Ten Shorecrest Seniors Defend Their GSI Theses 

During the last month of the academic year, students, family, and faculty, gathered to participate in Global Scholars Initiative thesis defense presentations. This year Shorecrest had the largest class of GSI scholars in recent memory. The expertise of faculty advisors Charla Gaglio, Marina Pallares, and Ron Heller helped mentor GSI scholars over a three-year process. 

Below are the titles of each thesis project as well as recollections from GSI graduates.

• Nathan Brown ‘22: “International Art Education: How Surrealism is Taught in Spain and America” 
• Ethan Danielson ‘22: “Corporate Income Tax Policy and Incentivization Structure in the US and China”
• Johnny Elwyn ‘22: “The Impact of Men’s Soccer: How can soccer help immigrants retain their identity, while also helping them assimilate?”
• Cìan McCarthy ‘22: “Climate Change Technology in Ireland”
• Krish Patel ‘22: “Amul: For Profit or for the People?”
• Mila Salamone ‘22: “Women in Akido” 
• Grace Salter ‘22: “The Cobalt Industry of the Democratic Republic of the Congo”
• Aspen Slavick-Gierlach ‘22: “Gender Medicine: Necessity or Luxury?”
• Athena Smith ‘22: “Fighting Nazis to Electing Them: Greece’s Golden Dawn Party” 
• Duncan Walsh ‘22: The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and its Effect on the Stability of the Nile River Basin”

The seniors recalled memories from their GSI experiences:

Aspen Slavick-Gierlach ’22: "As I worked through my project and refined my focus, I truly realized how expansive the field of gender medicine is within the medical field and beyond. It was shocking to learn about such a wide disparity of medical treatment, all depending on one’s gender identity, and yet my research has also impacted the way that I advocate for myself and my medical experiences."

Cìan McCarthy ’22: “While conducting research on the status of climate change technology in Ireland, I found a surprising amount of well-respected scientists – a tenured MIT professor, for one – were in opposition to Irish and UN climate policy: they find that the data show a very slow rate of climate change, which went against everything I had built my argument upon. What many people take as fact, some scientists still debate. Weighing up the benefits and drawbacks of investing in climate change technology became a very nuanced argument that I was able to explore through GSI."

Mila Salamone ’22: “I knew right away that I wanted to do my project on women in the Japanese martial art of Aikido. Except, I thought I was using gender to reveal something about how Aikido inhibits women. After my project, it looks like Aikido points towards something beyond gender that is fundamentally uniting. I think now that the best solution is to ask women about their experience training first and then ask about being a woman later. Most of all I want five more years to investigate this topic.”


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