What is a Mellon Forum?
Mellon Senior Forums at Branford College seek to foster in our Seniors the sense of belonging to the community of scholars. Organized in the form of dinner meetings to which both Seniors and their advisers are invited, they provide some of our most talented students the opportunity to present the results of their independent research projects. The Forums also offer the possibility of especially close interaction between the Head of the College, the Dean, and Branford Seniors in comfortable and intimate surroundings. Branford holds a number of Senior Forums in the Spring semester. After dinner is served, students deliver research papers, usually fifteen to twenty minutes in length, to an audience of fellow Seniors. Attempts are made to cover a wide range of topics in various branches of the Humanities, the Social Sciences, and the Natural Sciences. Each paper is immediately followed by a lively and intense question and answer period which permits the Senior to clarify (and perhaps modify) his/her critical stance.
Branford’s Mellon Forum coordinators are HOC De La Cruz, Dean Galindo, and resident fellow Steve Blum. Each senior participating in the Forums are matched with one of our Graduate Affiliates who mentor them. An info session is held in the Fall semester for those seniors interested in participating.
What is the Mellon Forum schedule for Spring 2026?
January 13th
Janic Aguirre
“Traditions and Intentions: Pseudo-glyph Writing in Classic and Post-Classic Societies in Ancient El Salvador and Honduras”
The Copan valley and Western El Salvador are known for the presence of pseudo-glyphic writings painted and inscribed on ceramic objects (Longyear, 1952; Sharer 1979; Viel 1993). Different styles such as Copador, Arambala, Gualpopa, and Machacal contain varieties of signs that look similar to Maya hieroglyphic writing found elsewhere but are not necessarily legible. Several scholars have systematically studied pseudo-glyphs on Maya vessels: Longyear (1952), Calvin (2006), Aldana (2011), Caballero Diaz (2017), and Houston (2018). This project seeks to contribute to pseudo-glyphic studies by expanding Calvin’s Pseudo-Glyph catalogue and comparing different pseudo-glyphic signs across archaeological sites. This project tests the following hypothesis. While in certain Maya societies pseudo-glyphs played a role as a symbolic alternative to bone fide hieroglyphs, pseudo-glyphs found in regions with Copador were the product of deliberate, stylized form of expression. We test this theory by analyzing the degree to which pseudo-glyphs repeat across sites and analyzing the burial and provenience these vessels were found in. We hope this thesis can shed light on larger questions, such as the transmission of hieroglyphic knowledge across the ancient Mesoamerican world.
Sydney Scheller
“Removing Single Points of Failure in Privacy-Preserving Record Linking Systems for Medical Data”
General patient information and test results often lack the level of detail required for modern medical and public health research, which increasingly relies on large-scale, granular datasets. To support this work, infrastructure systems must securely connect records across multiple sources while ensuring that sensitive patient information remains private. Privacy-preserving record linking (PPRL) systems are designed to achieve this goal by linking datasets without revealing patient identities or increasing risk to the individuals whose data is used.
This thesis presents a PPRL-compatible system that is secure by design rather than relying on staying ahead of the technical arms race. Security is achieved by eliminating single points of failure, specifically the researcher and the encrypted shared file system, which are the primary sources of vulnerability in current systems. The proposed infrastructure preserves the existing regulatory mechanisms for data procurement, such as Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) and Data Use Agreements (DUAs), while enhancing both the security of the system and the researcher’s workflow.
The first half of the thesis evaluates current practices for handling sensitive medical data, including login protocols, access controls, and regulatory oversight, against a non-collusion threat model. The second half constructs a new PPRL-consistent infrastructure that mitigates identified risks.
This system demonstrates that it is possible to create PPRL infrastructure that both facilitates legitimate research and maintains strong privacy protections, even in the presence of adversaries. By shifting from a reliance on technical arms races to security by design, this approach provides a robust framework for future medical research infrastructure.
Lucy Ton That
“‘You Can’t Destroy My True Red Heart’: A Reading of the 2008 Translations of Hồ Xuân Hương”
The phrase “you can’t destroy my true red heart” comes from Marilyn Chin’s 2008 translation of Hồ Xuân Hương, an eighteenth-century Vietnamese poet famed for her use of the erotic lyric. Together, with John Balaban, a second major translator of Hồ’s work, Chin and Hồ comprise the protagonists of this essay. In this essay I read Hồ Xuân Hương’s literary afterlife through her two contemporary American translations. I use different points of comparison to evaluate the continuities and divergences between the two translations, from the “scandal” of the “Marichiko” translations to the subfield of female poetic performance with the political poetess; from Anne Cheng’s critical work on Ornamentalism to the acrimonious letters sent back and forth between the translators and their allies. This essay sets out to chronicle a literary dispute between John Balaban and Marilyn Chin over who has the right to translate across nation, race, culture, and gender and concludes with the impossibility of that task, instead seeing Balaban and Chin—rather than as adversaries—as two (unwitting) collaborators.