This year, the Class of 2018 has shared their academic passions ranging from film to astrophysics to circus to politics at our weekly Mellon Forums on Tuesday nights. Last week, Tresa Joseph and Chi Tong closed out this year’s series of interesting talks.
Tresa Joseph, a Political Science major, presented her research on justice reinvestment as a way to solve the issue of prison overcrowding. She focused on Connecticut’s attempt to implement justice reinvestment, which involves cutting costs and then reinvesting these savings in strategies to decrease crime and reduce recidivism. According to her research, Connecticut’s law left a lot to be desired, especially due to the lack of focus on reinvestment.
Chi Tong, a Mathematics major, presented on a computer science problem of “summarizing” a graph. To explain this complicated concept to the non-math majors in the room, Chi transferred the concept to relationships at Yale, comparing the ease of reaching or emailing a fellow classmate versus President Salovey, and how one would find the most efficient way of communicating. She concluded by describing her research process of setting up different conjectures, experimenting, and analyzing.
The Faces of Davenport: Yesterday & Today 