2025 Publicly-engaged Scholar Nominee Presentations

Each nominee will present a five-minute Ignite talk about their thesis research to an audience of peers, faculty, and CPGC staff members and community partners. The Ignite presentation process challenges seniors to communicate concisely about their research to diverse audiences. Following CPGC guidelines for community-engaged learning, prioritization is given to research questions that emerge through relationships with organizations and networks advancing justice. For the past several years, the CPGC has asked the audience to weigh in on each of the presentations by using a survey. The survey feedback is then tabulated and the CPGC Steering Committee makes a final decision, based on the survey data along with faculty and staff discernment. 

This event is open to everyone, and is an opportunity to hear from students whose work has emerged from, or in collaboration with, the community to advance justice and sustainability. Information on previous nominees and winners may be viewed at the links for 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2019.

Read on to learn more about 2025 nominees and their theses. 

Ellie Baron 

The “Inmate Grievance System”: A Deceitful Procedure Failing to Remedy Harmful Treatment of Incarcerated People in Pennsylvania State Prisons

Sociology 

Ellie Baron’s senior thesis in sociology examines the extreme barriers to resolving incarcerated peoples' grievances in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections through its “Inmate Grievance System.” The system nominally helps to remedy the inhumane conditions and mistreatment that incarcerated people face in Pennsylvania State Correctional Institutions. Instead, it denies 94.8 percent of incarcerated people who submit a grievance, rendering it ineffective at addressing issues reported by incarcerated people. Moreover, the procedure preserves and expands the power of prison staff who are responsible for abuses. Incarcerated people have few other means to advocate for changing their conditions. They lack the ability to access the courts unless they exhaust the grievance procedure in full. Also, they receive little empathy from politicians or the general public, many of whom have adopted a narrative characterizing them as untrustworthy and malicious, and thus deserving of fewer rights. Baron argues that the grievance procedure can only be successful if it is implemented by an independent organization and if the narrative about incarcerated people becomes more humanizing. Utilizing sociological theory, Baron's thesis characterizes the prison as a legitimate bureaucratic institution and incarceration as a cultural norm. Also, Baron weaves the expertise and experiences shared in her interviews with formerly incarcerated people as well as advocates for incarcerated people through her thesis. 

Kyla Hayes

Tender is The Flesh: Stigma and Survival in the Undead Metaphors of the Addicted Body in Philadelphia’s “Zombieland”

Anthropology, Health Studies Minor

Kyla Hayes’s senior thesis explores the symbolic and material consequences of stigma in Kensington, Philadelphia, where the rise of xylazine—dubbed the “zombie drug”—has intensified public narratives of decay, danger, and dehumanization. Through community engagement with a local harm reduction organization, Hayes examines how the “zombie” metaphor shapes public understanding of addiction, transforming individuals into spectacles and social outcasts. Drawing from media theory, symbolic anthropology, and critical public health, her research traces how metaphor becomes policy, and how words like “Zombieland” sanction surveillance, displacement, and structural neglect. By focusing on the performative power of language and stigma, Hayes exposes how the media’s fixation on grotesque imagery obscures the deeper roots of the opioid crisis: economic abandonment, racialized neglect, and political inaction. As a Philly native and harm reduction worker, Hayes approaches Kensington not as an outsider, but as someone actively involved in the community’s care infrastructure. Her work includes street outreach, peer support, and the distribution of Narcan and safer-use supplies—services that are often life-saving but politically undervalued. Her thesis aims to be scholarly and grounded, navigating the ethical complexities of representing a community under constant scrutiny. Rather than only reproducing narratives of despair, Hayes reframes addiction as a relational, structural issue—one that demands dignity, not punishment. Her work challenges moralizing frameworks and calls for public health solutions rooted in empathy, accountability, and justice.

Brisa Kane

How we care for each other: Mutual Aid Organizing on College Campuses

Anthropology and Education

Brisa Kane’s thesis explores the history, practices, and sustainability of Bi-Co Mutual Aid—a student-run organization at Haverford and Bryn Mawr founded in 2020 amid the pandemic and racial justice movements. Drawing on interviews with current and former organizers, Kane documents the group’s evolution and its role in redistributing resources to low-income, first-generation, and BIPOC students. Her thesis includes the creation of a website, archival record, and organizing toolkit to ensure the group’s longevity and to support mutual aid efforts on other campuses. Kane’s work highlights mutual aid as a radical, justice-oriented alternative to traditional economic and institutional models.

Estrella Pacheco 

“Why do we always have to be resilient?”: How Latin American Immigrant Communities Navigate Natural Disaster Through Social Infrastructure Response in Sonoma County, California 

Growth and Structure of Cities, Spanish Minor, & LAILS Concentration

Estrella Pacheco’s senior thesis in Growth and Structure of Cities examines how Latin American immigrant communities in Sonoma County, California, navigate state-imposed disaster vulnerabilities through grassroots social infrastructure. Drawing from her lived experience as a first-generation Mexican-American, she highlights how undocumented and immigrant populations face systemic neglect during natural disasters. Collaborating with local organizations—KBBF radio, UndocuFund, and Bayer Farm—Pacheco conducted ethnographic interviews to understand how these networks provide community-based disaster response and resilience. Her thesis, titled “Why do we always have to be resilient?”, will be translated into a bilingual zine for public access. She plans to continue this work in a Geography PhD.

Ileana Rodriguez 

Criminal Minds: An Analytical Look at the Entrenchment of Organized Crime in Mexico 

Political Science; Psychology Minor

Ileana Rodriguez’s thesis provides a brilliant critique of Mexico’s ineffective efforts to combat organized crime. Specifically, Rodriguez analyzes the evolving dynamics between political, state, international, and criminal actors since 1960. Throughout her thesis, Rodriguez exposes how the will and capacity of government actors significantly contributed to the entrenchment of criminal organizations and ensuing violence within Mexico. Her research on the complex connections between state and criminal actors lends further insight into the limitations of domestic and international strategies in their fight against criminal organizations. Her interviews with returning migrants, conducted in her work with Lives Beyond Borders, supplements her research with a first-hand understanding of the ways in which organized crime impacts immigration. Rodriguez offers an alternative strategy for how to reduce violence and impunity in Mexico that adopts a more integral harm-prevention approach; focused on strengthening democratic institutions and human rights. 

Nathan Schechter

Against Human Exceptionalism

Major: Philosophy

Minor: Economics

Nathan Schechter’s philosophy thesis, Against Human Exceptionalism, challenges the notion that humans are uniquely ethical beings. Drawing from thinkers like Uexküll, Saussure, Nietzsche, and McDowell, Schechter argues that non-human animals also operate within rational, normative frameworks and possess subjective worlds—or Umwelten—that support ethical and communicative agency. His work critiques sentimentalized views of animals and calls for cross-species community grounded in recognition. Developed alongside vegan student organizing and groups like Plant Futures, Schechter’s thesis promotes justice and sustainability by urging a radical rethinking of ethics—one that includes animals as rational, moral subjects, thereby confronting the limits of human-centered moral philosophy.

Julianna Watson 

Dethroning Daffodils: Education as Linguistic Imperialism in the Postcolonial Novel

English, Education Minor

Julianna Watson’s senior thesis explores postcolonial literary critiques of the colonial education system as a form of linguistic imperialism. It investigates the ways in which English education and literary canonization can reinforce systems of power rooted in colonialism, producing psychological and social alienation for those it seeks to indoctrinate. Drawing from her experiences teaching English with Asha, an NGO serving slum communities in New Delhi, Watson critically reflects on the moral and cultural complexities of English-language instruction. Her work combines literary analysis with real-world insights from students affected by linguistic imperialism and economic injustice. Informed by her English major, Education minor, school internships, and CPGC fellowship, her thesis bridges academic theory and ethical practice, offering a nuanced perspective on education and empowerment.

James Wayman 

Resistance Through Resilience: Guatemala’s Anti-Corruption Movement, 2015–2023

Political Science, Spanish Minor 

James Wayman’s thesis explores how popular resistance can counter democratic backsliding, focusing on Guatemala’s anti-corruption movement from 2015 to 2023. He analyzes the movement’s emergence, state countermobilization, and eventual electoral success. Using Resource Mobilization, Political Opportunity, and Framing Theories, he examines how resources, political openings, and messaging shaped outcomes. Wayman supplements theory with interviews of JusticiaYa organizers Gabriel Wer and Alvaro Montenegro, and activist Jose Reynoso, offering firsthand insight. His research contributes to democratic theory and provides practical guidance for global movements, blending academic analysis with real-world experience to support democratic resilience and effective civic resistance.

Kira Wu-Hacohen

Planting Seeds: Educator Reflections on Fostering Youth Political Engagement Through Art Education

Anthropology and Education

Kira Wu-Hacohen’s anthropology senior thesis explores how art education can be used as a tool in social justice education to empower youth to envision and create change. After working with Asian Arts Initiative’s youth art education programs through a CPGC-sponsored internship, she partnered with their teaching artists to design and teach an art workshop in their after school program. Through leading a collage workshop that prompted students to visualize the world that they want to live in, she gained insights into how art-making can provide a space for young people to engage in discussions about social justice and navigate their own sense of agency in creating change. This thesis blurs the line between social science research and teaching practice, offering a model for using art education to support youth engagement in social change.