As a final farewell to the Drama Department, Megan Pan produced and directed David Auburn’s Pulitzer-winning play, Proof. Her goal was to learn about steps it takes to produce a play from beginning to end while still serving as a mentor for younger students within the drama program.

To pay homage to his tabla instructor and guru Kaumil and the Taalim School of Indian Music in Edison, NJ, Nikhil Rao spent roughly three hours a day practicing the tabla, a Northern Indian classical drum. Ultimately, he composed a ten to fifteen minute duet which he performed and videoed featuring himself and his instructor.

Brandon Rosen spent the month building his professional singing career by writing and recording songs, one of which will be released as his next single. Most of his work took place at the Mannes School of Music in New York City and at Germano Studios.

Jewell Strickland worked on the technical facets of Megan Pan’s production of David Auburn’s Pulitzer-winning play, Proof, and assisted backstage for the middle school musical technical team. For both plays, Strickland designed the lights and sets for the show and drew layouts for various scenes.

Education

Hailey Cernuto worked with the Children’s Education Department at the Reeves Reed Arboretum. Under the mentorship of Jackie Kondel, the Director of Education at Reeves Reed, Cernuto worked to better understand what goes into creating a meaningful educational experience.

Determined to be role models for younger kids, Tommy Dugan and Cameron Wright volunteered as gym teachers at the Pingry Lower School. Under the mentorship of Leslie Miller, they planned and taught physical education classes and also helped organize the annual Lower School field day.

George Enman and Jamie Zusi worked under the mentorship of Mr. Birotte to serve underprivileged schools in Newark and Elizabethport. Building on work they had done on previous Rufus Gunther Days and with the charity Lacrosse the Nation, they helped teachers with their classes and coached a variety of sports.

Feeling that the Pingry experience had given him a limited perspective, Ryan Fuentes decided to visit five different types of schools for five days and shadow students there in order to better understand different academic experiences. For the rest of the month, he worked to document his grandfather’s stories from the Cuban Revolution and write satirical stories.

An admiration for education led Sehyr Khan to work with ECLC in Chatham to help teach special needs children. Under the mentorship of Ms. Fran Ryder, a supervisor at the school, she observed the classroom, talked to the teachers, and participated in a variety of activities. Throughout the month, she updated a blog to document student experiences at the school.

Under the mentorship of Ms. Erin Sweeney from the nonprofit organization Schools That Can, Jessica Li spent the first half of May working to help bring computer science to Newark schools. For the second half, Li focused on another large academic pursuit of hers: biological research. While shadowing Dr. Armstrong from Novartis in Morris Plains, she learned about the science and marketing aspects of drug development.

Ally Pyne volunteered at Pingry as a teachers’ assistant for the Research I Class and at the Presbyterian Church Preschool and Kindergarten. Under the mentorship of Dr. D’Ausilio for the Research Class and Ms. Maury Fryer for the preschool, Pyne was able to witness the differences and similarities between the learning styles of preschool- and high school-aged students.

After having spent a senior year at Fusion Academy, Matthew Rockoff worked on a video project that embodies the experience that current seniors at Fusion Academy have had. He also helped create and continue a peer mentorship program, similar to the Peer Leadership program at Pingry.

Medicine

Inspired by past summers she spent shadowing her mother, a gastroenterologist, Sana Sheikh shadowed Dr. Tanveer A. Janjua, a dermatologist. With little prior knowledge about dermatology, Sheikh left her comfort zone to explore her ideal career choice as a physician from a new angle.

Austin Parsons shadowed orthopedic surgeon Dr. Hunt and Senior Director of Business Operations Ms. Kathryn Van Nest. For the first two weeks with Dr. Hunt, Parsons saw the work of an orthopedic surgeon and considered the field as a future career path. For the second two weeks with Ms. Van Nest, he witnessed the inner workings of the pharmaceutical company Johnson and Johnson.

Interested in the field of psychology and applied behavioral analysis, Jessica Carvelli interned at the Child Development and Autism Center at the Goryeb Children’s Hospital in Morristown. She worked with clinical staff and physicians and observed the full range of developmental delays and disabilities that the patients present, as well as the therapies that the Center provides.

A volunteer EMT throughout high school, Ouarida Benatia shadowed anesthesiologist and Pingry alumnus Dr. Matthew Chow of the Morristown Medical Center to figure out what it is like in the operating room. She documented the ups and downs of her experience in a collection of poems under the mentorship of English teacher Dr. Susan Dineen.

An EMT with a longtime passion for medicine, Jackie Chang shadowed anesthesiologist Dr. Chow as well as NICU doctor Dr. Ladino. Between these two doctors, Chang was able to witness the science, emotion and workings behind both anesthesiology and neonatal care, and was even able to attend a research conference about an artificial placenta with Dr. Ladino.

Ryan Feeley shadowed Dr. Sanja Kolarov, an internist at the Morristown Medical Center. In order to learn about a variety of different medical specialties and gain a better idea of his future career path, Feeley maintained a blog to document all that he learned from his experiences.

Following her interest in the medical and dental fields, Neha Lall shadowed both a physician, Infectious Diseases and Travel Medicine expert Dr. Meher Sultana, and two endodontists, Dr. Maya Prabhu and Dr. Carmen Cicalese. By exposing herself to two very different specializations, Lall could consider their differences and similarities and better understand what she wants to pursue in the future.

Colin McKinnon shadowed Dr. Marjut Kokkola-Korpela, a specialist in tropical diseases and HIV/AIDS. Interested in the future of disease prevention, McKinnon came to understand the demands of the infectious disease field, observe how diagnoses are made, and understand how different aspects such as physician work and research play into the job as a whole.

Aubrey Molloy decided to shadow two doctors: spine surgeon Dr. Mark Drzala and cardiac anesthesiologist Nimesh Patel. Inspired by a medical trip to Argentina she took the previous summer, Molloy pursued her passion for medicine and science as well as her desire to help people by witnessing and documenting life in the operating room.

History and Humanities

Alexy Alin-Hvidsten researched the geopolitical history of his ancestors as a means of better understanding his heritage and lineage. He studied the Russian Revolution, the whaling business of Norway, and primary documents such as his great aunt’s novel.

Jeremy Lister visited different museums and historical sites like the National Holocaust Museum and the Tenement Museum for inspiration for his original writing. He took what he saw and used it to write a collection of historical and realistic fiction short stories.

Lindsay Rispoli and Mariam Trichas studied and visited different commercial, culinary, and artistic centers in New York, such as the MET and the New York Stock Exchange. They photographed the city and kept a blog that recorded their observations of gentrification, innovation, and evolution in the city.

Myla Stovall visited different eateries in New York City to research the culinary histories of Little Italy, Chinatown, and Harlem. She kept a blog and wrote a paper outlining her discoveries of how heritages and immigrant histories can be traced through the food and restaurants of NYC.

Focused on exploring the line between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation, Jordan Taylor designed and sewed a dress based on Ancient Egyptian fashion. She sought to better understand Egyptian life and culture as a means of exploring cultural appreciation as a whole.

Jared Tiggs built upon his involvement in a rap group called BOE to pursue a music career of his own. He spent the month of May writing and recording original songs to create and refine his musical body of work.

Visual Arts

Clyde Leef and Jake Patterson combined their love for working with clay and commitment to community service. They hosted “Clay Nights” to raise money for an art-oriented charity and teach the community about creating clay pots. Individually, Leef and Patterson also created their own pots using techniques that would not be possible in the time span of a regular class.

Inspired by Chinese and Spanish techniques of throwing and glazing pottery, Ben Vasquez explored his individual style while incorporating outside influences for his ISP. Vazquez pushed his technical boundaries, such as mimicking the extreme thin quality of Chinese pottery and the post-production painting and glazing from Spanish pieces. In order to further heighten his knowledge, he worked under Mr. Freiwald’s direct guidance and visited other workshops within New Jersey.

Melissa Tungare and Lexi Brauer helped combat the speech impediment consequences of ALS. Technology Against ALS, a nonprofit organization, is currently developing technology that tracks eye movement, and Tungare and Brauer expanded its AI eye-recognition database by photographing the eyes of diverse ages, sexes, and races. In addition, they conducted research and device trainings in TA-ALS’s office, met with a lawyer to create a TA-ALS participant waiver, and distributed flyers.

Alyssa Chen pursued her love for calligraphy and hand lettering. In addition to perfecting her skills through practice, research, and mentorship, she launched an Etsy shop to sell digital and physical copies of her work. Chen used her internship in a public relations/brand advocacy department in a credit union to further understand the strategies involved in creating her own brand.

Jenny Coyne furthered her studies of Native American culture through literature and pottery. At Pingry, she researched online resources and consulted Mr. Freiwald to implement Native American symbolism and techniques into her own pottery. To explore Native American literature, Coyne read nearly 1,000 pages of novels and wrote reflections about them.

Mairead Higgins drew portraits representing her senior class and wrote passages describing individual students’ sentiments and experiences while at Pingry. Though she spent most of her time in Pingry’s art studio creating the portraits, she also interviewed corresponding and random members of her class with questions such as “What gets you up in the morning?”, “What were the best five seconds of senior year?”, and “In ten years, what will you remember about Pingry?”

Kelli Gomez merged her passions for art and music by painting based on songs. She created a piece for each track from the albums Current, by Tame Impala, and Channel Orange, by Frank Ocean on-campus as well as in Natirar, a nearby public park. In addition to visiting modern art galleries, she studied the details of studio art under Mr. Delman.

Nick Ladino utilized the translucent quality of glass as a unique canvas for his art. In his creations, he merged the worlds of physical and functional utility with mental and mind-stimulating utility. Though he first began working with glass in his Portfolio class this year, he continued to gather inspiration and techniques by visiting glass-related museums and exhibits in New York City.

Rebecca Lin pursued her love for animation by creating a storyboard animatic. Inspired by the K-Pop group BTS’s “Love Yourself” album and Unicef campaign, Lin’s animatic is about accepting one’s own mistakes and imperfections. She used traditional media to draw on-campus and planned and organized storyboards at home.

Saxon Scott expanded her artistic skill set by learning to create digital art with software and a tablet. Though her mentor, Mr. Boyd, oversaw her work, Scott mostly taught herself through a series of online tutorials for Adobe Illustrator. With her newfound proficiency in digital art, she plans on combining her love of science with graphic design in the future.

Looking to take more time in exploring her passions of drawing and painting without the busy schedule of school, Sophia Weldon visited several art galleries and the Botanical Garden in New York City. Inspired by the many works on exhibit, she created a portfolio of drawings, paintings, and photographs inspired by works currently on exhibit.

Photography

Combining his fascination with the ocean and interest in photography, Dylan Cheng traveled to Turks and Caicos for his ISP to dive and take underwater photography. In preparation for his trip, Cheng took an official PADI online course in photography. He then taught himself how to use various editing softwares to transform his photos into a gallery.

Lindsey Hogan explored her interest in photography by learning the basic principles of photo-taking and editing. Through spending time in New York City and Hunter, NY, hiking and taking pictures of the wildlife she saw, Hogan discovered how she personally sees the outdoors and what photography means to her. 

Looking to push herself out of her comfort zone, Sidney Shannon’s photography work was centered around sparking thoughts and questions in the minds of her audience. She experimented with portrait work inspired by surrealism and fashion photographers as well as with using colored gels to add contrast to her work.

Owen Wolfson undertook multiple projects that all incorporated his interest in photography. He developed a webpage on the Pingry website to help the artists of the Pingry community gain exposure, spent time with Mr. Bruce Morrison to learn about sports photography, and took some of his own photography in an effort to dive deeply into his artistic identity.

George Mychajluk visited Chinatown, the Ukrainian Village, Koreatown, Little Italy, and other landmarks of New York City to photograph immigrants and learn more about their culture. He also practiced advanced techniques such as night and bulb photography.

Conor Mahoney grew as a photographer by working as an assistant to Mr. Jon DeCola, a Pingry alum. He helped Mr. DeCola with lighting set up and handled the post-production scanning of his images with specialized software and hardware. Mahoney spent the rest of his time shooting on his own in the NYC area.

Media and Communications

Josie Cummings worked with Tobias Fox, Newark Science and Sustainability founder and managing director, and Pingry’s FYI Sci club to enhance both her understanding of sustainable living as well as her film editing and production skills. Using the raw footage Tobias Fox provided, Cummings created videos about energy sources and climate change for FYI Sci.

As an intern at the TV show Younger, Calvary Dominique observed its production in the show’s office as well as in filmings in Manhattan and Brooklyn. In this way, Dominique learned more about technical and supplemental roles of filmmaking as well as the process of filming and casting a TV show.

 Joei Drozjock interned on the set of the ABC television show Pyramid and followed Vincent Rubino, one of Pyramid’s head producers. Though she assisted with minor tasks dealing with logs and transcriptions, Drozjock mainly observed and created a film summarizing the development of a TV season.

By creating a set of short videos introducing and describing available languages taught at Pingry for the website, Lindsey Larson enhanced her own filming and editing skills while leaving a creative legacy at Pingry. The videos of the entire Language department and Chinese, Spanish, German, French, and Latin courses are aimed to both inform and captivate prospective parents and students.

Inspired by Ferdinand Magellan’s historic voyage around the world, Bao Pham recreated Magellan’s journey through a creative culinary experience. Pham learned, researched, and made recipes from across the globe and produced a video compilation of his progress.

Ben Ramos, an aspiring filmmaker who lacked the time to pursue as much of his passion as he wanted to, spent the month diving into the entire process of making a film. This process involved storyboarding, planning, scouting for locations, filming, and editing.

Channing Russell and Tyler Williams studied the rise of the Black Media industry during the 1980s, 1990s, and through to the present day. They analyzed films ranging from A Soldier’s Story (1985) to White Men Can’t Jump (1992) to Moonlight (2016).

During the school year, Ryan Willsey was never able to find time to make videos longer than five minutes outside of his Portfolio class. During May, he created a documentary about out-of-the-way places of significance in the New Jersey and New York City area using video footage taken through his drone.

Community Service

Elle Braverman, Will Capanna, and Matt Parisi worked with the family of John Taylor Babbitt ‘07 and the John Taylor Babbitt Foundation, which works to raise awareness for sudden cardiac arrest, on Pingry’s annual Walk With Heart event. They made trips to Pingry’s Lower School, advertised with local media about the event, and secured donors for the foundation.  

 Alice Berndt and Olivia Virzi spent every day at the Bridges headquarters in Summit, creating a system to catalog the inventory in the facility, working on the Bridges blog, and preparing for weekly runs into NYC to serve those in need.

 Shruti Sagar, Millie Deak, and Maddie Parrish worked on establishing a club and program at Pingry to support Syrian refugees called Pingry Students Organize for Syria. Sagar also worked with Mr. Tobias Fox of Newark Science and Sustainability and students from Seton Hall University to design a curriculum for Newark elementary schools.

Sara Donovan decided to connect her two loves of fashion and politics into one project during May. She spent her time touring the streets of New York City and photographing and interviewing people of different backgrounds and displayed them in a photo project.

Sophie Loesberg helped Temple Har Shalom create a library for the Temple’s Pre-K program by sorting out pre-K books from the Temple’s larger library. She also assisted in archiving and cataloging the Temple’s historical documents and records.

Through interning and shadowing colleagues of Jane Aronson, founder of Worldwide Orphans in Maplewood, Iman Khan learned how nonprofits are established and developed.

Kassidy Peterson worked with Raritan Headwaters to preserve and monitor clean water in the surrounding community. She monitored streams, helped educate younger students about clean water, and marked trails and safe places for people to enter and exit the streams in kayaks.

Politics and Law

Allie Verdesca took an in-depth look at art created by women during May. She observed many different works of art and determined the time period, subject matter, and representation in museums, and determined which piece she would add to the AP Art History curriculum if given the chance.