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• { About Sarah }

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Tufts University (starting September 2023) specializing in Britain and the World.

I earned my PhD in History from the University of Michigan in 2018.

My research focuses on twentieth-century Britain’s changing shopping spaces and practices. More specifically, I trace how and why ordinary town and city-center retail institutions—such as open-air markets, ethnic-minority shopkeepers, and itinerant vendors—helped define the boundaries of “the local” in a globalizing economy, and the effects of this configuration for categories of cultural identity across towns and cities in England, Scotland, and Wales.

In the classroom, I likewise help students think capaciously about how everyday histories of twentieth-century Britain and Europe help shed light on contemporary debates over citizenship and belonging.

© 2018-2023 Sarah Mass

PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies

The graduate program in Theatre and Performance Studies trains scholar-artists to develop projects in theatre history, performance studies, critical theory, and cultural analysis in various performance traditions and global contexts. Our faculty specialize in illuminating how social and cultural formations — particularly gender, race, indigeneity, ethnicity, sexuality, colonization and class — inform performances both on and off stage. In turn, we support and celebrate interdisciplinary scholarship from our graduate students that centers shared concerns of performance, such as the body, repetition, liveness, and visuality, while at the same time taking up concerns in outside fields of inquiry. As a faculty, we approach performance through diverse methods, such as historiography, ethnography, and critical analysis of performance texts. We welcome students from underrepresented communities, and we believe that people of color, disabled people, queer and trans folks, and first-generation scholars produce new ways of seeing and knowing that facilitate thinking and working in a diverse classroom.

Current graduate students can consult The Graduate Handbooks for all requirements, milestones, and department procedures.

Christopher Miller

Technology and geopolitics Semiconductors Russian history, politics, economics, foreign policy Cold War history Diplomatic history

• BA, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States, 2009
• MA, Yale University, New Haven, United States, 2011
• PhD, Yale University, New Haven, United States, 2015

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FAH is now HAA!  All of our Dept. of the History of Art and Architecture courses count for the arts distribution credit, so when searching for courses in SIS scroll on down to HAA and be amazed by our offerings for Fall 2024!

Professor Andrew McClellan received this year's Distinguished Scholar Award from the Faculty Research Awards Committee. Congratulations! 

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Tufts theses & dissertations.

This page is a quick overview of resources for finding or writing a thesis or dissertation at Tufts. For more in-depth information, visit our Dissertations and Theses guide .

Find theses & dissertations

Search for specific senior honors theses, master's theses, and PhD dissertations in Jumbosearch .

You’ll find records for both print and digital, and links to the digital version where available.

You can also browse Tufts theses & dissertations in:

• ProQuest Dissertations & Theses @ Tufts . Find masters theses & PhD dissertations, available to members of the Tufts community .
• The Tufts Digital Library . Find senior honors theses, masters theses & PhD dissertations, openly available to all readers . Note that this is not a complete collection of Tufts theses.

Availability of full text online

• PhD dissertations: full text in Dissertations & Theses @ Tufts for most after 1996
• Master's theses: full text in Dissertations & Theses @ Tufts for most after 2005
• Senior honors theses: full text in the Tufts Digital Library for those after 2009

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See the Resources for writing and submitting a thesis or dissertation page of our Dissertations & Theses guide for considerations in depositing to ProQuest.

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Navigating the Academic Journey: The Power of Podcasts for Graduate Students

The graduate student journey is both exhilarating and challenging, with unique hurdles and triumphs at every turn. From navigating complex research projects to managing personal finances and commitments, graduate students face a myriad of challenges. If your experience is anything like mine, then you have more questions than you know what to do with and continue to have new questions every day during graduate school. Even though there may be many people you can turn to for advice, such as peers, mentors, and your advisor, you may be looking for additional sources to learn from. In my experience, this is where the power of podcasts comes in. In this blog post, I will explore how podcasts tailored specifically for graduate students can serve as invaluable companions, offering insights, advice, and a sense of community throughout their academic journey.   

I first began listening to podcasts tailored specifically to graduate students when I started preparing for graduate school applications. I had been working in industry for almost four years at that point and was looking for advice from people who were either currently completing graduate school or obtained their degree and were experts on all things graduate school. This led me to the first podcast I will be recommending:  

H ello PhD is a podcast with over 200 episodes that discuss all things graduate school admissions, rotations, classes, qualifying papers / exams, research, dissertation, job-hunting, and more. The podcasters, Drs. Joshua Hall and Daniel Arneman, first met in 2002 during their grad school admissions interview and ended up choosing the same graduate program. Looking back at the countless conversations that helped guide their paths, they wanted to ease the way for students, postdocs, faculty, and scientists that navigate these same hard questions every day.   

Personally, this was the perfect introduction to this niche area of podcasts, as they provided very specific, applicable advice while not taking themselves too seriously. They usually start the podcast with the craft beer they are drinking at the moment and share personal anecdotes about their personal life. As a first-generation college student, getting my bachelor's degree felt intimidating, as such applying for a doctoral degree felt like I was working tremendously hard on a prom proposal for someone completely out of my league. Once I received my acceptance letter from Tufts University and began graduate school, I continued to turn to this podcast to learn practical advice and strategies to navigate the complexities of graduate studies. 

The PhD Life Raft is a podcast with over 100 episodes that focus on sharing insights and experiences around some common issues like mental health, writing, time management, precariousness, imposter syndrome, professional relationships and work-life balance. 

The PhD Life Raft offers a space to discuss pressing issues, explore possible strategies, and provide sources of support for your doctoral journey. The podcaster, Dr. Emma Brodzinski, draws on her experience both as an academic and her training as a therapist to offer support to PhD researchers and advice for navigating academia.  

The podcaster in The PhD Life Raft has an adorable English accent and is not afraid to share personal details, such as her spending a lot of time crying during her Ph.D. journey. I love how much she sheds light on the importance of mental health during graduate school through her episodes and her own journey. Additionally, I find hearing a range of perspectives from a diverse set of guest speakers helps open my eyes to opportunities and strategies that I had not thought of before listening. I like to think of them as virtual mentors guiding graduate students through the nuances of academic endeavors. If you are interested in exploring other podcasts about the graduate school experience that are less established but still worth looking into, check out How to PhD and PhD Survival podcasts.  

Another big topic that I turn to podcasts to learn about is personal finance, however, the more general finance podcasts often provide generic advice that is not actionable at this point in my life. I mean how helpful is advice if the only way you can apply it is with a six-figure salary? Luckily, I came across a game-changer of a personal finance podcast (below) that has already saved me money by employing some of the tools the episodes discuss.  

Personal Finance for PhDs is a podcast with over 100 episodes that dive into the unique money challenges that stem from low stipend/salary during the years of graduate school and postdoc training. 

The podcaster, Dr. Emily Roberts, mission is to inspire and empower early-career PhDs to make the most of their money. Through interviews with fellow graduate students, postdocs, and PhDs with Real Jobs you learn everything from budgeting and frugality to investing, debt repayment, and beyond. This podcast serves as your beginner to advanced education in personal finance.  

Dr. Roberts' passion for personal finance is rooted in her experience as a graduate student which lets her speak from the position of a more experienced and knowledgeable peer with tons of practical tips to share. As a result, when I listen to the tailored advice that Emily and her guests share instead of giving myself a hard time for not knowing that strategy, I feel like I am a part of a supportive community of people who understand the challenges I am facing and want to help.   

The last subject matter that I will cover but is just as important as the others is career development. I know one of the scariest questions you can ask a graduate student, especially one with a dissertation to write, is when they will finish their degree. Regardless of when your timetable is, there will come a time when we all will need to build the bridge between graduate school and a career. If you need some inspiration when you begin brainstorming, I recommend listening to these two podcasts:  

PhD Career Stories is a podcast with over 130 episodes that feature interviews with Ph.D. holders from various fields, sharing their career journeys and offering advice on how to navigate the transition from graduate school to the next step in your career. 

The podcaster, Dr. Tina Perrson, discovered that numerous PhD students and postdocs experience stress because of uncertainty about their professional futures and struggle to effectively position themselves in the job market. To this end, they wanted to help by creating a podcast where PhDs share stories, successes, and failures of their career development after completing their doctorate.

The GradBlogger is a podcast with over 80 episodes that provides academic researchers, graduate students, and those with PhD degrees or other higher academic degrees the tools and strategies to build an online business using blogging, podcasting, and video. 

The podcaster, Dr. Chris Cloney, offers advice and interviews graduate students and academics on topics such as building an academic business, personal branding as an expert in your field, building a research team, utilizing social media, monetizing your blog, becoming an independent researcher who is self funded through your business, and much more.   

By the conclusion of this blog post, I aspire to have convinced you of the transformative potential of podcasts for graduate students. From providing tailored advice and insights to fostering a supportive community, podcasts serve as invaluable resources throughout the academic journey. By tuning into these podcasts, I hope you gain the knowledge, inspiration, and confidence you need to navigate your paths with resilience and success.  

History of Tufts University

Land acknowledgement.

Tufts University’s Medford/Somerville campus resides on the colonized homelands of the Massachusett tribe, whose name describes the place visible from the Great Hill, today referred to as the Blue Hills that lie south of Boston. The Massachusett came into contact with the Nipmuc to the west, the Pawtucket to the north, and Wampanoag to the south, related peoples who shared mutually intelligible languages. As an institution that benefits from the ownership of land once inhabited and cared for by Indigenous communities, Tufts has a responsibility to recognize this history and cultivate relationships with the descendants and nations who represent the original peoples of what is now eastern Massachusetts.

Founding of Tufts University

In 1847, the Universalist Church organized an educational convention to discuss the potential establishment of a college for the Universalists. The first provisional Board of Trustees was selected and began working to raise funds and choose a site. Earlier in the decade, Charles Tufts, who had accumulated significant wealth and land holdings from his family’s brick manufacturing business, had donated 20 acres of land to the Church to be used for establishing a college. Tufts’ land included one of the highest hills in the Boston area, Walnut Tree Hill, straddling the cities of Medford and Somerville. After much debate among the Trustees, in 1851 the Medford land was selected as the site of Tufts College and Charles Tufts later donated an additional 80 acres to the campus.

As local lore has it, when a relative asked Charles Tufts what he would do with his land, and more specifically with “that bleak hill over in Medford,” Tufts replied, “I will put a light on it.” In 1855, a toast to the new Tufts College was offered at a Universalist gathering in Boston’s Faneuil Hall. Rev. Hosea Ballou 2d, minister of the First Universalist Church in Medford and the college's first president, remarked, “For if Tufts College is to be a source of illumination, as a beacon standing on a hill, where its light cannot be hidden, its influence will naturally work like all light; it will be diffusive.”

The nearest house on the Medford side of the Hill was the mansion of George L. Stearns . Stearns was among the “Secret Six” who helped finance John Brown's abolitionist rebellion at Harpers Ferry, Virginia in 1859. For a period, Stearns’ home served as a way station of the Underground Railroad, a network organized before the Civil War to assist the journey of enslaved people to freedom in Canada.

When the Commonwealth of Massachusetts chartered Tufts College in 1852, the original act of incorporation noted the college should promote “virtue and piety and learning in such of the languages and liberal and useful arts as shall be recommended.” Hosea Ballou 2d, elected as Tufts’ first president, spent much of 1853-1854 traveling within the United States and Europe visiting, observing, and studying other institutions’ approaches to undergraduate education and college administration. In 1854, the Trustees authorized faculty “to give instruction in the Latin and Greek languages and in Mathematics to such young men as desire to pursue those studies.” In Tufts’ earliest days, the original college building - which would eventually bear Ballou's name - served as both home and classroom for seven students, who were taught by four professors. By the time of Ballou's death in 1861, Tufts had 36 alumni and 53 students enrolled. Engineering instruction began at Tufts in 1865, with the introduction of a three-year degree in civil engineering.

The official college seal, bearing the motto “Pax et Lux” (Peace and Light), was adopted in 1857 and the student body selected the school colors of brown and blue in 1876. Tufts’ mascot became Jumbo the Elephant in 1885, when P.T. Barnum, circus showman and an early Trustee of Tufts, donated the stuffed hide of Jumbo to the college. Jumbo stood in Barnum Hall for 86 years until the building and elephant were destroyed in a fire in 1975.

In 1892, the Board of Trustees approved “that the College be opened to women in the undergraduate departments on the same terms and conditions as to men” and nine women enrolled that fall. This status changed in 1910, when women officially matriculated to Jackson College, a coordinate women's college associated with Tufts. In 1980, Tufts became officially co-educational once again.

The first identified Black graduate of Tufts College is Forrester Blanchard Washington , who graduated in 1909 and later served as director of the Atlanta School of Social Work, president of the NAACP Atlanta chapter, and a public policy advisor with the Federal Emergency Relief Administration under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet.”

During the late 19th and 20th centuries, Tufts grew from a small liberal arts college to a top-tier research university offering master’s, doctoral, and professional graduate programs. This growth includes the establishment of a medical school in 1893, an engineering school in 1898, a dental school in 1899, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1933. In 1954, Tufts College became Tufts University. During the 1970s, French American nutritionist Jean Mayer became president and increased the endowment six-fold while expanding the university and establishing the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. In 2016, Tufts University acquired the School of the Museum of Fine Arts , with whom Tufts had partnered since 1945.

Today, Tufts is a student-centered research university that serves about 6,600 undergraduate students and 5,800 graduate students across campuses in Medford/Somerville, Boston, and Grafton, Massachusetts. Tufts no longer has a religious affiliation and students of all religious backgrounds worship in several sacred spaces, including Goddard Chapel , the 1882 Lombardic Romanesque chapel. We are proud to be home to a diverse community of students who represent a multitude of spiritual identities, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and geographic origins.

GSBS Faculty Take on Epilepsy

This article was written by Mary-Russell Roberson and originally appeared in Tufts Now .

In 2021, Madeleine Oudin , associate professor of biomedical engineering at the School of Engineering , noticed that her three-month-old daughter’s eyes were moving strangely. She took a video and sent it to her pediatrician, who told her to take Margot to the emergency department at Boston Children’s Hospital. 

The eye movements, it turned out, were the result of seizures and Margot was diagnosed with epilepsy.

Less than three years later, Oudin has added a focus on epilepsy to her research lab, where she was already studying cancer.

“I felt like if I couldn’t really do anything to stop my daughter from seizing or help her develop, I could try to do something in the lab to contribute to the field,” she said. 

Finding Genetic Mutations

Seizures in infants can be caused by many factors, including temporary conditions like fever. In Margot’s case, genetic testing showed that her seizures were caused by mutations in a part of a gene called SCN8A that contains instructions for building ion channels, which are portals in cell membranes. Ion channels have many functions in the body; in the brain, they help transmit electrical signals. 

Margot’s case of SCN8A epilepsy is severe: she’s unable to see, hold her head up, or eat using her mouth. In her three years of life, she’s had more than 20,000 seizures, has been in the hospital 17 times, and has tried 11 anti-seizure medications. 

Despite Margot’s challenges, Oudin said, “She’s a happy girl. She loves to swim and go outside and listen to music. We’ve learned to take advantage of life in a different way with her.”

A Scientific Pivot

Even though Oudin was making waves with her research on cancer metastasis (and continues to do so), she was well positioned to take on epilepsy. She had a Ph.D. in neuroscience and was surrounded by colleagues with relevant expertise, including Chris Dulla , professor and interim chair of the neuroscience department at Tufts University School of Medicine , and her husband, Christopher Burge , professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

On top of all that, Oudin’s cancer research related to ion channels , the same cellular structures that are affected by Margot’s mutations.

“It’s weird,” she said, “I do feel like all my training up to now has prepared me for this: to be Margot’s mom and take this on, to help her and her community. I do feel like this happened for a reason.” 

Gathering Expertise and Resources

Soon after Margot’s diagnosis, Oudin reached out to Dulla, who has a long history of epilepsy research . “I could never have done this without Chris,” Oudin said.

Dulla brought Oudin up to speed on epilepsy research and connected her with other experts. And Oudin taught Dulla everything she knew about ion channels, which hadn’t been part of his research before. “Madeleine is a dynamo,” Dulla said. “She has so much energy to push the understanding of this ion channel that we’re working on.”

They have already raised $50,000 on Oudin’s lab website , won a small seed grant from the American Epilepsy Society and were recently awarded a $700,000 grant from the Mathers Foundation. 

Both of them marvel at the speed with which this productive partnership is lifting off. “The set of coincidences of a group of people who each have the right expertise to move this forward very quickly is amazing,” Dulla said.

Investigating a New Therapeutic Option

During childhood, SCN8A makes a different version of the ion channel protein than in adulthood. Margot’s mutations affect the childhood version.

Would it be possible to stop Margot’s seizures by persuading SCN8A to switch over to making the adult version? And if the seizures stopped, would she be able to achieve some of the developmental milestones she’s missed? These are the questions Oudin and her colleagues are aiming to answer.

The childhood and adult versions are created using the same genetic material in different combinations, as you might use the same building blocks to assemble two different structures. This is called alternative splicing and it’s a basic function that occurs naturally in many genes.

Chris Burge, Oudin’s husband, has studied alternative splicing for 20 years; he was the one who figured out that Margot’s mutations were in the region of SCN8A that switches from a childhood version to an adult one.

That realization pointed to a new treatment shown to change alternative splicing. Molecules called antisense oligonucleotides, or ASOs, can be engineered to bind to certain parts of genetic material to influence alternative splicing.

“We think the therapeutic option for this is to use an ASO to switch the splicing to include the correct adult version and prevent the mutated childhood version from being a part of the protein,” Oudin said.

Rare Solution, Big Impact

Oudin and Burge applied to n-Lorem , a nonprofit foundation that develops ASOs for patients with rare mutations, and Margot was accepted. “We hope within a couple of years Margot will be injected with a treatment,” Oudin said.

Margot is the only known person with her exact mutations. However, many children with epilepsy have mutations in other parts of SCN8A or mutations in other genes related to other ion channels. So, if the ASO treatment works for Margot, the technique could help other children as well.

“Most drug discovery for epilepsy is made possible thanks to rare disease,” Dulla said. “If we find something that works for SCN8A, it could be applied to lots of other sodium channel mutations that would benefit from the splice-switching approach.”

Meanwhile, Oudin and Dulla are hard at work to advance the science related to SCN8A, ion channels, and epilepsy.

Haley Dame , a graduate student in the Genetics, Molecular, and Cellular Biology program at the Graduate School for Biomedical Sciences , is working on the epilepsy project for her doctoral thesis, advised by Oudin, Dulla, and Burge. The goals of the project are to illuminate more about how, why, and when SCN8A’s alternative splicing occurs in healthy development and to investigate the impact of switching from the childhood version to the adult version earlier in life than usual in both healthy mice and those with Margot’s mutations.

“No one is really studying this region of SCN8A and the alternative splicing,” Oudin said, “so we felt like we could bring in a lot of new and exciting science.”

Motivation from Margot 

There are thousands of scientific steps between here and the answer to the ultimate question, which is, in Oudin’s words, “Can we correct and treat this disorder?” 

But none of the team members are daunted. They are fueled by a happy little girl who loves life, Margot.

“Margot is amazing,” Dulla said. “It’s such a wonderful experience for me to get to take my scientific training and use it in such an immediately useful way.”

Dame agreed: “I don’t think a lot of researchers get to see what they are working for,” she said. “It’s really rewarding.”

As for Oudin, her daughter has motivated her not only to become an epilepsy researcher, but also to become a patient advocate and an active member of the SCN8A community.

“Having the perspective of being both a scientist and a caregiver and patient advocate is really unique,” she said. “You just don’t know until you live through it. I can understand the needs of patients and the community as well as the research and biology behind it.” 

Oudin now serves on the board of the International SCN8A Alliance , where she shares both her scientific expertise and her personal experience.

“It’s been a crazy couple of years, but I’m excited that I can contribute in a meaningful way,” Oudin said, “and I could not have done it without the community at Tufts.” 

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Eli Cohn-Postell, director of organizational development at Project Shema, shares the history of antisemitism at an anti-bias training session for Tufts staff and faculty.

Understanding Antisemitism to Create More Allies on Campus

A workshop offered the Tufts community a chance to learn more about Jewish identity and the history of antisemitism

Shema is a Hebrew word that means to hear, listen, or understand. That was the spirit with which hundreds of Tufts students, faculty, and staff attended Tuesday’s anti-bias training sessions called “Understanding Antisemitism: Creating Inclusive Campus Environments for our Jewish Community.”

The sessions were led by Eli Cohn-Postell, an educator and director of organizational development at Project Shema , a nonprofit organization that trains and supports the Jewish community and allies to address contemporary antisemitism. The workshop is part of Tufts Talks Openly , a new series of programs sponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for Institutional Inclusive Excellence focused on building awareness and knowledge to nurture an inclusive community.

The program explored antisemitism through a social justice framework and addressed common misperceptions about Jewish identity and antisemitism. It also demonstrated how this form of bigotry has survived and changed over more than 2,000 years and  provided participants with ways to recognize and counter antisemitic tropes and actions.  

Cohn-Postell began with two important caveats. The first was that the presentation was not meant to be a comparison or competition between Jewish people and other groups who hold marginalized identities.   The second was that, although there would be space for discussion about the Israel-Hamas war, “Jewish people around the world are not responsible for the actions of the government of the state of Israel, and they should not be required to have a statement about the Israeli government as the price to pay for discussing antisemitism more broadly. ” 

He pointed to a rise in antisemitism around the world since the October 7 attack on Israel and called the increased antisemitism a threat not only to Jewish people, but to all marginalized communities because the harm spread by antisemitism fuels other bigotries such as white supremacy. 

Anti-Jewish messages have been woven into the fabric of cultures where Jews have lived since ancient times, and no one is exempt from this kind of cultural conditioning, Cohn-Postell said.

“Antisemitism is built on conspiracy theories, and when it spreads, facts and truth are undermined, and democracy and civil rights become threatened,” he said.

Cohn-Postell gave an overview of Jewish identity and explained that many people perceive Jews as a white religious community. But many Jews identify as people of color and many don't consider themselves religious. In addition, he said, antisemitism is not about opposing the Jewish religion, but about attacking Jews as a people; the word was coined by a German journalist in the late 1800s to describe hatred of the Jewish “race.”

The distinction is important, he said, because sometimes people are attacked for wearing traditional Jewish clothing or entering a synagogue. But synagogues aren’t necessarily attacked because they’re a place of worship, he said; they’re attacked because Jewish people are inside of them. 

He recalled an incident in 2022 when an  armed man entered a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas ,  and took four people hostage. That crime was not committed because the people inside were reading the Torah,  Cohn-Postell said. It happened because the perpetrator “believed conspiracy theories about Jewish power and Jewish influence over world events, and he went looking for Jewish people,” he said. 

As for race,  Cohn-Postell pointed out that there are many Jews of color in the U.S. and around the world. 

He encouraged understanding of the role of violent expulsions throughout Jewish history dating back to 500 BCE. A notable expulsion from Rome in 70 CE led to the migration of Jews to other European countries and set off a series of expulsions across Europe that forced many Jewish communities to move again and again in a global search for safety. 

“To assume that Jews are all white or to interpret Jews as all white is an immediate act of erasure of the existence of Jews of color. Squeezing out the voices of Jews of color reinforces the image for people who are not Jewish that Jews are a solely white community,” he said.

Among other Tufts Talks Openly offerings: a series of conversations called “ Dialogue and Action in an Age of Divides ,” organized with colleagues from across nine Massachusetts universities; faculty training on making space for and engaging in difficult conversations ; and training sessions on addressing hate and discrimination, including anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias. 

What Do You Know about Islamophobia?

Understanding Hate and How to Counter it

Asking Hard Questions about Conflict in the Middle East

Department of History

College of Social Science

Former MSU History Student and Recent Graduate Jacob Novak Lands Role with 54A District Court in Lansing  

Posted on March 27, 2024 Author mcdon625

By: Patti McDonald  

Jacob Novak, a recent Michigan State University graduate who earned a double Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and History in three years, is already making a positive impact in the lives of others. Novak is now working as the domestic violence court administrative and pretrial compliance coordinator under the honorable Judge Cynthia Ward at the 54A District Court in Lansing.  

Novak works closely with people whose lives have been affected by domestic violence, both survivors and defendants. He is tasked with helping them navigate the legal system while connecting them with the resources they need to rebuild their lives.  

“Working in a court underneath the honorable Judge Cynthia Ward is something I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do,” Novak said. “To be able to play an impactful and meaningful role in combatting a societal issue while providing aid and assistance to survivors and providing a rehabilitative avenue for defendants is something I am blessed to be a part of.”  

Novak acknowledges that this work can be challenging, but he is also grateful for the opportunity to gain experience in the legal field and make a difference in the community.   

“A challenge associated with this position speaks to criminal law in general and it’s ensuring that you are approaching both defendants and survivors with a respectful attitude, you’re listening, you’re being empathetic, and you’re not letting your emotions guide your actions or behaviors,” he said.  

“It’s very important when you’re interacting with survivors that you’re there to support them and whatever decisions they feel are best, you’re not there to make decisions on their behalf, you’re there to empower them and their lives. As for defendants, you know, the last thing you want to do is come across as judgmental or condescending for their behavior and actions. There is a level of professionalism you must have, and you must keep in mind that you’re there to help rehabilitate these people.”  

Jacob has been working with the 54A District Court since August. He said he decided to take a gap year after graduation so he could diversify his experiences within the workforce and his current position is allowing him to do just that.  

“Despite having three years of legal experience, I’ve only had experience working in private firms. But, to now have that public experience in law, makes me a more well-rounded professional,” he said.   

He added that seeing the real-life impacts of his work has been gratifying, too.  

“It has been rewarding getting to see the tangible effects of the work I do. I get to speak with survivors and see how they overcome the hurdle of domestic violence while they progress and create a new life for themselves. Their identities are much more than just a ‘survivor,’ it’s John Doe who loves cooking, or Jane Smith who is now pursuing a personal interest in pottery. That is pretty powerful,” he said.   

“Alternatively, another fulfilling thing for me, has been seeing the progress of some of the defendants and seeing how they progress through their rehabilitative program and how they have begun conducting themselves in new manners while forging new aspirations, goals, and desires.”  

In addition to adjusting to his new role, Jacob has been applying to business and law schools across the country in hopes of attending in the fall.  

“I’ve applied to 15 different schools, and I am either pursuing a master’s in business administration or a juris doctor, but ultimately want to earn both degrees,” he said. “It is exciting but nerve-wracking since I have no idea where I will be in a few months. Now, it has come down to playing the waiting game to see where I get in.”  

Jacob has had quite the year. His undergraduate research was published in April, right before graduation.  His paper: “ China’s Feminist Movement: He-Yin Zhen’s Embodiment of Genuine Feminism ,” was published in the Crimson Historical Review. He originally wrote the paper for Dr. Yulian Wu’s seminar in Asian History.  

“Before I graduated, I submitted my research to the Crimson Historical Review,” Novak said. “It was a crazy time of year with graduation and everything but right before graduation I found out the Crimson Historical Review was considering publishing my paper.”  

Novak said getting his undergraduate research published is an accomplishment that he is proud of.  

“Going through the process of publishing your work can be daunting as an undergrad student but it is totally possible if you are dedicated to your research,” Novak said. “I did my own edits too and while that was time-consuming, it was so rewarding to see my name on my own publication.”  

Dr. Wu said that becoming a published author as an undergrad is quite the recognition and demonstrates a student’s passion for their research and the ability to work independently.  

“Jacob is an independent and self-motivated student,” Wu said. “He autonomously revised and submitted his paper, demonstrating a capacity for self-directed research. His paper demonstrated a strong ability to analyze primary/secondary sources and an exceptional writing skill to articulate complex ideas in a clear and engaging manner.” 

Novak said he is now working on writing a book that is closely related to his paper’s subject matter. 

“I don’t have the deadlines and structures that I would have in a classroom like I did for my paper, but I think having that flexibility and that freedom, ultimately is going to help me produce a fantastic final product that I will be very proud to stand on.” 

Photo Credit: Jacqueline Hawthorne