IMJR Highlights

Mariam Vargas ’25 (IMJR: International Relations) was featured in UConn Today for becoming the first ever UConn student to win a Rangel Fellowship. The Rangel Fellowship program The program supports individuals who want to pursue careers in the Foreign Service of the U.S. Department of State.

Karen Lau ’25 (IMJR: Asian and Asian American Studies) was featured in UConn Today. The article discusses Karen’s research into the 1982 International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) strike in Manhattan, which is the focus of her University Scholar project. 

Annabelle Lin Atkin ’12 (IMJR: Asian and Asian American Studies) was quoted in an August 2024 Axios article entitled “Trump Attack on Harris Comes as US Multiracial Population Exploding.” Atkin earned a PhD in 2020 from Arizona State University and is currently an assistant professor of Human Development and Family Science at Purdue University.

Christian Chlebowski ’24 (IMJR: Government, Policymaking, and Law) was featured in UConn Today. In the article, Christian discusses his experiences as an individualized major, a university scholar, a co-vice president of TEDxUConn, and more.

Patrick Murphy ’24 (IMJR: Paleontology as Outreach and Education) was featured in UConn Today. In addition to discussing the individualized major program and its 50-year history, the article details Patrick’s lifelong interest in dinosaurs and his passion to create education programs for learners of all ages.

Jordan Aeschlimann ’24 (IMJR: Fermentation Science) was featured in UConn Today. In the article, Jordan discusses a beer-brewing project she completed as part of a recent course called “Introduction to Brewery Engineering.”

Karen Lau ’25 (IMJR: Asian and Asian American Studies) was featured in UConn Today as part of the CLAS Connections series. She sat with her faculty advisor Dr. Jason Chang, director of UConn’s Asian and Asian American Studies Institute, to discuss their contributions to the passage of a recent state statute requiring the teaching of Asian American and Pacific Islander studies in Connecticut K-12 curricula.

Nour Al Zouabi ’23 (IMJR: Health, Rights, and Refugees) was a finalist for the Donald L. McCullough Leadership Award Student Life Award.

Christian Chlebowsky ’24 (IMJR: Government, Policymaking, and Law) is a 2023 University Scholar. His project is entitled, “One Small Step, One Giant Leap, One Extraordinary Journey: Comparing America’s Trajectories to the Moon in Apollo and Artemis,” and it aims to contextualize the Apollo and Artemis programs through a fiscal analysis of lunar-centered appropriations and the public support and Congressional attitudes they derive from. Christian is also a 2023 Leadership Legacy Student.

Karen Lau ’24 (IMJR: Asian and Asian-American Studies) is a 2023 Leadership Legacy Student. Her future career goals are to work in education policy and public interest law as an attorney, which would allow her to continue to tackle issues in education, labor, and climate change.

Krithika Santham ’25 (IMJR: Health Policy and Racial Disparities) has received the John T. Szarlan FYE Mentor Award for her work facilitating students in exploring Undergraduate Research to emphasize her truth of “stay curious and you won’t be bored a day in your life.” With Dr. Caroline Dealy, Krithika has also received a Summer Undergraduate Research Fund award for her project “BMP Signals Regulate Chondrocyte Maturation During Endochondral Ossification in the Postnatal Growth Plate.” And Krithika has been selected for the 6th cohort of the BOLD Women’s Leadership Network.

Akshayaa Chittibabu ’19 (IMJR: Health, Policy, and Social Medicine) and her faculty mentor Bandana Purkayastha, who is Associate Dean for Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology, were featured in UConn Today recently. In the article, they discuss their relationship and how important it was in Akshayaa’s growth as a student.

Keely Greiner ’22 (IMJR: Health Systems and Disparities) was featured in UConn Today because she is the recipient of a Fulbright U.S. Student Award. She will be attending Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and pursuing a Master’s of Art in philosophy with a concentration in philosophy, bioethics, and health. Keely is interested in the ethics involved in medical decision-making and medical aid in dying.

Justin Nappi ’24 (IMJR: Adaptive Programming and Design) was featured in UConn Today for his work with SmartCards AR, LLC, a company that he co-founded with Sudiksha Mallek. SmartCards AR is a learning platform that combines augmented reality (AR) technology with physical flashcards to provide an interactive educational experience for students in grades 2-5, particularly those who are neurodivergent.

Caroline Wexler ’24 (IMJR: Geoscience Communication and Visual Media) was featured in UConn Today for her participation in the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP) in 2022. She is producing a documentary film about her experience as the capstone project for her individualized major. 

Previous Years in Review

2021-2022, 2020-2021, 2019-2020, 2018-2019