“In both cases, you are trying to pursue a positive future not just for yourself, but also for other people,” Freund said.

This fall, he will be enrolling in at the University of Cambridge. Freund is to be selected as part of the 2026 class of Gates Cambridge Scholars. The prestigious scholarship program fully funds postgraduate study and research in any subject at the University of Cambridge.

During his four years there, Freund, who majored in psychology and minored in German and history in the œÛŚÓÊÓÆ” & Sciences, plans to research the changing role of judicial discretion at sentencing. It will bring him closer to his ultimate career goal of becoming a professor of criminology. 

After graduating from Georgetown in 2023, Freund worked as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Berlin and earned a master’s degree in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Oxford. He is currently serving as program coordinator for the Prison Education Project (PEP) at Washington University in St. Louis. 

“I think I have always been interested in justice and using the privilege that I have in service of other people,” Freund said. 

Psychology and the Legal System

Born in New York, Freund and his family moved to San Diego when he was around the age of 4. His parents still live there.

Freund did not think he would move more than 2,600 miles across the country to DC for college, but attending a for admitted students swayed his decision. 

“I feel like among the schools I got into, Georgetown presented the most compelling vision of attending to its students,” he said. “The whole concept of cura personalis really came through to me.”

Initially, Freund thought he would major in government on the Hilltop. His main interest in high school, he said, was competing on the mock trial team, and Freund figured law school would be in his future. 

But he discovered that it was his psychology courses at Georgetown that he enjoyed the most. The class Psychology and the Legal System with , a professor of psychology and vice dean for faculty affairs in the College, helped him learn how to apply psychology and social sciences to the operations of the legal system, Freund said.

That led him to propose an honors thesis that combined concepts from that class and his Cultural Psychology class with , an associate professor in the Department of Psychology. 

Freund’s thesis compared two different video layouts for videoconferencing during pretrial hearings in the courtroom. He consulted with a judge and faculty members at Georgetown to videotape a simulated courtroom hearing, then used an eyetracker and surveys to examine self-assessed recall, self-assessed understanding, procedural fairness and outcome fairness between the two video layouts.

Woolard called it “one of the most interesting undergraduate thesis projects I have supervised.” 

“Rafi has a very active mind,” Chentsova Dutton said. “It is clear that his goal is not just to get a good grade but to understand human complexity better.”

A Passion for Education

Freund also developed his passion for education at Georgetown. 

He spent three years as a teaching assistant for the Probability and Statistics course with , a teaching professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. That experience helped him realize that he loved teaching and standing in front of a classroom. Freund was also involved in the and as a tutor for the . 

“Rafi has all the qualities that make for an excellent TA,” Meyer said. “What distinguished Rafi was his attention to detail and sensitivity to his students’ needs as learners. He always paid close attention to students’ common mistakes and misconceptions while grading the assignments and interacting with students during labs and office hours.”

To Freund, his interests in criminal justice and teaching are not distinct. 

“They coalesce in a belief that all people should be able to benefit from a high-quality education,” he said.

At the University of Cambridge, Freund plans to research how sentencing operates and how the role of judicial discretion has changed over time. In his research and work experience, Freund has found that rigid approaches to sentencing can leave people doubting procedural and outcome fairness. 

The limits on discretion, he said, are being placed faster than the field is considering the potential consequences of those limits, particularly as many anticipate the integration of artificial intelligence in sentencing decisions. 

Freund wants to take a step back and ask: Is there something lost alongside the human judge? What happens when judges are prevented from being able to engage with the people they’re sentencing?

“This is a really urgent thing to think about,” he said.

(Top photo courtesy of Rafi Freund, taken at Washington University in St. Louis)

She is a Georgetown resident and has roots in the area on both her mother’s and father’s sides. Her father, Dr. Charles Earl Becker (M’64), is a graduate of Georgetown University School of Medicine, and two of her nieces are current Georgetown undergraduate students. Becker Aronson said that the university saved her life when she was treated at the after being diagnosed with Stage 3 melanoma in her lymph nodes. 

“I love Georgetown,” said Becker Aronson, the executive director of the . “I live in Georgetown, and I’m everything Georgetown.”

That was on her mind when she pledged her latest gift from the Bernstein Family Foundation: a $100,000 donation establishing ·Ą±č±đ±ôČâČÔ’s Pushke Endowed Fund to benefit the . The fund is named in honor of Becker Aronson’s grandmother, Evelyn “Eppie” Bernstein, and “pushke” is a Yiddish word for a small box used to collect money for charity.

·Ą±č±đ±ôČâČÔ’s Pushke Fund will help students conduct research and apply what they’re learning in the classrooms, said , a professor of government and the director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program. It will also help students with their capstone projects, provide compensation for part-time student research assistants and support faculty members and their research. 

Georgetown’s Jesuit mission of aligns with the values that Becker Aronson and her family share, and she hopes that the donation will help raise the profile of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.

“I think Georgetown has been a really sacred place for people to learn in such a complex world,” she said. “Georgetown is about opening up dialogue, creating civility, creating new ways to think and creating ways to solve problems.”

A Feeling of Affirmation

The is the first of its kind for the Women’s and Gender Studies Program since Brown joined as director in 2021. In their conversations, Brown could immediately sense Becker Aronson’s passion for her community.

“Ami is just really warm, really outgoing and super full of energy,” Brown said. “To have someone with really positive and uplifting energy is great to be around.”

Becker Aronson said she also reached out to other universities in the DC area. Still, her preexisting relationship with Georgetown University — she for the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for a fundraising campaign — made communication easier. 

served as a key link to Georgetown University for Becker Aronson. Baxter graduated from the œÛŚÓÊÓÆ” & Sciences, where he studied women’s and gender studies with a concentration in globalization and poverty. He is the founder and chief engagement officer of , a community-based organization focused on eliminating poverty through long-term, place-based investment in families and youth in Southwest DC and Kenya.

The two met at an event for entrepreneurs and became friends over their shared values and connection to DC. Baxter told Becker Aronson how taking women’s and gender studies courses at Georgetown affected the way he approached addressing issues around poverty in DC.

“It pushed me to look beyond surface-level solutions and really examine the structural barriers people are navigating every day,” said Baxter, who is scheduled to be the keynote speaker for the Women’s and Gender Studies Program’s capstone celebration dinner this spring. “At GOODProjects, that shows up in how we design programs alongside the community, not for them, and how we think about long-term investment in families rather than short-term interventions.”

The first thing students learn in the program is how to think critically through social and institutional structures, Brown said. “Having a women’s and gender studies degree, like any other liberal arts degree, teaches you how to think, not what to think,” she said. “We do so in an empowering way that helps people understand who they are, their social location and how they might be of assistance to others.”

Baxter believes Becker Aronson’s donation is a signal for students with interests similar to his.

“If I was a student at Georgetown right now and saw that somebody donated $100,000, that would make me feel more affirmed, like, somebody actually sees us,” he said.

The Power of Giving

Becker Aronson envisions ·Ą±č±đ±ôČâČÔ’s Pushke Fund as “an enduring spirit.”

“My grandmother believed in empowering women and girls,” she said. “She taught us to stand up for what we believed in, to care about others and give back to the community.”

Becker Aronson sees the establishment of an endowed fund to the Women’s and Gender Studies Program as more than a gift. It’s a partnership.

“We want to be a brain and heart partner,” she said. “We want to be ambassadors and advocates to support and shine a light on this remarkable program.”

Brown is equally excited about the partnership. “It’s building this community with Ami’s help and increasing our visibility,” she said. “The program will receive more eyes, and that means more support for our students and hopefully more networks for our faculty and students to expand our research and our reach.”

The power of giving, Becker Aronson said, is the ability to change the trajectory of someone’s life, even if they might not realize it at the time. It could be one class, book or lecture that makes the difference. Philanthropy, she said, is also about actively listening to the community and reinvesting in the places you live. 

Becker Aronson believes ·Ą±č±đ±ôČâČÔ’s Pushke Fund, an enduring honor to her grandmother and her resilience, will provide students in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program with more tools and access to pursue their dreams.

“We don’t want students to shut down and graduate with fear,” she said. “We want them to feel expansive and dynamic and creative and curious and open. 
 I just so deeply believe in Georgetown, and because I live here, I want to know my neighbors. I want to know my students. I want to support the broader community to show that we’re an exceptional community.”

(Top photo of Ami Becker Aronson by Brandi Nicole)

Original article posted below:

August 30, 2019 – Is pedal power the key to wiping out Multiple Sclerosis (MS)? It could be for one team of researchers at Georgetown College, although probably not in the way that you might think.

, Professor, Chair, and Interdisciplinary Chair in Science and the Department of Physics, has assembled “” for the upcoming ride, a charity ride to raise funds for the National MS Society. This team is made up of seven College science faculty (three from the Department of Physics, three from Biology, and one from Chemistry), and so far, have raised over $2,500 for the cause. “Our goal is to surpass $5,000,” Urbach states. The event takes place on September 8, 2019.

Personal Connection

Money raised from events like this helps fund much-needed research to find a cure and to slow the progression of the disease, to fund clinical trials, and to assist people living with the disease.

This, and a love for riding with his colleagues, is why Urbach decided to pull a team together. “We wanted to ride together for a good cause, and on a personal level, I wanted to provide optimism for newly diagnosed people.” Urbach was diagnosed with the disease in 2016, and fortunately has had no recurrences since being treated. “It was pretty scary when I was first diagnosed, but the treatments seem to be working and there has been little impact on my life, and I can still commute by bike, which is critical for my sanity. Also, I’ve been fortunate to have from the Georgetown University Medical Center Department of Neurology as my doctor. He knows his stuff and is incredibly supportive, including encouraging me to organize a GU team for the ride.”

This team helping to raise funds for MS is an example of how Georgetown’s Cura Personalis spills over into the lives of all its community members. Plus, doing things together outside the office/lab/classroom for a good cause is just plain fun.

“We all ride with Jeff because biking is more fun in a group,” states , professor of chemistry and team member. Roepe is also an avid cyclist. “I love riding with Jeff because his bike has more miles on it than his car.”

Go Team Georgetown

Team Georgetown is excited to participate in the event. Members of the Georgetown community are encouraged to support the cause by , keeping track of their progress, and cheering them on as they pedal their way to a cure.

Georgetown College is proud to introduce the Social Responsibility Network, a new program designed to help students pursue careers in nonprofit and public service fields.

“Here in Georgetown College we take the idea of ‘women and men for others’ seriously,” College Dean Chris Celenza said. “We are immensely proud of our many students and alumni who work in non-profits, education, and other service-based sectors. The SRN will help them make connections that will serve them throughout their careers.”

Applications will be posted later this spring for the program’s inaugural cohort of about 15 students, and programming will begin in the Fall 2019 semester.

Modeled after the College’s successful Baker Scholars Program, the Social Responsibility Network will provide lessons, programming, networking, and mentorship for students who seek out careers centered around doing social good.

“Since I administered the Baker Scholars Program for many years — and knowing that many College students pursue careers in nonprofit work, education, and community development — I suggested that we build a new program,” said. “I am excited to share that we have an outstanding group who have agreed to be part of this new initiative.”

The SRN will connect students with an advisory board composed of alumni currently working in a wide range of service-based careers.

Some alumni went straight from the Hilltop into service careers. Davine Scarlett (C’09) worked in the AmeriCorps City Year program in Miami before pursuing her master’s in public administration. She now works as a grant manager at , a humanitarian agency for those experiencing poverty and homelessness.

“My job choices have always tried to be in line with our mottos of ‘Cura Personalis,’ ‘People for Others,’ and ‘Educating The Whole Person,’” Scarlett said.

Others tested the private sector waters before turning to service-oriented work. Mackenzie Copley (C’15) worked in consulting before co-founding , a D.C.-based community health screening organization. Adrienne Villani (C’06) worked in emerging markets investing before joining , a nonprofit media development organization.

Chiarolanzio sees these backgrounds as valuable in advising undergraduates who are trying to figure out a viable career path.

“I often hear how our students choose to attend Georgetown because of our Jesuit values, and in particular serving others,” he said. “Students want to use their Georgetown College liberal arts degree to benefit the greater good, and this will allow them to connect with alumni who have centered their careers on helping others.”

The SRN will host a dinner panel for College students on Monday, February 25. All members of the Advisory Board will share information about their career trajectory and current work. The panel will be moderated by College Dean Chris Celenza. An invitation will be emailed to all students in February.