Earlier this month, when seniors had just two weeks of classes left, you’d think it was all downhill from there, right? Not for those looking for yet another challenge before Commencement, this one called a Senior Project.    

Thirteen members of the Class of 2026 took on 10 Senior Projects this year and presented their endeavors in half-hour blocks on Monday, May 18, and Tuesday, May 19. 

Students interested in pursuing Senior Projects must submit project proposals. If their projects are approved, they work about eight hours a day for the last two weeks of classes to bring the projects to fruition. Students are excused from classes those two weeks, but the program is known for pushing skills to the limit, as senior Brennan Kelly discovered.  

Brennan, a captain of the ski team, embarked on a Senior Project to design and build alpine skis. “I decided on this project as I love skiing,” Brennan said, “and I felt that it would push the limits of my woodworking and making skills.” 

At his presentation, Brennan showed video and described his work using a router, power planer, hand planer, glue, clamps, fiberglas, rubber, and other tools and materials to create a prototype for the skis. He did most of the work in the Pearse Hub for Innovation (PHI), in the workshop in his basement at home, and in his garage. Brennan will not be able to ski on the prototype because some of the pieces slipped out of alignment when they were being molded, but that development, an uphill battle with downhill skis, did not deter him.

He was asked by a student in the audience what he would do with the prototype he made.  

“It’ll probably end up as a bench or wall art, but it’s still a proof of concept,” he said. 

Mariam Ali’s project, “When Color Meets Words: Painting and Poetry,” combined two of the many things in which she has an interest.  

When Mariam was in middle school, she worked a lot in colored pencil art, but she didn’t do much art on campus at Loomis, concentrating on other things. So she decided to do art as an element of her senior project. She has studied poetry in her English classes here, and she wrote poems for this project as a way of processing and expressing the ideas that arose from the paintings and their subject matter.  

She said her project’s overall focus was “intersectionality of identities” — the combination of race, religion, gender, class, sexuality, ability, and other traits that create one’s unique identity — and the idea that sometimes those identities do not perfectly align with each other. For example, she said, her cultures of being Muslim and being Black don’t really line up with each other.  

“Society often pressures people to define themselves as only one thing, to choose a single identity,” she said.   

Mariam created three paintings, which she called the Kiberenge Collection, named for her late father, who encouraged her to pursue art. She also shared some of her accompanying poetry during her presentation. 

Nina Gitlitz and Sophie Singer, who have appeared in many Loomis Chaffee theater productions, made a music video to the song “Coffee” by Chappell Road. They told the story of one-sided love, noted Nina. “We chose it because we knew that we wanted to tell a story about love, and we wanted to play to our strengths by emphasizing acting and character work rather than dancing,” Nina said as they began the process. “Senior projects give us the opportunity to fully dedicate our time to telling this story.” 

Emmy Marcus had not thrown on a pottery wheel until her junior year, and when she did, she said, she fell in love with ceramics. She was so enamored with the medium that her project was “an exploration of two different design styles, art nouveau and Bauhaus, done through two ceramics pieces based on the Sagrada Familia and the Triadic Ballet.” The resulting pieces were larger than those she had previously made. 

Sophie Posamentier and Chris Zeng combined on an EP (Extended Play) of original songs by the pair. “We decided on the project out of a mutual appreciation for music and our shared class, Jazz Improvisation & Theory,” Sophie said. 

Shane Lischin’s project, “Growing Loomis: A History of Farming on Campus,” examined the history of agricultural education at the school. He conducted much of his research in the Loomis Chaffee Archives. “By 1914,” he noted in a display that was part of his project, “Loomis owned about 150 acres of land, nearly 100 of which were farmed principally by agricultural students. Some boys rented school land and farmed as their own business.” That meant profits went to the student, “making the course a direct experiment in responsibility, risk, and enterprise. At early Loomis, agriculture was not simply manual labor. It connected science, business, accounting, mechanics, and practical life.” 

2026 Senior Projects 

Flying Downhill: Ski Design & Fabrication | Brennan Kelly 

The Monstrous Feminine in Horror Films| Natalie Pereira  

When Color Meets Words: Painting and Poetry | Mariam Ali 

Soft Power, Heavy Weight: Visual Narratives of Black Femininity and Self-Definition| Sam Welbeck  

Murmurations: an EP | Sophie Posamentier & Chris Zeng  

Growing Loomis: A History of Farming on Campus | Shane Lischin  

Large Thrown and Altered Vessels | Emanuelle Marcus  

Lengage: Turn Survey Responses into Insight| Daniel Gao & Jerry Li  

WAKE UP: Fashion Is Political – African Culture & Politics | Malado Landoure  

I’ll Meet You for Coffee| Nina Gitlitz & Sophie Singer