Lauren, ’27, Psychology and Neuroscience; Secondary in Art, Film, and Visual Studies

Before Lauren found herself under the lights of a research lab, she was performing under the lights of Hollywood in film and television, starting at the age of three.

Due to the stress she experienced as a child actor in the entertainment industry, Lauren questioned how other youth in entertainment handled the pressure and trauma. 

Her interest in adolescent mental health shaped her path at Harvard — and this summer, it guided her work at the John R. Weisz Lab, where she explored how digital tools can help close the gaps in therapy access and effectiveness.

Funded by the Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships through the "Build Learning through Inquiry in the Social Sciences (BLISS)" Program, Lauren joined a collaborative team studying new ways to support youth mental health. Her work focused on how emerging technologies — especially AI — can support traditional therapy.

“There’s no substitute for a strong therapist connection,” she said. “But these tools can make care more accessible and help therapists support their patients between sessions.”

Lauren contributed to several lab efforts, including a literature review of 35 articles on ethics, feasibility, and functionality of generative and rule-based AI tools, synthesized to pilot an AI chatbot designed to help adolescents with OCD practice exposure therapy at home. She also helped build a database of effective therapy interventions and worked to define the key components that make those therapies work.

“There’s a lot of innovation in digital therapy,” she said, “but we need a clearer system to understand what’s actually helping people. Our goal is to help dispel some of the mystification behind the operating systems behind therapy methods to evaluate their effectiveness and hopefully improve the field of accessible therapy."

During the summer, Lauren lived in the Harvard Summer Undergraduate Research Village (HSURV), where the impact of her summer program extended beyond the lab. She shared meals and attended events with other student researchers, finding both friendship and a fresh perspective along the way.

“It gave me time to slow down, talk to people doing very different work, and reflect on why I care about psychology,” she said. She credited her transformative research experience to Dr. Weisz, for “cultivating a wonderful team of people in his lab; their passions have truly pushed my love for psychology research,” in addition to her summer supervisors, Josh Steinberg and Seah Toh, her co-researcher, Harry Ding, and the director of the BLISS Program, Jennifer Shepard. 

Looking ahead, Lauren plans to apply to graduate programs in clinical psychology. She wants to leverage technology to pair more young people with access to high-quality mental health care, ultimately advancing patient care and progress. 

Yerosen, ’28, Biomedical Engineering; Secondary in Mathematical Sciences

Yerosen arrived at Harvard fascinated by the inner workings of the human body.

“I’ve always been drawn to questions that directly affect me,” he said. “I look down at myself and I wonder: What’s happening inside my body? What processes are happening at the molecular level?”

This summer, Yerosen immersed himself in those questions through a research internship at Harvard Medical School, supported by the Harvard Undergraduate OpenBio Laboratory's Lab Match Program, which helps students connect with Harvard labs and provides funding to reduce financial barriers. Yerosen joined the lab of Dr. Lucas Farnung, where he began investigating a protein-protein interaction involved in chromatin remodeling — a process by which cells alter the structure of DNA to regulate gene expression.

His goal was to express and biochemically isolate two candidate proteins, and then run an experiment to assess whether or not they interact. “I want to see the behavior of these proteins and discover something not yet elucidated,” he said.

The summer was not only a technical deep dive, but a shift in career direction.

“When I first came to Harvard, I was very pre-med focused,” Yerosen reflected. “Now, I’m interested in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. Being able to understand the molecular processes happening in our bodies for potential broader applications in healthcare and drug discovery is incredibly exciting.”

The lab experience helped him build both skill and confidence. After mastering foundational techniques, Yerosen began conducting experiments independently. “When there’s something I haven’t done yet, I shadow and take notes until I'm competent; it's uplifting knowing my mentor trusts me.”

Beyond the science, Yerosen appreciated the unique rhythm of staying on campus over the summer. “You build a mini community,” he said. “You’re doing something niche and impactful — but everyone else is too!”

His advice to other biomedical engineering concentrators is to stay curious and passionate. “Research is the most specific thing you can do,” he said. “And if you care about the question at hand, it won't feel like work.”

Benjamin, ’27, Environmental Science & Public Policy and Economics

Benjamin’s summer abroad wasn’t just a professional opportunity — it was a personal awakening.

Through the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) Summer Internship Program, he found himself immersed in the heart of Chilean public policy and culture. 

He first discovered the program during Harvard’s Summer Opportunities & Funding Fair, organized by the Mignone Center for Career Success. Each year, The Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics (IOP) fully funds this DRCLAS opportunity for three Harvard College students.

Despite his interest in the program, he was initially hesitant about the language fluency requirement. He decided to take the leap anyway, and by March, he was interviewing for the internship entirely in Spanish.

A few weeks later, he learned that he’d been accepted to work in Chile’s Ministry of Finance, where he would analyze how climate change influences fiscal policy across Latin America and synthesize his research into a literature review to inform long-term sustainability and funding impacts. During the second part of his program, he worked at the Regional Government of Santiago, engaging with over 20 senior officials to deepen cross-departmental understanding of metropolitan issues and support regional policy decisions. 

The program paired Benjamin with a bilingual host family in Santiago, where he quickly integrated into daily Chilean life — morning commutes on the metro, evening walks to the gym, and home-cooked dinners with his host parents. While the 13-person cohort shared cultural outings and group reflections, each intern navigated their job and host family life independently. “It was a hectic schedule, but deeply rewarding,” he said.

He described the experience as a rare combination of independence and community. “Harvard provided the structure, but my host family gave me the experience,” he said.

Working in government had always been an interest of Benjamin’s, but this was his first real chance to explore it. “At first, I had to translate every sentence of the reports I read,” he said. “Eventually, I started reading and thinking in Spanish.” When he wasn’t at the ministry, Benjamin took full advantage of his weekends, exploring the Atacama Desert, Buenos Aires, Machu Picchu, and Easter Island. 

“These are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities — and Harvard made them possible.”

Now considering law school with interests in sustainability or corporate policy, Benjamin sees his summer in Chile as pivotal.

“This isn’t just about fiscal policy. It’s about how global systems respond to climate change, and how I might fit into that work. Although it was eight weeks abroad, the memories and lessons will stay with me for life.”