Humans of Hanover 2025 by Dartmouth Admissions

What defines Dartmouth College?

Certainly its location in the small college town of Hanover, New Hampshire. Absolutely its fusion of a liberal arts college and a robust research university. Definitely its small classes taught by professors who are leaders in their fields. Home to over 4,400 undergraduates, Dartmouth is a place where students, faculty, and staff partner across academic disciplines to take on some of the biggest challenges facing our world.

So what exactly makes Dartmouth...Dartmouth? The people, of course. We affectionately call them the Humans of Hanover, and you’ll meet several of them in the pages that follow.

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“If you’re a rural student and that’s your story, tell it.”

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Pre-Health Student Draws on His Rural Roots

Ramsey Ash ’24 he/him/his

Hometown: Huntington, West Virginia

Majors: Quantitative Social Science and Music; Pre-Health Track

“Within the U.S. or even a global context, I definitely grew up in a rural place,” reflects Ramsey Ash ’24, whose hometown sits near West Virginia’s border with Ohio. Inspired by those roots and his Dartmouth coursework, Ramsey recently wrote his senior thesis on vaccine hesitancy in rural areas.

Ramsey traces his interest in health care all the way back to his first-year seminar class, The Values of Medicine. “I learned that the cultures you exist in, the identities that you hold, and the things you experience impact your health in very real ways. I became infatuated with the humanistic approach to medicine as it relates to pressing health challenges. That class opened my eyes to the possibility of becoming a doctor.”

Equally important to Ramsey, who is the son of musicians, are his musical ambitions. He founded a clarinet choir at Dartmouth and joined the music department’s Foreign Study Program in London. “Forming a community around music was a transformative experience for me in terms of thinking about the ways that music can positively impact health, particularly mental health,” he says.

Ramsey encourages other college-bound students from rural backgrounds to embrace that as a defining feature of their identity. “Colleges are interested in your story, and that includes the answer to ‘What is the place you grew up like?’ If you’re a rural student and that’s your story, tell it. Your experiences are interesting, different, and important.”

Students receiving need-based financial aid pay the same net price for a term on a Dartmouth off-campus study program as they would for a term in Hanover.

“We each have our own interests, and I think that makes us better roommates.”

—Alea Kahele ’27

From

Random Roommates to Found Family

Aleaokalani “Alea” Kahele ’27 she/her/hers

Hometowns: Sandy, Utah and the Big Island of Hawaii Majors: Earth Sciences and Native American and Indigenous Studies

Olivia Ajdler ’27 she/her/hers

Hometown: New York City, New York Majors: Sociology and Music

Alea Kahele ’27 is a Dartmouth tour guide and a member of Hōkūpa’a, Dartmouth’s pan-Pasifika organization. Olivia Ajdler ’27 is on the club baseball team and plays in a campus band. They both graduated from religious high schools (Alea a Catholic school and Olivia a Jewish school). Here, they reflect on how they met—and why their roommate relationship works.

Alea: We were randomly matched to be roommates in our first year. I loved that there was no pressure for us to be very best friends or to have the same friends. We each have our own interests and places we fit on campus, and I think that makes us better roommates. I really enjoy meeting Olivia’s friends.

Olivia: My friends seep into your life just by us being roommates. We both have different social circles, but we’re still tied to each other. We are more like family than friends, in a sense, because you don’t choose your family; it’s built in.

Alea: We don’t think of our room as “this is my side, and that’s your side.” We are one room, and we have a responsibility to make sure the other person is cared for, safe, and comfortable.

Olivia: We’re also good at asking each other, “Do you mind this? Do you mind that?” If one of us minds, we say that. We talk in respectful language and communicate well enough to anticipate each other’s needs.

Dartmouth is need-blind for all students and meets 100% of demonstrated financial need.

“The infrastructure that supports undergraduate researchers at Dartmouth is unparalleled.”

—Dr. Kelly

Researching Energy Justice in the Global South

A Mushroom Hunter and Soil Ecologist Study the Synergies of Plants and Fungi

Nadine Lorini Formiga ’25 she/her/hers

Hometown: Porto Alegre, Brazil

Major: Geography

Liam Nokes ’25 he/him/his

Minors: Environmental Studies and Latin American, Latino, & Caribbean Studies

Hometown: Arlington, Massachusetts

Majors: Environmental Studies and Mathematics modified with Biology

Nadine Lorini Formiga ’25 and geography researcher Dr. Sarah Kelly are studying energy transitions within Indigenous communities in Latin America.

in Latin America.

Liam Nokes ’25 and Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Bala Chaudhary are studying mycorrhizae—the symbiotic associations between plants and fungi—and their impact on ecosystems at a global scale.

Dr. Kelly: Energy justice is a framework that aims to diagnose injustices within energy systems and support energy transitions away from a fossil-fuel economy and towards a low-carbon, regenerative economy. At Dartmouth’s Energy Justice Clinic, we give students across all disciplines the tools to ethically and meaningfully conduct research that serves community needs.

Professor Chaudhary: My lab is tracking the aerial dispersal of mycorrhizal fungi at 20 different sites across the country. We need a lot of hands to process the samples from these sites, and that’s where undergraduates like Liam come in.

Nadine: I received funding from Dartmouth to study the importance of transnational solidarity networks among Indigenous groups around matters of energy justice. My research focuses on the study of alimergia, a grassroots approach to combining understandings of energy justice and food sovereignty in southern Brazil.

Liam: When I learned about mycorrhizae, I was hooked. I’ve learned to process DNA samples and examine mycorrhizae, soil, and roots. Recently, I’ve been working with Dr. Chaudhary to create a database of mycorrhizal fungal spore traits.

Dr. Kelly: The infrastructure that supports undergraduate researchers at Dartmouth is unparalleled. Dartmouth has worldclass faculty, staff, and students, and the College has always had undergraduate education at the center of its mission.

Professor Chaudhary: The lab is collaborative, not competitive. The students interact with an understanding that rising tides lift all boats. In my lab, undergraduates, PhD students, technical professionals, and postdocs all learn from one another.

Nadine: Before coming to Dartmouth, I had a very abstract understanding of research. Now, I want to be a researcher! One of my biggest takeaways from the Energy Justice Clinic is change only happens by listening to the communities on the ground. That’s a beautiful lesson I’ll take with me in my life forever.

Liam: We talk a lot about equity in STEM in our lab discussions and often discuss questions like “What are the goals of our research, and how will they make an impact?” The lab has made me even more excited about the intersection of science and social systems.

Nadine: Before coming to Dartmouth, I had a very abstract understanding of research. Now, I want to be a researcher! One of my biggest takeaways from the Energy Justice Clinic is that change only happens by listening to the communities on the ground. That’s a beautiful lesson I’ll take with me in my life forever.

60% of Dartmouth students engage in research—often funded by a deep well of campus resources.

A vibrant global community, Dartmouth is home to students from nearly 100 countries speaking over 90 different languages.

“How can I bring the best of engineering into medicine?”

Applying a Human-Centered Lens to Medical Research

A Captain and Commander Follows in Her Father’s Footsteps

Moses Matanda ’25 he/him/his

Hometown: Dallas, Texas

Major: Biomedical Engineering

Minor: African and African American Studies

Karina Mitchell ’23 she/her/hers

Hometown: Charlotte, North Carolina

Major: Biomedical Engineering

Minors: Sociology and Psychology

Moses Matanda ’25 has been tinkering with new ways to bridge the gap between technology and medicine. “I knew that I wanted to pursue medicine because of the health problems my family faced,” he remembers. “I started thinking, ‘How can I bring the best of engineering into medicine?’”

When asked about the roots of her military and academic pursuits, Karina Mitchell ’23 immediately thinks of her father, a civil engineer currently serving in the U.S. Army. “I have a core memory of my Dad’s deployment, taking him up to the airport and seeing him leave—and then the joy of him coming home safe,” she says.

Moses dove into research through the First Year Research in Engineering Experience, a program that offers first-year undergraduates early exposure to hands-on work and mentorship in engineering. With the support of Dartmouth Engineering faculty, Moses was part of a team that worked to improve a neonatal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) interface. He later went on to support his peers as a lead tutor for Dartmouth Emerging Engineers, which helps aspiring engineering majors build a strong academic foundation in their prerequisite courses.

Karina followed in the footsteps of her father and grandfather, a Navy veteran, as Company Commander of Dartmouth’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), a program that prepares college students to become officers in the U.S. military. Karina underwent intensive training and took military science classes along with her Dartmouth classes. “The Army tries really hard to build an inclusive culture, and so does Dartmouth,” Karina says.

As a junior, Moses applied to Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine through its Early Assurance Program, which identifies outstanding Dartmouth juniors for admission to Geisel following their undergraduate studies. This fall, he will join Geisel’s Class of 2029.

Karina was also the co-captain of the women’s varsity basketball team, where she focused on creating a community and a culture. “A pillar of my basketball career has been leaving this place better than I found it. That starts by helping people become accustomed to living a championship lifestyle.” When not on the court or in the classroom, Karina studied wound care in Assistant Professor of Engineering Katie Hixon’s Tissue Engineering Lab.

Moses credits Dartmouth’s liberal arts curriculum—which encourages students to take classes across a wide range of subjects—with pushing him in new academic directions. “After taking an African and African American Studies class, I decided that I wanted to know more about my history. If I want to better serve people in my future, I need to know about what happened in the past.”

Karina marked a milestone when she was commissioned into the Army just one day prior to her graduation from Dartmouth last spring. She plans to complete graduate work in biomedical engineering before pursuing a career as an orthopedic trauma surgeon in the military.

Dartmouth will not include loans as part of the financial aid award created to meet a student’s demonstrated need.

60% of Dartmouth students engage in research—often funded by a deep well of campus resources.

“I’m a poet, and I can say that with confidence now.”

In Dartmouth’s Classrooms, a Poet Finds His Voice

An International Student Discovers the Power of the Liberal Arts

Edgar Morales ’24 he/him/his

Hometown: Los Angeles, California

Luke Grayson ’25 he/him/his

Majors: Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies and English with a Concentration in Creative Writing

Hometown: Seaham, England

Major: Economics

Edgar Morales ’24 entered Dartmouth intending to study engineering, but instead found comfort in poetry. “Leaving Los Angeles and moving to Hanover was a big shift. I experienced feelings of nostalgia and guilt. In poetry, I attempt to relive memories: some of them painful, others joyous; some real, others imagined.” In 2023, The Academy of American Poets recognized Edgar with its Most Promising Young Poet Award for his poem Swim. He joins a cohort of renowned writers, including Sylvia Plath and Ocean Vuong, who first won recognition through the program.

“I grew up in a small seaside town whose industry centered around coal mining through the ’90s,” Luke Grayson ’25 says. “Education was never a big focus in the area. I always wanted to go somewhere where I could find more room to grow.”

The concept of a liberal arts college was unfamiliar to Luke until he discovered Dartmouth. In describing the value of a liberal arts education, Luke underscores its emphasis on ensuring that students learn how to think by encouraging them to take coursework that spans a wide variety of disciplines. “Imagine sitting at a dinner table with history’s greatest scholars,” he says. “The product of a liberal arts education is a person who could sit at the head of such a table and quite comfortably take on any and all of the attending party in enthusiastic conversation, no matter the topic. I arrived at Dartmouth intending to major in engineering, but the flexible liberal arts system helped me discover subjects I’d never considered before.”

Edgar wrote his first collection of poems after reading The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo in Professor Marcela Di Blasi’s Latinx Intergenerational Literature class. “The Poet X was the first place I saw myself in poetry. Professor Di Blasi helped me understand how Latinx literature operates within academia.”

Edgar’s senior thesis project, which centered around the term “motherland,” explored the redress of memories lost through immigration. In support of his research, the English and creative writing department funded his travel to Mexico to meet some of his family for the first time.

Today, Edgar is working towards a Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry. “I believe that poetry is for anybody. I’m a poet, and I can say that with confidence now. As long as I’m writing and reading, that’s enough for me.”

Luke now plans to pursue an economics major and has taken classes in computer science, Italian, history, linguistics, and more. He says the sense of community he’s found in Hanover has made Dartmouth feel like a second home. “There’s such an intense togetherness on campus,” Luke says. “As an international student, I’ve found a strong community of friends to help me through. Dartmouth has allowed me the option of redefining myself.”

Majors: Latin American, Latino, & Caribbean Studies and Class 2028 is $71,582—an

Dartmouth is need-blind and meets 100% of demonstrated financial need for all students, regardless of citizenship.

The average scholarship for a member of the Dartmouth Class of 2028 is $71,582—an amount that equals nearly 80% of the total cost of attendance.

“If you value small classrooms and close partnerships with professors, Dartmouth is the place for you.”

—Carson Goh ’25

A

Biological Anthropologist

Studying Factors at Play in the Polls

Studies How Environments Shape Our Health

Carson Goh ’25 he/him/his

Hometown: Nashua, New Hampshire

Majors: Quantitative Social Science & Government

Majors: Quantitative Social Science and Government

Zaneta Thayer ’08 she/her/hers

Associate Professor of Anthropology

In 2004, Professor Zaneta “Zane” Thayer ’08—then a high school student from Cottage Grove, Oregon—was in the thick of her college search. “When I flew out for Dartmouth’s admitted student program, I met kids from all over the country and the world. I loved that I’d be surrounded by so many different perspectives and experiences.”

Together, Carson Goh ’25 and Jason Barabas ’93 have been researching a wide spectrum of topics within American politics. Professor Barabas, an expert in political knowledge, deliberation, public policy, and democratic performance, is the director of Dartmouth’s Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences.

Professor Thayer was quickly drawn to a double major in biology and anthropology, a field centered around the scientific study of humanity. Today, she is a biological anthropologist who studies how and why early life environments shape human biology and health outcomes. Recently, she has been analyzing how maternal depression impacts the production of the stress hormone cortisol in both mothers and their babies.

Carson: Growing up in New Hampshire, I was interested in learning how redistricting—the process of drawing electoral district boundaries—is done in this very politically active state. So, while taking Professor Barabas’ class Polling, Public Opinion, and Public Policy my first-year fall, I approached him about my deep interest in polling and data, and he brought me on as a research assistant.

how redistricting—the process of drawing electoral district boundaries—is done in this very politically active state. So, while taking Professor Barabas’ class Polling, Public Opinion, and Public Policy my first-year fall, I approached him about my deep interest in polling and data, and he brought me on as a research assistant.

Her Dartmouth experience, she says, was transformational for her future research on psychosocial stress and the effects of racism, poverty, and historical trauma on health.“I ended up publishing my first two papers based on my senior honors thesis— work that was funded by grants I accessed as an undergraduate. That was foundational to my subsequent career as a researcher, and I try to pay that forward with my students.”

Professor Barabas: Carson is a great example of how Dartmouth undergraduates can get involved with topics that really interest them. He absorbed the lessons and has been able to apply them in our research projects, in other courses, and most recently, through two major scholarships that he’s won to pursue collaborative research. We’re studying how a candidate’s age impacts public support for that person in office, among other topics.

Carson: Dartmouth fosters students who are interested in making change through public service, and that’s where I see myself. I hope to go to law school after graduation. If you value small classrooms and close partnerships with professors, Dartmouth is the place for you.

Students receiving need-based financial aid pay the same net price for a term on a Dartmouth off-campus study program as they would for a term in Hanover.

Dartmouth does not include loans as part of the financial aid award created to meet a student’s demonstrated need.

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