This spring Tyné Freeman was nominated for an Independent Music Award in the “Best Concept Album” category for Bridges. Tyné attended the awards ceremony at the Lincoln Center in New York City, where she was in the presence of renowned judges such as Keith Urban and Norah Jones. Bridges was originally Tyné’s thesis. While she was in Ghana for her foreign study program in the African and African American studies department, she met an artist who wrote a song in Swahili and then asked her to write the second half in English. From there, she reached out to numerous artists she had met during the years to collaborate on her album. Tyné has been nominated for multiple awards for her music this year and is working on an upcoming album with a few producers and artists she met through these awards. In addition to becoming an acclaimed artist, Tyné is continuing her studies and earning a master of arts and liberal studies at Dartmouth. She’s focusing on creative writing and wants to write a memoir about her grandmother, who emigrated to the United States from Jamaica.

Tyné is not the only ’17 woman who has gained renown for her thesis. Julia Dressel was recently published in Science Advances on how technology and racial bias affect the prediction of recidivism. During her junior year Julia approached professor Hany Farid about her interest in technology and its impact on the criminal justice system; little did she know that her work would make such an impact that she would be presenting at Harvard University and be interviewed by publications such as The New York Times. Courts are increasingly using algorithms to predict recidivism and assess defendants’ likelihood of committing crimes; however, Julia’s research shows that the popular commercial risk assessment software COMPAS is no more accurate than individuals with no criminal justice experience. Not only has Julia become a published scholar since graduation, but she’s also a software engineer at Apple. She’s part of a rotational program in Apple’s Sunnyvale, California, office, but has an upcoming project in London, where she’ll be working in technical product management. Right now she’s living with fellow ’17 Dani Moragne. Dani is working in marketing for the app Elevate, a startup in San Francisco. Dani is one of the youngest employees at her company, but after watching all The Lord of the Rings movies, she has plenty to talk about with her coworkers.

After presenting her work at Harvard, Julia met up with Terence Hughes, who’s working in Boston at Artisan Consulting. Terence really likes Boston and goes to Monday night trivia with Chase Shipp, Claire Hern, Jason Auh, Ellis Guo, Grace Miller, and Allison Cartswell. However, Terence is a New York native, so he went to two Red Sox games with Claire and Ellis decked out in Yankees gear. Luckily, their clothing was a conversation starter, and they were not involved in any of the brawls during the game. Back in February Terence went to visit Apoorva Dixit, who is in India for her Fulbright scholarship. The two traveled around the west coast to Goa, Mumbai, and Kerala. In Goa, they went to the beaches and took advantage of the great hiking in the area. Since Goa is fairly touristy, Terence and Apoorva rented mopeds and rode up the coast to find less-crowded beaches. Terence’s favorite part of this region was the food, which is apparently much better than Jewel of India in Hanover. In Mumbai Terence got to spend time with Apoorva’s family, and then in Kerala the two did some more hiking, gazed at the palm trees, and took advantage of the beautiful weather.

—Dorian Allen, 117 West Grant St., Apt. 123, Minneapolis, MN 55403; (973) 986-5988; dorallen@comcast.net