Senior Catherine Walsh has taken advantage of the wide variety of opportunities available and had a unique college experience, in true Colgate fashion. 

Walsh is a Neuroscience and English concentrator. Her interest in neuroscience was inspired at a young age by a family friend who was a neuroscientist. Walsh is driven by the desire to find out how people’s minds work and why they act the way they do. She discovered her love for English by taking an English class as a first-year. Reading T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in class and coming to understand such a seemingly mysterious work inspired her to explore the subject further. Walsh has found a way to weave these two subjects together.

“I know that sometimes English and Neuroscience seem like polar opposites, but a lot of the time I think about them as just different ways to approach understanding what’s going on in someone’s head,” Walsh said.

Walsh’s list of extracurriculars is both impressive and well-rounded. She is a member of the varsity crew team, an Illustrator for the Office of Admission, an executive board member for the Phi Eta Sigma First Year Honor Society, a tutor for the psychology department, researcher in the Neuroscience Department since sophomore year and a member of Delta Delta Delta sorority. 

She spent past summers training and racing on a summer crew team. She racked up several accomplishments, winning one of her events at the Club National Championships and coming in fourth at the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta in St. Catharine’s, Ontario. 

“I had an amazing time competing at such a high level and being able to bring it back to the team on campus,” Walsh said.

Last summer Walsh did research with Professor Bruce Hansen in the Neuroscience Department, looking at how the brain responds to different categories of images. 

Walsh’s advice for first-years is to stay on campus for the summer.

“Colgate has a different vibe over the summer and it was so fun to experience it. I stayed 10 weeks last summer and it was the best summer of my life,” Walsh said.

Walsh is nostalgic about moving on from Colgate.

“I think I’m going to miss the atmosphere of Colgate tons. People here are just buzzing with vibrancy and everyone is always doing something interesting,” Walsh said.

After graduation Walsh will start a two-year fellowship at the National Institute of Health.

 “I’ll be working with a cognitive neuroscientist who focuses on memory and also using real time fMRI to study neurofeedback.”