Senior Profile | Eric Hasegawa
A Steady & Disciplined College Career A committed geologist, Eric Hasegawa holds a drive to understanding the way the natural world works and has plotted careful coursework to hone that appreciation throughout his time at Amherst and beyond. —Camilo Toruño ’21 When speaking to Eric Hasegawa ’20, I was impressed by his steadiness and focus that came across vibrantly even over our Zoom conversation. They’re qualities his thesis advisor, Jack Cheney, professor of mineralogy and geology and associate provost and associate dean of the faculty, praised as key to helping Hasegawa complete his thesis on metamorphic petrology. This focus on following what he cares about directed Hasegawa’s pursuit of his geology major and the academic accolades it brought. His unwavering passion has driven him to succeed as a leader in his unusual extracurriculars, like archery and Kendo. And, certainly, it’s this clear-sightedness that’s given him a calm approach to the uncertainty that cast over the class of 2020 when this pandemic set everyone’s expectations off-course.
Choosing Liberal Arts at Amherst Hasegawa grew up in rural Highland, Maryland and wanted to attend a college that was in a similar setting. The small liberal arts colleges of the Northeast were thus an ideal fit. Like many other Amherst students, the open curriculum drew Hasegawa to the school. As a
self-described STEM person, he wanted to be able to take the classes he liked and focus on his interests. Furthermore, the freedom to select a major whenever he wanted instead of going into a specialized program immediately was very appealing. This turned out to be a smart choice because Hasegawa originally thought he would be a chemistry major and completed its course requirements through organic chemistry. However, in the fall of his sophomore year, Hasegawa took Principles to Geology, the department’s introductory course, and enjoyed the idea of applying chemistry outside of the laboratory in order to understand how it affects the natural world. He said this wasn’t always emphasized in chemistry classes. “Most of the time you’re synthesizing some molecule that you don’t really have a good idea of how it fits into everyday life,” he said, adding that he considers himself to be more of a geochemist in that he wants to apply chemistry to the natural world.
Geology in the Field In the summer of 2018, following his sophomore year, Hasegawa traveled to Santa Catalina Island off the coast
30 | The Amherst Student | May 31, 2020
of California to participate in a Keck Geology summer program, part of the Keck Geology Consortium, which promotes undergraduate research in geology. The five-week introductory program focused on looking at the mineralogy — the study of the chemical compositions of minerals — of samples from Santa Catalina Island. Going into the summer with little geology experience, the program helped develop Hasegawa’s interest in metamorphic petrology, which examines the ways in which rocks form, and geology research as a whole. That summer, metamorphic rocks were the focus of Hasegawa’s Keck research, which ended up being the subject of his thesis.
Taking the Field into the Classroom In the fall of his junior year, following the experiences he gained from Keck, Hasegawa took a mineralogy class and signed up to take igneous and metamorphic petrology the next semester. Because of this, Cheney, who later became Hasegawa’s thesis advisor, offered him the opportunity to research rock samples from islands on the Greek Cyclades that involved metamorphic petrology, which appealed
Photo courtesy ofEric Hasegawa ‘20
The summer after his sophomore year, Hasegawa traveled to Catalina Island (as pictured) for a five-week geology program. It’s there that he nurtured his specific interests within geology. to Hasegawa since he had a great time doing similar metamorphic research on Catalina Island. This past summer, before his senior year, Hasegawa participated in the Gregory S. Call Undergraduate Research Program at Amherst to research the rocks that he would be analyzing in his senior thesis. He worked very closely with a group of researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and spent 10 days there using equipment to do QuiQ
barometry and ZIR thermometry. The ability to do most of the data collection during the summer helped Hasegawa’s thesis immensely, giving him a head start into his senior year. Ultimately, his thesis analyzed metamorphic rock samples from the Greek island Ios to find the highest temperature and pressure at which these rocks were formed deep underground. This gives insight into the overall tectonic history and motion of the Aegean region. By finding these pressures and
