Originally from San Francisco, California, Dimitri Hanafin Reyes came to Tulane to study music and graduated with a dual degree in Black American Music and Legal Studies in Business.

During his time at Tulane, Dimitri he has performed in various capacities, ranging from regular gigs on Frenchman Street to festival performances in the New Orleans Jazz Festival and Jazz Ascona Festival in Switzerland. As the student musician during the School of Liberal Arts Commencement Ceremony, Dimitri performed a piece he wrote call “Full Circle,” which encapsulates the experience of his musical journey and confronting the seas of doubt and anxiety that are inevitable in life. "Full Circle," is meant to serve as a beacon of resilience that highlights the power of embracing the past, navigating the present, and crafting an unsure, yet hopeful future.

After graduation, Dimitri plans to stay in New Orleans and continue performing and cultivating relationships through music.

Katerina Ellison-Batt wrote her first book in fifth grade, and got grounded for stealing Monopoly money to make the cover. Ever since then she has been writing, and recently finished her first informal poetry collection, Conversation Lullaby. Katerina hails from Ann Arbor, Michigan and received a degree in English from Tulane’s School of Liberal Arts. A transfer student from Michigan State University, she lived for several years in a co-op with 26 roommates, and credits the house with being instrumental to her writing. Katerina has worked in sexual violence prevention education, as a receptionist for Hillel, and interned with Sierra Club.

Katerina’s original poem Ode to You in New Orleans reflects on her experiences in New Orleans and at Tulane, and the friendships and memories built here.

Her future plans include staying in New Orleans, a city she’s grown to love, and pursuing a career in copywriting. Katerina would love to thank her mother for her support and the Tulane English Department, especially Professor Price, Professor Boudreaux, and Professor McFadden, for their endless wisdom and encouragement.

"Ode to You in New Orleans"
By: Katerina Ellison-Batt

you are beautiful in dappled light
oaks slow dancing
our runs through Audubon
I pick an eyelash off your cheek
our days are long and happy
and often, we remember the city we lived in
the streetcar lights bouncing off our faces, our grinning teeth
those long afternoons
in the grass outside Newcomb
those kind professors you wish
you could take again, those
technicolor explosions of spontaneous hugs
you smile and lean in
yes, this is a happy poem
I wouldn’t want to live in a flooding basement with anyone else
I tell my roommates
I wouldn’t want to
Stand or stare into the sun
With absolutely anyone
you are now all grown up, LinkedIn and thesis’s,
and you are my friend.
for a moment we stood silent
little cities in a row
and then
we began
to dance.
this is a happy poem.
anyway it’s as you said in your letter:
you are so much of me.
 

From Economics to Anthropology, female Beatniks to Aristotle, students and faculty participating in this year’s Tulane Research, Innovation, and Creativity Summit proved that research in the Liberal Arts is vital, dynamic, and full of possibilities.

Held at the Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life (LBC) from April 23-25, and sponsored by the Tulane Innovation Institute and the Office of The Vice President for Research, the annual event aims to showcase the “breadth and depth of research, innovation, and creativity from disciplines, departments, units, and schools across Tulane University.” Along with TRICS panels, lectures, and special workshops, students were invited to participate in poster sessions, a chance to present and engage with the public on their projects and findings.

Over three days, 16 students from the School of Liberal Arts, representing the Departments of English, Economics, Philosophy, Anthropology, and Environmental Science, joined in on the poster sessions, standing alongside those from Tropical Medicine, Biomedical Engineering, Architecture, and other schools. Undergraduate Hannah Rubenstein explained her theories on “How to Build a Better Male Lead in K-Dramas,” while Philosophy graduate student Samuel Hage broke down Species Essentialism in Aristotle. Presentations, of course, were not always limited to their posters: as part of her honors thesis, Undergraduate Zoe Friese created an interactive map tracing the global movements of environmental activists against the Formosa Plastic Group. Her poster included a QR code linking to her interactive site. Another intriguing project, by Economics PhD Candidates Barb Lundebjerg and Yu Liu, with Associate Professor of Economics Patrick Button, was an audit field experiment designed to quantify discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, and health insurance status (and their intersections) in requests for talk therapy appointments with licensed therapists.

At the faculty panel, titled "Local to Global: Today’s Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Across Tulane Liberal Arts," colleagues across disciplines had a chance to share and celebrate research achievements and future prospects. A few key presentations included Marcello Canuto's large-scale modeling of the ancient lowland Maya, Allison Emmerson's excavation of marginalized areas in Pompeii, and Laura-Zoë Humphreys' study on media piracy in Cuba. Other topics covered behavior patterns of wild Capuchin Monkeys, race, ethnicity, and health insurance discrimination in access to mental healthcare, food system leadership, the economics of Mardi Gras, and the connections between global port cities.

Organized by Kathy Jack, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Programs, with help from Dean Brian Edwards, the presentations fit naturally under each of the School’s four pillars of distinction — strategies that emphasize the school’s global citizenship, its commitment to research through a liberal arts approach, a local focus on New Orleans and Gulf South, and duty to educate the next generation of leaders for careers in the future.

From students to faculty, TRICS was an exciting opportunity to spotlight the liberal arts community at large, its values, and its diversity. The wide range of projects emphasized the role of liberal arts research in addressing complex societal issues, and in moving beyond theoretical inquiry to have practical implications and real-world impact.

Since its founding in 1924, the Middle American Research Institute (MARI) at Tulane University has led the way in its study of Mexico and Central America. Today, as MARI reaches its centennial, generous gifts from two previous donors insure the future of this landmark institution. Funding from the Effinger Family and the Hitz Foundation support a new chapter of innovation and archeological technology at MARI, and affirm the institute’s mission to preserve and promote greater understanding of the indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica.

As an undergraduate at Tulane, Lt. Col. Clinton Effinger III (A&S ’49) credited MARI for cultivating his lifelong passion for archeology. In 2019, his wife Yvonne Effinger made a gift to MARI to commemorate her dear late husband. High school sweethearts reunited in mid-life, Clint and Yvonne Effinger shared in a love of cultural learning. They were avid travelers during their nearly forty years of marriage, and collected antiques and artifacts as Clint’s military posts and further travel brought them to Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Yvonne's $30,000 gift went to improving MARI’s storage facilities, protecting thousands of precious artifacts, including some donated by Clint decades ago.

Now, their children have established an endowment in both their parents' names, forging a lasting bond between the Effinger family and MARI, ensuring their legacy lives on within the institute.

“In a modern world where many cultures are instantly interacting electronically, we see Dr. Canuto’s efforts as a bridge to overcome barriers to cultural understanding and collaboration. In honor of Clint and Yvonne Effinger, we wish for the Clint and Yvonne Effinger Excellence Endowed Fund to support Professor Canuto and MARI: inspiring a legacy of cultural respect and understanding for students and citizens of the world,” says Yvonne’s son Chris Flynn, speaking on behalf of the family.

Yvonne was able to visit Tulane and MARI in 2019; next week, her family will return to meet with MARI Director and Professor of Anthropology Marcello Canuto and visit MARI’s facilities in Dinwiddie Hall. The third floor of the newly renovated hall is home to MARI’s gallery space, and its inaugural exhibit "Faces of the Maya: Profiles in Continuity and Resilience,” on the Maya civilization from 1000 BC to present, which is currently open to the public.

From its early days, mapmaking has been central to MARI’s endeavors, though what this looks like has changed greatly over the years. Early mapmaking relied on exploring and trekking for miles through the jungle on foot — one of MARI’s early directors, Francis Blom, conducted expeditions that led to the first archeological map of the Mayan region.

Today, MARI is a leader in archeological innovation, with their utilization of Lidar, a mapmaking technology which has revolutionized the field. Lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging, is a remote sensing method that makes it possible for archeologists to identify buildings, walls, and other human-made structures under the thick canopy of the jungle and dense obstacles. An early leader in this technology, Canuto and Tulane Research Professor Francisco Estrada-Belli were part of a 2018 team that discovered dozens of ancient cities in Guatemala, including some 60,000 structures.

“Until basically 2016 when we got the first Lidar data set, Mayan archaeology had combined, in ground surveys and maps, to roughly 700 square kilometers,” explained Canuto in an earlier interview. “This means walking through the jungle, finding each archaeological site, and putting it on a map. Since 2016, we, as part of a consortium, have conducted a Lidar survey of over 7,000 square kilometers — 10 times more than what had been surveyed using traditional methods.”

MARI analyzes and computes archeological data in its Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Lab, created with help from a 2019 Hitz Foundation grant. Building on this initial gift, the Hitz Foundation renewed its support of MARI’s mapmaking with this latest grant of $1.5 million.

This continuous support enables the GIS Lab to grow, and to remain at the forefront of the archeological field. Most crucially, instead of analyzing Lidar data obtained from outside networks, the funding allows that the GIS Lab to now do this work internally.

“With MARI celebrating its centennial this year, this transformative gift from the Hitz Foundation ensures that the important work being done by our researchers will remain at the leading edge of archeological inquiry,” said Tulane School of Liberal Arts Dean Brian T. Edwards in a press release.

MARI plans to celebrate the centennial with an event in the fall. While commemorating a century of groundbreaking research, the institute looks forward to an exciting future ahead.

This semester, students in Assistant Professor of Communication Muira McCammon’s Emerging Tech and Internet Law class had the opportunity to put learned concepts to the test, playing out the roles of tech CEOs, PR strategists, concerned citizens, journalists, and protestors in a mock Congressional hearing. With the help of a grant from Tulane’s Center for Engaged Learning and Teaching, Professor McCammon was able to invite special guest Matthew Conaty, former Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Federal Communications Commission's Spectrum Enforcement Division, to campus for the proceeding. In their roles as U.S. Senators from both sides of the aisle, McCammon and Conaty led the line of questioning against tech companies like Facebook, PayPal, X, Microsoft, Match Group (Tinder and Hinge), and Lyft, allowing students to reckon with the realities of regulatory oversight facing Silicon Valley.

Students serving as tech CEOs of these companies were given a brief 15-minute window to prepare themselves before testifying. Their task was clear: to craft a concise 1 - 1.5-minute opening statement that addressed the controversies of their respective companies. Each CEO had to outline what had transpired and lay out their company’s planned course of action to rectify the situation. A group of six students named as dedicated public relations professionals helped CEOs refine their statements, ensure accuracy, and provide real-time fact-checking support by passing notes and information — allowing CEOs to think “on the fly”, and craft well-informed responses that would resonate with the Senators and shareholders alike.

“From a personal perspective, I would say ‘Yeah, I can see how those claims would be warranted,’” said student Caitlin Caulfield, who played a Match Group CEO facing accusations regarding gamification, and use of addiction-inducing tactics, on platforms Hinge and Tinder. “However, as Ally [PR team member] and I dove more into the case law it was interesting to see Match’s defense essentially being ‘these claims are illegitimate.’”

Other students acted as angry members of the public, representing users of each company’s product. They were given the chance to voice concerns and pose questions to each CEO, directly engaging with issues that had affected them personally.

“This was very fun to act out as tech CEO as I love toying with extremes,” said Caulfield. “I will be interested to see how this case develops and whether or not it will turn class action.” Aside from Match, other cases involved Lyft and disabled passenger discrimination, Microsoft and AI regulation, PayPal’s hidden fines, and several claims against X and Facebook.

In the midst of the hearings, four “journalists” diligently observed and documented the proceedings. They were granted the opportunity to interview affected citizens, the Senators and their aides, and the tech CEOs themselves. The assigned student op-ed writer, although not directly involved in the hearings, had a critical role in shaping the narrative, as their analysis and argument for regulatory or legal solutions would contribute to the ongoing court of public opinion — and the larger conversation on responsible tech practices. Rounding out the student roles was a photographer documenting the entire affair and even a secret protester.

“Pedagogically, legal roleplay gives students a window into the real-time stresses that tech companies face,” Professor McCammon shared. “It also allows them to develop a vocabulary to discuss contemporary issues in Internet policy.”

Enabling students to experience legal proceedings from a variety of perspectives, especially in an area as controversial and ever-changing as emerging tech and internet law, allowed them to take in the nuances and complications of materials covered in their course. The exercise highlighted the importance of transparency, responsibility, and the need for effective communication in the tech world, and undoubtedly helped shape the students' future outlook on critical issues of media rhetoric and internet law.