As a Music and Biochemistry student on the premedical track, I found myself immersed in the things I love most. This summer, I stayed on campus and pursued three projects that shaped my academic and personal growth: (1) I began my thesis ethnographic fieldwork, (2) I worked in the UMass Chemical Engineering Department, and (3) I composed the score for a film exploring neurodiverse caregiving dynamics. Both film scoring and chemistry research were transformative in how they challenged me to apply knowledge across disciplines, but my thesis work proved the most life-changing.
Ethnomusicology wasn’t something I ever expected to be drawn to—unlike music or biochemistry, which had long been familiar to me. It began with Professor Engelhardt’s class Soundscapes of the River Valley, where I first realized that music could be a liberal art of listening—an attunement to how people live and express themselves. Though I had proposed a research topic before summer began, my fieldwork soon narrowed my focus to the role of silence in suffering among Cambodian genocide survivors living in this town—individuals whose stories are at risk of being forgotten.
As I listened to them describe the pain they have carried in silence and the ways they find relief, I came to understand silence as both imposition and protection: the silence of erased histories, and the meditative silence that helps them endure. Time spent walking with them, sharing coffee, and listening without interruption guided me toward my current project: Silence in Suffering: The Breaking and Bearing of Silence in the Lives of Four Cambodian Genocide Survivors and Descendants. The research I began this summer continues to shape not only my thesis, but also my vision for the kind of physician I hope to become—one who listens deeply to the unspoken dimensions of human experience.
