Undergraduate Education

Road salt has been touted as a lifesaver when it comes to combatting icy roads. Yet using this snow-melting mineral has a dark side once it enters waterways. Graduating senior Maggie Walker, through the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation (SMSC), is gathering data at local streams to influence change.

Mason senior Eva Noroski spent a month assisting alumna and Elephant Trails keeper Ashley Fortner at the National Zoo, researching elephant sleep patterns.

Of the more than 4,000 lynchings of Black Americans that took place in the United States between 1865 and 1950, at least 43 cases occurred in Maryland.
George Mason University’s John Mitchell Jr. Program (JMJP), housed within the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, has been helping research several of these cases since 2019 to support the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In October, they received news that they will be taking their research to the next level, thanks to a $300,000 Department of Justice grant they helped secure for the commission.

For 21 straight nights, graduating senior Yasser Aburdene spent his evenings protesting in front of the Bolivian Embassy in Washington, D.C., fighting for democracy in the midst of a controversial election victory by Evo Morales. He had no idea his advocacy would land him in the spotlight at one of the most historic sites for human rights.