2025 Graduates in Medieval and Renaissance Studies

By Michael Cornett, Associate Director

A graduation dinner and celebration was held in May for the 2025 Medieval and Renaissance Studies graduates with their parents and favorite professors in a private dining room at Café Parizade in Durham. The 2025 class includes Amy Chou (minor), Henry Gussis (major), Joshua Palomo (major), Matthew Song (minor), Lia Sprouse (minor), and Grant Wernick (minor). Like several humanities programs at Duke, a small number of majors and minors graduate in Medieval and Renaissance Studies each year, though it may be surprising to know that 1,178 current students, or 18 percent of the student body, have taken a MEDREN course as an elective. Our majors and minors are special, among the brightest students at Duke. They are intellectually curious and serious learners, and our majors are far more likely than the student body at large to complete a research honors project. No two MEDREN students are alike, as will become apparent below. They truly develop individualized paths through our program.
 

Here are the graduates.

Three of the six graduates
Three of the six graduates, from left to right: Henry Gussis, Joshua Palomo, and Matthew Song

Amy Chou graduated with a Mechanical Engineering major and a second major in Chemistry, with a minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. She participated in the MEDREN/Center for Computational Thinking “Early Modern London” project in her sophomore year. Amy says being in the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Focus program for first-year students was definitely a highlight of her time at Duke.

Lia Sprouse graduated with a Biology major and minors in Medieval and Renaissance Studies and Spanish. Lia raced with Duke’s cycling club, and she worked with Duke’s Remote Medical Area Volunteer Corps, helping to provide free medical care at clinics in the Southeast. She is planning to work in the medical field.

Grant Wernick graduated with a major in History and a minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. He is entering an officer training program in the U.S. Army. I asked him why he didn’t do this through ROTC; he said it was because he wanted to prioritize studying the humanities, which he could not do through ROTC.

Matthew Song is a double major in History and Classical Civilizations with a minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Matthew easily could have earned a third major in our program, as he completed nine of ten courses for the major, but you can only have two majors at Duke, so he had to “settle” for a minor. Matthew will be attending law school next year and is deciding among a few options but likely will go to Notre Dame.

Henry Gussis is a double major in Computer Science and Medieval and Renaissance Studies, with a minor in Economics. He was in the Medieval and Renaissance Studies 2021 Focus Program, and he also participated in the Bass Connections “Early Modern London” digital research project led by Dr. Astrid Giugni. He is taking the next year to figure out his plans and in the meantime is getting a job in software engineering or management. He hopes to get an MBA down the road. Henry told me he chose the Medieval and Renaissance Studies major to pursue his interests and for enjoyment. There is so much emphasis among Duke students on developing skills to get a job, Henry says, which can overshadow exploring and learning. He chose not to ignore that aspect of his college experience.

Joshua Palomo has a double major in Statistical Science and Medieval and Renaissance Studies, with a minor in Mathematics. He also participated in the Bass Connections “Early Modern London” digital research project. Joshua wrote an honors thesis for his MEDREN major, titled “A New Convivencia? Economic, Religious, and Societal Dynamics of Sephardic Coexistence in Ottoman Thessaloniki,” directed by Dr. Ellen McLarney, for which he was awarded High Distinction. Joshua worked as an assistant for the program for the last two years, allowing me to draw on his stats and technological know-how for various projects, and he also played saxophone in the Duke pep band.

Joshua is taking a year to figure out his potential plans for going to graduate school and in the meantime will find a job in data analytics. Joshua told me that his experience in our program has led him to shift his aspirations from finding a job primarily to earn a high salary to seeking a career path that has to do with people’s lived experience. Studying humans has made him more interested in people. That is a significant discovery born from his humanities education. There’s a tendency, Joshua says, to have your plans all worked out, but plenty of graduates don’t figure this out right away and come to discover a viable career path over time. Indeed, studies of career trajectories show that within five years of graduation half of graduates end up working in a field different from their major. I admire how both Henry and Joshua are not fearful of open-endedness, and instead see the next stage after college as an opportunity to continue exploring. I believe the confidence they’ve gained from their humanities experience has positioned them to think about their career aspirations this way.

Congratulations to all our 2025 graduates!

 

Graduates with favorite professors and the program’s associate director, from left to right: Professor Martin Eisner, Henry Gussis, Joshua Palomo, Professor Ellen McLarney, Matthew Song, Dr. Michael Cornett.
Graduates with favorite professors and the program’s associate director, from left to right: Professor Martin Eisner, Henry Gussis, Joshua Palomo, Professor Ellen McLarney, Matthew Song, Dr. Michael Cornett.