PAN (2009) 

TAYLOR-TYREE FAMILY FELLOW 

Department of Law 

University of Virginia (B.A.) 


As a triple Hoo Jason has spent this year trying to strengthen the 

linkages between various communities on-grounds. In particular 

he continues to build on his passion from college for mentoring 

and tutoring. He was elected to serve as vice president of Mentoring 

for Legal Advisory Workshops for Undergraduate Students 

Mentoring, which mentors undergraduates on their law school applications. 

He will help run the Darden U.Va. Mentoring program, 

which leverages the experience of Darden students to give career 

advice to other U.Va. students. Jason was elected to the board 

of the Asian and Asian Pacific American Alumni Network and will 

serve on the committee overseeing the alumni-student mentoring 

program. As a J.D./M.B.A., Jason enjoys his studies of the intersection 

between business and the law and seeks to apply it in a 

practical way. He joined Darden Capital Management and will help 

manage the Rotunda Fund, which has a sustainability focus and 

$800,000 assets under management. Jason finds the strong 

overlay of policy in this sector appealing and hopes this experience will refine the way he thinks about how policy should 

be crafted and implemented. This summer he will intern at the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Division of 

Risk, Strategy, and Financial Innovation. He is very thankful to receive a grant from the Darden Non-Profit Internship Fund 

for living expenses. Jason also served as an assistant director of Operations for the E* Society, which promotes entrepreneurship 

at the Law School, and as a research assistant to Professor David C. Smith, a professor at the McIntire School of 

Commerce. He participated during the 2012 Jefferson Scholars Selection Weekend as an essay reader and gave a talk on 

international investment law during the Fellows Symposium. 


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CORLETT WOLFE WOOD (2009) 

H. EUGENE LOCKHART FAMILY FELLOW 


Swarthmore College (B.A.) 


Corlett spent the past year analyzing her first summer’s worth of 

field data for her dissertation. In the summer of 2011 she worked 

with an undergraduate collaborator to determine whether beetles 

specialize on a single food resource. Using genetic data from over 

600 beetles that were collected from three species of fungus, 

they found that beetles migrate freely among fungi, indicating 

that individual beetles do not specialize on a single resource. This 

summer Corlett is conducting a second study with another undergraduate 

collaborator to extend these results. They will measure 

the strength of natural and sexual selection on beetles living on 

each of these three species of fungi to determine whether there 

is an advantage to resource specialization in this species. Corlett 

recently received a Student Research Award from the American 

Society of Naturalists to fund this project. Finally, Corlett is looking 

forward to serving as co-editor-in-Chief for the Jefferson Journal of 

Science and Culture with Sarah O’Halloran this coming year. 

DANIEL ELLIOT FRANZ (2010) 

PAUL B. BARRINGER FAMILY FELLOW 

Department of Mathematics 

Kenyon College (B.A.) 


Daniel successfully passed his qualifying exams in the fall and 

enjoyed his first year of teaching, finding it very enriching and 

rewarding. This summer he will be doing reading on combinatorial 

group theory and p-adic analyticity to prepare for doing research 

in the fall. 



ANNE MARIE GUARNERA (2010) 

JOHN A. BLACKBURN FELLOW 

Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese 

Bryn Mawr College (B.A.) 


At the beginning of this school year, Anne was appointed to 

serve as a preceptor in the Department of Spanish, Italian and 

Portuguese. In this leadership position she works to oversee and 

coordinate the work of all Spanish Teaching Assistants teaching 

the department’s Intermediate Spanish classes. She will continue 

to serve as a preceptor in the 2012-2013 school year as well. Anne 

presented a portion of her M.A. thesis at this year’s Jefferson 

Fellows Symposium in February. She passed all eight of her M.A. 

comprehensive exams in March and finished her thesis, entitled 

“La mexicanidad reciclada de Pedro Ángel Palou,” in April. Her 

thesis examines Palou’s postmodern treatment of Mexican national 

identity as it emerges in his most recent trilogy of historical 

novels. Anne was awarded a Summer Language Institute Fellowship 

by the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, which she will 

combine with a grant from Middlebury College in order to attend 

the Middlebury Language Summer Institute in Portuguese this 

summer. She is excited to expand her research to contemporary 

Brazilian poetry and fiction. 

CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL IRWIN (2010) 

OLIVE B. AND FRANKLIN C. MAC KRELL FELLOW 

Department of Astronomy 

University of Pittsburgh (B.S.) 

Irwin, Pennsylvania 

This January Chris successfully passed his second qualifying exam 

and was admitted to PhD candidacy in the Astronomy Department. 

He has continued his research of supernovae--the extreme 

deaths of massive stars--which combines theoretical work with 

analysis of data from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. This year 

Chris co-authored two supernova papers in the Astrophysical 

Journal Letters: “X-Rays from Supernova Shocks in Dense Mass 

Loss” and “Strong Evolution of X-Ray Absorption in the Type IIn 

Supernova SN 2010jl.” A third paper on another X-ray bright 

supernova, SN 2006jd, was recently submitted to the Astrophysical 

Journal as well. In addition, Chris has worked with Jefferson 

Scholar Eda Herzog-Vitto on a Fellow-Scholar research project, 

studying how pulsars interact with their surroundings. As part of 

his fall coursework, Chris had the opportunity to visit several major 

observatories in Arizona and New Mexico, including the Large 

Binocular Telescope, the Very Large Array, and Apache Point 

Observatory, where he received training on the 3.5-meter telescope. He also served as a TA for an astronomy lab course 

that introduces students to small telescopes and the night sky. This summer Chris will teach an introductory course 

about stars and galaxies, and plans to study gamma-ray bursts--the most luminous events in the universe--and their 

connection to the brightest known supernovae. 


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REED A. JOHNSON (2010) 

JOHN S. LILLARD FELLOW 

Department of Slavic 

Wesleyan University (B.A.) 


Since last year’s report Reed has continued pursuing his interest 

in literary translation, and this spring will see the publication of 

two of his own Russian-to-English translations along with a critical 

essay in the literary journal Meridian. As part of his goal of introducing 

American audiences to little-known Russian writers, he has 

focused on the work of the author Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, an 

early Soviet writer whose work lay undiscovered in state archives 

for nearly a half century, and who is only now receiving critical 

and popular attention. Alongside these publications Reed has also 

presented on Krzhizhanovsky’s work, first at the Annual Jefferson 

Fellows Symposium, and later at the Southern Slavic Conference 

in Savannah, Georgia, where he gave a conference paper entitled 

“Man Against Time: Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s Memories of 

the Future.” Reed has concurrently been working on translating 

a more recent Russian author, a young writer named Vsevolod 

Benigsen, who has been nominated for numerous literary prizes 

and is one of the most intriguing writers working in Russia today. Reed has had the opportunity to work directly with 

Benigsen--who speaks fluent English--on a translation of a short story, and hopes their friendly collaboration will continue 

into the future. Besides his translation activity Reed has been hard at work on coursework, and this year passed 

his comprehensive exams with distinction and will receive a master’s degree in May 2012. Along with his departmental 

colleagues, he organized U.Va.’s Third Annual Slavic Forum, where he presented a paper on a Soviet writer of the Gulag, 

Varlam Shalamov, entitled “One Thousand and One Kolyma Nights: Shalamov and Scheherazade.” In addition Reed has 

greatly enjoyed teaching undergraduates in second-year Russian classes this past year, and will continue teaching Russian 

language for his third year in the fellowship. 

STEPHANIE RACHEL BERNHARD (2011) 

GREGORY L. AND NANCY H. CURL FELLOW 


Brown University (B.A.) 


Stephanie is spending summer 2012 in Rome to study Latin 

poetry. She is a contributing blogger and features writer for Full 

Stop Magazine. 



FRANK JOSEPH CIRILLO (2011) 

JOHN L. NAU III FELLOW 


Yale University (B.A.) 

Rye, New York 

In his first year as a graduate student in the History Department, 

Frank presented a recent paper regarding the memory of Abraham 

Lincoln at two graduate conferences, and he also had a book 

review published in a graduate history journal. Frank is currently 

working on exploring how abolitionists invoked the memory of 

Thomas Jefferson before and during the American Civil War. He 

will spend the summer as a research and reporting intern for the 

local public radio history program, BackStory with the American 

History Guys. 

ANNE ELAINE DUNCKEL (2011) 

PAUL T. JONES II FELLOW 

Department of Environmental Sciences 

University of Texas (B.S.) 


Anne is currently active in her National Science Foundation 

Graduate Research Fellowship tenure for her Master’s thesis. 

Her Masters work is focused on environmental changes to the 

denitrification N2O/N2 ratio in agricultural stream sediments on 

the Eastern Shore of Virginia. 


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ASHLEIGH DAWN ELSER (2011) 

MARC AND NANCY SHRIER FELLOW 

Department of Religious Studies 

Prairie Bible College (B.A.) 

Yale (M.A.) 


After spending the summer of 2011 studying at Tel Aviv University 

in Israel, Ashleigh stepped into her first year of coursework in 

the Religious Studies Department. She was selected as a Rachel 

Winer Manin Interdisciplinary Fellow of Jewish Studies in the fall 

and during the spring semester she presented a paper at the Mid- 

Atlantic Meetings of the American Academy of Religion. 

LAUREN K. REYNOLDS (2011) 

WILLIAM AND CAROLYN POLK FELLOW 

Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese 

The University of Iowa (B.A.) 


During the summer of 2012 Lauren will attend El Colegio de 

Mexico to study contemporary Mexican culture. A Summer Research 

Grant from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and 

research funds from the Jefferson Scholars Foundation made this 

opportunity possible. 



LINDSAY MARIE ROBERTS (2011) 

THE SCHENCK LAW FELLOW 


Edinboro U. of PA. (B.I.S.) 

University of Scranton (M.S.) 


Lindsay spent a portion of winter break working for Legal Aid 

Services in Charleston, South Carolina. She had the opportunity 

to work with and for current and prospective clients under the 

supervision of an experienced attorney. Lindsay also joined the 

Virginia Sports and Entertainment Journal this spring, and is enjoying 

the articles and content after being a collegiate athlete herself, 

while also expanding upon her legal writing skills. 

JOCELYN RACHEL ROHRBACH (2011) 

HARRISON FAMILY FOUNDATION FELLOW 

Department of Classics 

Catholic Univ. of America (B.A.) 

Washington University (M.A.) 

St. Louis, Missouri 

Jocelyn will be studying this summer for her Master’s exams in 

Greek literature, and in the preliminary stages of her master’s 

paper. She will also be working to increase her reading proficiency 

in German. 


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JESSE I. ROSENTHAL (2011) 

PETER AND EADDO KIERNAN DARDEN FELLOW 

Department of Darden 

University of Chicago (B.A.) 


While also surviving his first year at Darden, Jesse was elected 

president of the Darden Health Care Club and was selected by 

his peers for a leadership position in Community Consultants 

of Darden, a student-led club which offers consulting services 

for small businesses and non-profits in Charlottesville. He will 

be interning this summer at the San Francisco office of Bain & 

Company. 

ROBERTO I. ARMENGOL (2012) 

JEFFERSON ARTS AND SCIENCES 

DISSERTATION YEAR FELLOW 

Department of Anthropology 

University of Delaware (B.A.) 

University of Virginia (M.A) 




CHARLES EDSEL COTHERMAN (2012) 

HILLIARD FAMILY FELLOW 


Grove City College (B.A.) 

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (M.A.) 

Knox, Pennsylvania 

ADAM JAMES FALLON (2012) 

LAURA S. BAILEY FELLOW 

Department of Physics 

University of Oklahoma (B.A.) 

University of Oklahoma (B.S.) 



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ROBERT BENJAMIN GORHAM (2012) 

EDGAR SHANNON FELLOWS IN ART HISTORY 

Department of Art History 

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (B.A.) 

University of Arizona at Tucson (M.A.) 

Durham, North Carolina 

JONATHAN GRINSPAN (2012) 

JEFFERSON ARTS AND SCIENCES 

DISSERTATION YEAR FELLOW 


Sarah Lawrence College (B.A.) 




ASHLEY ROBIN HURST (2012) 

GROUNDBREAKERS FELLOW 


University of Florida, Gainesville (B.A.) 

Yale University (M.Div.) 

New Haven, Connecticut 

KATHERINE ELENA KOOPMAN (2012) 

MELVILLE FOUNDATION DARDEN FELLOW 


Harvard (B.A.) 

Arlington, Virginia 


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ANDREW H. KRITZER (2012) 

JOHN L. COLLEY JR. DARDEN FELLOW 


University of Michigan - Ann Arbor (B.A.) 

New York, New York 

MICHAEL CHASE LEVINSON (2012) 

HAROLD J. AND JACQUELYN F. RODRIGUEZ 

FAMILY FELLOW 

Department of Economics 

University of South Carolina -- Columbia (B.S.) 




BENJAMIN W. MOHLIE (2012) 

W.L. LYONS BROWN III DARDEN FELLOW 


Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - NY (B.S.) 

Belmont, Massachusetts 

ALICIA NOBLES (2012) 

OLIVE B. AND FRANKLIN C. MAC KRELL FELLOW 

Department of Engineering 

Georgia Inst Technology (B.S.) 

Atlanta, Georgia 


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SARAH G. NOLAN (2012) 

SIMPSON THACHER & BARTLETT LAW FELLOW 


College of William & Mary (B.A.) 

University of Wisconsin (M.A.) 

Madison, Wisconsin 

MATTHEW PAUL JULIUS ORESKA (2012) 

KENNETH L. BAZZLE FELLOW 

Department of Environmental Sciences 

College of William and Mary (B.S.) 

University of Cambridge (M.Phil.) 

Henrico, Virginia 



AARON MICHAEL REEDY (2012) 

JAMES H. AND ELIZABETH W. WRIGHT FELLOW 


Southern Illinois University Carbondale (B.A.) 

National-Louis University (M.A.) 

Chicago, Illinois 

For the past seven years Aaron Reedy taught at Thomas Kelly High 

School in Chicago, where he used innovative projects to connect 

his classroom to the wider world of science. In pursuit of great 

education, he sea-kayaked down the Mississippi River, immersed 

kids in field studies of reptile reproductive biology and climate 

change, and carried out professional-level science in the classroom. 

Right now he is a team member on a National Geographic/ 

Waitts grant to investigate the role that the sex ratio plays in evolution 

and population growth in island populations of lizards. At 

his blog,wideworldscience.blogspot.com, he helps bring field biology 

into classrooms and shares the work of his students with the 

world. Reedy recently spoke at TED 2012 on lines of evidence used 

by evolutionary biology.Together with legendary animator Candy 

Kugel of Buzz Co. studios, he wrote and narrated an animated 

video lesson on sex determination systems in the animal kingdom, 

for ed.ted.com, the new TED education website. 

JASON SCOTT REMER (2012) 

PETER AND CRISLER QUICK FELLOW 

Department of Engineering 

George Mason University (B.S.) 

George Mason University (M.S.) 

Fairfax, Virginia 


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