The intellectual discoveries of seniors

Senior Symposium, held this year on Friday, April 24, is a day dedicated to hearing from graduating seniors about their intellectual interests and discoveries. This year, seniors presented on a wide range of scholarly projects — from an orchestral arrangement about endangered and extinct birds to indoor air pollution from cooking oils to dance as a form of neuroqueer embodiment, and much more in between. 

This year’s Senior Symposium included 116 different presentations by the class of 2026, with students presenting on capstone projects, independent studies, scientific research, summer internships and their thesis projects. 

“My thesis is 80 pages, so this is a very distilled version of my research,” laughed Emma Quirk ’26 as she presented about her thesis, “Navigating the Past, Visioning the Future: Constructions of Sovereignty, Nationalism, and Belonging in Black and Jewish Literatures.” Quirk discussed the similarities in the beliefs and differences in the experiences between the Black and Jewish diasporas, and how her thesis originally focused on nationality but later shifted to the idea of diaspora. After graduating Mount Holyoke College, Quirk will head to Oxford University to pursue a master’s in Jewish Studies. “Again, this was a very brief overview, so if anyone wants to read all 80 pages of my thesis, please let me know,” she concluded. 

“Senior Symposium is an extraordinary annual tradition at Mount Holyoke. We come together to hear seniors present on their capstone research and creative work, much of which has been years in the making,” said Amy E. Martin, director of the Weissman Center for Leadership. The Weissman Center is the organizer of the Senior Symposium. “Their presentations are really a testament to what you can achieve in the context of the kind of excellent liberal arts college education that Mount Holyoke offers, especially when there is such close collaboration with and mentoring by faculty. It is such a joy to celebrate our seniors and to have a glimpse into all the ways that they will change the world after graduation.”

Senior Symposium is also an opportunity for family, friends and the community to understand the seniors’ research journeys and to show support for their hard work. Many proud families attended the various panels and expressed their excitement, love and pride.

Georgia Swanson ’26 was in the audience to support their friends. “The presentation that I’m specifically seeing is a senior thesis, and that senior thesis defense is not open, so I’m really excited to see that work through the Senior Symposium.” 

“I believe all queer stories deserve to be told, not just the singular and extreme ones,” said Emma Uva ’26, presenting their Dance department capstone project, “Hearts Fit for Home: Celebration and Adaptation in Concert Dance.” The project highlighted their own personal stories and those of their friends about lesbianism and queerness, as well as queer media, and translated them into a dance capstone piece. 

Senior Symposium is also an opportunity for seniors to explain the broader impact of their research, such as medical school programming, medical diagnostics, genetic immunotherapy, scientific accessibility and artistic expression. Rose Chandler ’26 presented “The Green Hydrogen Revolution: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Renewable Energy Transition in Namibia.” This was both her senior chemistry thesis and her Lynk-supported summer research experience. She recalled going to an academic conference halfway around the world for her topic. “These [other attendees] would [say], ‘Why are you here? Why are you, this American … teenager here?’ I got to ambush them, which was really cool! It was like being a spy.”

As Marty Belfer ’26 presented their thesis “Turn of Phrase: A Queer Reimagination of David Gordon’s ‘Not Necessarily Recognizable Objectives,’” their mother Genevieve Belfer was in the audience. She was “so excited to see how all the research behind it came together and excited to see all the other projects as well.”

Senior Symposium began as a project of the Chemistry department. In 1975, it expanded to include all the sciences. In 2006, it was launched as an opportunity for all graduating seniors. Senior Symposium is supported in part by the Richard and Donna Taylor Endowment Fund, established by Jean Taylor ’66.