World-Class University
Prajjwal Panday ’05
Nepal
Man of Many Continents
St.
Lawrence University has always been one of the top choices
for graduating seniors from my high school in Nepal,” says
Prajjwal Panday ’05 of Kathmandu. Having started at another
American university, he transferred to St. Lawrence “because
it provides a strong academic platform for each and every student
and works with the students to meet their academic and financial
needs,” he says.
Far from home, Panday has felt embraced by the campus community. “Ever
since I arrived at St. Lawrence, I have fit perfectly here,” he
says. “I felt right at home in the International House
(I-House). Living here for two years has been an experience
of a lifetime for me, which I shall cherish forever.”
An environmental studies/chemistry combined major, Panday
worked with Assistant Professor of Chemistry Ning Gao in the
summer of 2004, investigating the types and sources of pollution
emissions in the Lake Champlain Basin, 100 miles east of campus,
using modern receptor modeling techniques. He presented his
completed work as an oral presentation at the American Chemical
Society (ACS) meetings in Rochester, N.Y., last fall, and as
a poster presentation with Gao at the annual meeting of the
ACS in San Diego in March.
While he has not done an international study through St. Lawrence,
Panday has worked in Kenya and his native Nepal through two
grants he received from the University’s Center for International
and Intercultural Studies (CIIS). With these grants he did
case studies analyzing the urban watershed pollution in Nairobi
and Kathmandu as independent research. “The research
and subsequent seminar experiences have been invaluable toward
the completion of my undergraduate studies,” Panday says. “They
have been a positive reinforcement of my goal to make an environmental
difference in small communities, and furthered my interest
in continuing in this field in graduate school.”
Panday looks forward to completing his education in the U.S,
and hopes to establish a career in a developing country such
as Nepal where, he states, “I can utilize my skills to
help with the preservation and restoration of natural resources
and the environment.”
Meanwhile, Panday is a member of Amnesty International, an
international human rights advocacy group, and the South Asian
Bollywood and Holiday Association, an organization which promotes
awareness of Asian culture. He is the floor coordinator of
I-House and is on the house’s intramural soccer and broomball
squads.
If he’s not working at the Owen
D. Young circulation desk you can probably find him serving
a specialty drink at Caribou Coffee Shop in the bookstore or
playing his guitar at Open Mic Night at the Java House.
—Chinasa Izeogu ’05
