NCF Honors 13 Williams Students, Alumni

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The National Science Foundation has awarded research fellowships to nine Williams College students and alumni. In addition, the NSF has awarded honorable mentions to four Williams graduates. The NSF fellowships support graduate study in the natural and social sciences.

The nine Williams fellowship recipients are Gordon Bauer, Class of 2014, an engineering student at the University of California, Berkeley; Erin Curley, Class of 2015, a psychology student at Temple University; Dylan Freas, Class of 2016, a chemistry student at the California Institute of Technology; Nitsan Goldstein, Class of  2015, who studies neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania; senior Sumun Iyer, who will study mathematics at Cornell University; William Kirby, Class of 2017, who will pursue graduate studies in physics at Tufts; Emily Levy, Class of 2013, who studies behavioral ecology at Duke University; Lucy Page, Class of 2016, who will pursue graduate studies in economics at MIT; and Carly Schissel, Class of 2016, who is studying chemistry at MIT.

Honorable mentions went to Peter Clement, Class of 2014, Rachel Essner, Class of 2016, Nina Horowitz, Class of 2014, and Ashwin Narayan, Class of 2016.

With support from the NSF Fellowship, Williams senior Sumun Iyer plans to explore her current research interests in dynamics and theoretical computer science at Cornell. An English and mathematics major from Cherry Hill, N.J., Iyer has conducted math research as part of the SMALL Undergraduate Research Project at Williams, as well as the REU summer program at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.



At Williams, Iyer has also served as an active member of the student chapter of the Association of Women in Mathematics, which aims to make the math community more inclusive of and welcoming to members of underrepresented minorities in STEM.

"I'm really grateful to receive this fellowship and excited to have as much time as possible to devote to research while I'm in graduate school," Iyer said. She is currently writing a thesis on topology.

The National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency, was founded in 1950 to further U.S. leadership in the sciences. Since its inception it has supported graduate research and awards more than 1,000 research fellowships each year.


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Mount Greylock School Committee Votes Slight Increase to Proposed Assessments

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee on Thursday voted unanimously to slightly increase the assessment to the district's member towns from the figures in the draft budget presented by the administration.
 
The School Committee opted to lower the use of Mount Greylock's reserve account by $70,000 and, instead, increase by that amount the share of the fiscal year 2025 operating budget shared proportionally by Lanesborough and Williamstown taxpayers.
 
The budget prepared by the administration and presented to the School Committee at its annual public hearing on Thursday included $665,000 from the district's Excess and Deficiency account, the equivalent of a municipal free cash balance, an accrual of lower-than-anticipated expenses and higher-than-anticipated revenue in any given year.
 
That represented a 90 percent jump from the $350,000 allocated from E&D for fiscal year 2024, which ends on June 30. And, coupled with more robust use of the district's tuition revenue account (7 percent more in FY25) and School Choice revenue (3 percent more), the draw down on E&D is seen as a stopgap measure to mitigate a spike in FY25 expenses and an unsustainable budgeting strategy long term, administrators say.
 
The budget passed by the School Committee on Thursday continues to rely more heavily on reserves than in years past, but to a lesser extent than originally proposed.
 
Specifically, the budget the panel approved includes a total assessment to Williamstown of $13,775,336 (including capital and operating costs) and a total assessment to Lanesborough of $6,425,373.
 
As a percentage increase from the FY24 assessments, that translates to a 3.90 percent increase to Williamstown and a 3.38 percent increase to Lanesborough.
 
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