Jennifer Langer Receives Paul Axt Prize

5-20-97
University Park, Pa. -- Jennifer Langer of Plainsboro, N.J. won this year's Paul Axt Prize from Penn State's University Scholars Program.

The prize, named for the first director of the University Scholars Program, is the highest given to a graduating senior who seizes the opportunities of the program to create an education notable for both its breadth and depth.

Langer graduated on Friday, May 16, with honors and highest distinction in geography and the offer of a multi-year graduate fellowship in geography. Her honors thesis, under the direction of Professor of Geography Roger Downs, is an analysis of the geographical, social and historical context of Smetana's symphonic poem, The Moldau.

The computer-based multimedia essay links maps, texts, photographs and diagrams to the flow of the music and was recently awarded the phi Beta Kappa Senior Thesis Research Prize. Langer spent two years on the project learning complex computer programming, cartography and music and spent several weeks in the Czech Republic learning the culture, walking the river and taking photographs.

She has also worked with faculty on two National Science Foundation grants, has designed and written the course manual for an economic geography course for undergraduates and has been a teaching assistant for that class. She also has been a tutor at a local elementary school, a volunteer in the AIDS Quilt program and nationally is the director-general of the National High School Model United Nations program, an annual conference for more than 2,000 high school students in New York City.

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Contact: Christy Rambeau (814) 865-7517 (office) (814) 237-9046 (home) cmr7@psu.edu