Ben Geller '01

I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, a child of parents from New York City who left to raise a family in a small town. I was and am a passionate sports fan, whose favorite teams always let me down but never stop me from believing the next year will be different. My dad is a lawyer who spent his entire career working for Legal Services, providing voice and representation to low income folks and those who are most vulnerable. Those values were instilled in me from an early age and now inform my teaching and research. I am a Swarthmore alum, having graduated from the college with a degree in Chemistry in 2001.

As an undergraduate I was fascinated by almost every subject I studied and felt like they were all connected. I wrote a paper about the similarities between quantum mechanics and Buddhist philosophy, and another exploring what genetics had to say about ethics. Picking a major was a challenge and I changed my mind a few times along the way. After college I did a master’s degree in the Philosophy of Physics at Columbia University, spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar in the U.K, and ultimately pursued and obtained a Ph.D. in Physics. It’s been a winding path, but the strand that runs through all of it is the liberal arts commitment to seeing the natural sciences and humanities as deeply connected. I do Physics Education Research, a field of study that explores all aspects of how students learn science, and physics in particular. I’m interested in how not just thoughts and ideas, but also attitudes and emotions, play such an important role in how we learn math and science. It is also research that directly informs my teaching. I am continually trying to make my classroom a more interactive and engaging space in which all students can learn deeply. I’m excited to share some of my experiences and learn from everyone involved in the Summer Scholars Program!

Kyra Harvey-Broughton '19

As a Swarthmore student from a low-income background, I had first-hand experience with some of the challenges that under-resourced students face as they transition to Swarthmore's rigorous academic environment. In S3P, I share my own experience pursuing a STEM major at Swarthmore whilst battling imposter syndrome. As an antidote to overwhelm, I work to familiarize Scholars with the plethora of resources available to them as Swarthmore students, and I encourage them to regularly and persistently seek help. My hope is that scholars finish our program with a sense of belonging in community and a strong network of support that will last throughout and beyond their time in college.

Karen Henry '87

When I came to Swarthmore, I felt like I didn't fit. I struggled here, mainly because my Philadelphia high school hadn't prepared me for the challenge. What saved me was the mentoring I got from faculty and staff. All of them helped me not just to survive but to thrive at Swarthmore.

When I returned to work in the Student Affairs Division, I determined to make sure to provide this same kind of mentoring and support. A lot of students come into my office and describe what a different experience Swarthmore is for them. I share with them my experience and assure them they will survive. I encourage them to use faculty office hours and to speak up in discussion-based classes—two things first-gen students struggle with. I tell them that this is their chance to take advantage of the great resources Swarthmore has to offer—summer research funding, internships, career services, and programs such as the Richard Rubin Scholar Mentoring Program. This helps first-gen students navigate not only Swarthmore, but life after.

Dawn Carone

Growing up in a small town in CT, I was passionate about playing the piano but also always loved my science classes and thought I might want to pursue a path in medicine.  When it came time to make a decision about college, I ended up choosing a pre-med path and went to the University of Connecticut as a Molecular and Cell Biology major.  There, I was the first in my family to graduate from college, and the only one to pursue a path in science/medicine.  Ultimately, I found that my true passion really lay in research, but at the time I had no idea what a career path in genetics research might look like.  I was fortunate to have amazing mentors from my undergraduate and graduate school years that pushed me to pursue graduate study in molecular biology and genetics and showed me that I could pursue a Ph.D. in Genetics and Genomics and foster my interest in teaching along the way.  I am eternally grateful to those mentors who ultimately set me on my career path and it is one of the true highlights of my job as a professor at Swarthmore to be able to mentor and train our diverse student body.  I learned along the way that career paths change and are not linear, even though they often seem to be from an outside perspective.  I am fortunate to have been able to pursue my passions along my own non-linear path and that I get to now share those passions with Swarthmore students.

At Swarthmore, I run a research lab focused on the study of noncoding RNA in cancer cells.  My lab focuses on the role that repetitive elements play in genome regulation and in misregulation in disease.  I also teach in our molecular and cell introductory biology course, an intermediate course in genetics, and an upper level seminar in genome regulation.  

Outside of my academic pursuits, I enjoy running, mountain biking, water sports and snow sports (anything outdoors!) and spending time (mostly outdoors!) with my spouse, 2 sons and our dog, Loki.  I'm excited to share my passions with the students, mentors, and faculty involved in the S3P program!

Ralph Gomez

I grew up just outside of Fresno, in the central valley of California. I came from a low-income background and was the first in my family to attend college. We never discussed the idea of going to college in my household. It was only a concept one saw on television. Unsure of what to do after high school, I enrolled in the local community college where I became very attracted to math and science. I transferred to UC Santa Cruz where I earned a BA in mathematics. Subsequently, I earned an MA in applied math at UCSC.  Once I finished at UCSC, I taught for a year at the very community college where I started. Then, I went to the University of New Mexico where I earned my PhD in mathematics in 2008.

My area of research is in differential geometry, especially as it relates to ideas in theoretical physics. Roughly speaking differential geometry is a branch of mathematics that uses powerful generalizations of calculus to understand the shape of different kinds of spaces.

I am very excited to share with you some of the fantastically beautiful aspects of mathematics and their relationship to the sciences. 

Alba Newmann Holmes

I grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. My father immigrated to the US from Colombia when he was eleven, and my parents settled in New Mexico, in part, because my dad felt a sense of connection to the culture and use of Spanish there. Both of my parents are visual artists, which is another reason they gravitated to Santa Fe.

I went to college at the University of Chicago — and as a low-income student coming from an under-resourced public high school, it was a very difficult transition. I experienced culture shock as well as imposter syndrome (though I didn’t know that term, at the time). I struggled — not just with the academic workload, but also with my sense of self: why was I finding it so difficult to feel like a success when some of my peers made it look easy? Those experiences inform my teaching today. One of my goals as a professor of writing is to help student writers understand and respond to the demands of academic writing by developing a robust and adaptable writing process. Sometimes that means helping them unlearn what they have learned before about writing or themselves.

Growing up, I was always interested in writing and in nature, and in my professional career I’ve found rewarding ways of combining these — my research as a graduate student focused on poetry and cartography, I’ve been able to teach a course here at Swarthmore in Environmental Studies that focuses on walking outdoors, and the poetry I write often responds to the natural world. At Swarthmore, I direct our Writing Associates Program, which educates Swat students to become peer mentors of writing and public speaking. I am a big believer in peer review as an integral part of the writing process for students and for faculty. Your professors also revise and resubmit — when you do the same, you are in good company!