Student Spotlight

Leadership Intern Iona Volynets Selected as 2023 Truman Scholar

Syracuse University junior Iona Volynets has been named as a 2023 recipient of the Truman Scholarship.

Volynets, of Washington, D.C., is a history and international relations major in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and College of Arts and Sciences with a museum studies minor in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, a Coronat Scholar and a member of the Renée Crown University Honors Program. In October 2022, Volynets was named as one of three Syracuse recipients of the Voyager Scholarship: the Obama-Chesky Scholarship for Public Service, a new award for juniors committed to public service funded by the Obama Foundation.
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Shaw Center Leadership Intern and Lender Center Student Fellow Nadia Larissa Lyngdoh-Sommer Involved in Social Justice AI Research

These days, it’s hard to go anywhere without encountering artificial intelligence (AI).

Predictive text offers to finish our web searches and our text messages. AI learning-based software can produce everything from research papers to poetry, solving complex math equations to writing computer code. AI can be used to write algorithms, collect data on which areas experience the most gun violence and dictate which neighborhoods receive access to vital resources.

This year, five students who make up the 2022-24 Lender Center for Social Justice Fellowship Project will set out to investigate how AI weapons systems transform war and surveillance, and they will also analyze how AI accentuates our social and political vulnerabilities to violence.
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Alumni Spotlight: Leadership Intern Pat Riolo ’20 G’21

Whitman at Work: Dual Degree Program Helps Recent Grad Carve Out Career Opportunities Combining Business, Engineering

Patrick Riolo ’20 (ECS), ’21 MBA always had an interest in health care, and a desire to create things that “would give value to people.” This led him to pursue a degree in bioengineering at Syracuse University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science. However, the entrepreneurial atmosphere he discovered on the University campus led him to the Whitman School where, in his sophomore year, he decided to combine engineering and entrepreneurship through the H. John Riley Dual Engineering/MBA Program. Today, this up-and-coming professional is using both skill sets as a marketing leadership development program associate at Hillrom, now a part of Baxter International Inc.
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Graduate Scholar: Anny Pérez ’20, G’22

Despite the prevalence of bilingual households in the United States, little research has been done about how growing up learning and speaking two languages impacts a child’s learning ability. Anny Pérez ’20, G’22 hopes to change that.
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An Impressive Repertoire

As executive director of a major philharmonic orchestra, an alumnus engages in advocacy and communication to build connections throughout an ascending career in arts management.
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Pandemic shifts intern’s focus to trauma-informed care opportunity

I completed my dietetic internship amidst the unique circumstances brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. To fulfill all 1,200 required supervised practice hours, rotations were shifted to an online, remote format. This change allowed me to become involved with a rotation site that I would not have experienced otherwise. Working remotely with the Food Bank of Central New York’s Community Nutrition Educator, Heather Brubaker (MS 2018), RD, and Community Nutrition Manager, Debra Mimaroglu, RDN, CDN (BS 2014, CAS 2015), I had the opportunity to learn about trauma-informed care and its application in nutrition education and programs.
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Leadership Intern Sofia de la Grana is Growing Through Education

Sofia de la Grana ’23 enjoys working with other students and helping them succeed. As a resident advisor (RA) for the International Living Learning Community at Syracuse University, she values sharing experiences, building relationships, exploring cultures and creating inclusive communities. She sees education as a pathway for bringing people together to learn from one another and improve understanding. “Education is at the forefront of what I want to do,” says de la Grana, who’s majoring in public relations at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and in citizenship and civic engagement at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

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Justine Legg Embraces a Larger Community

Justine Legg ’20 had four things in mind when she made the decision to trek from San Antonio, Texas, to attend Syracuse University. She had been born in New York, and was determined to return to the northeast for college. She hoped to focus on the social sciences, and knew that Syracuse University’s top-ranked Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs had the reputation she was looking for.