Student-Athlete

Student-Athlete, Researcher Runs Toward Cleaner Air

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Three researchers from Andrew Jensen's lab, including student-athlete Ava King, present research at the University of Michigan
Ava King ’28 (second from left) was one of three students in Andrew Jensen’s air-quality lab who presented their research during an undergraduate conference at the University of Michigan.

When Ava King ’28 encounters a setback, she doesn’t panic.

As a member of Kalamazoo College’s cross country and track and field teams, she’s accustomed to difficult workouts, races that don’t go as planned, and the persistence required to keep improving. This summer, those same qualities have become just as valuable inside Assistant Professor of Chemistry Andrew Jensen’s research lab.

“There are a bunch of little things that can crop up that you don’t expect,” King said. “I think my experience athletically helps me find more humor in those situations as opposed to getting beat down. I still get frustrated, but being able to process those emotions differently has helped a lot.”

King is a biology major with aspirations for graduate school and a career in marine science. This summer, she is helping Jensen’s lab develop and test low-cost air-quality sensors that measure pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter, along with temperature and humidity. The long-term goal is to support community-based environmental research.

For King, the opportunity has expanded her understanding of how chemistry can intersect with environmental justice while introducing her to new technical skills.

“I’m lucky to be in this lab,” she said. “I feel like the opportunity came up at a good point in my academic career. It was a good way for me to begin to understand what environmental justice means, especially in a chemistry realm. I’m having a lot of fun learning a lot of coding, too, which is new for me.”

Her days vary depending on the stage of the project. Some are spent building and troubleshooting sensor systems. Others focus on determining whether the instruments are collecting reliable data. The team’s current system monitors ozone, particulate matter, temperature and humidity as researchers work toward deploying the equipment outdoors.

Student researchers from Andrew Jensen's summer lab pose with an air-quality monitor
Assistant Professor of Chemistry Andrew Jensen (second from right) stands with his summer lab students including Ava King ’28 (bottom) with an air-quality monitor they developed.

King measures success less by flawless experiments than by how effectively the team responds when challenges arise.

“I think day-to-day success is whether we can come back from little problems that crop up or things that were confusing,” she said. “Being able to come out the other side and understand it, that’s what it means to be successful.”

That mindset reflects lessons she’s learned as a student-athlete, where progress often comes through perseverance rather than perfection.

The opportunity to explore beyond a single field was part of what King sought at K. Although biology remains her primary academic focus, working in an atmospheric chemistry lab has helped her see connections across scientific disciplines.

“I feel like it fills in a lot of gaps,” she said. “I would like to go to grad school, preferably in some sort of marine science. We’re doing atmospheric chemistry, and the atmosphere and the oceans go hand in hand.”

Although she originally hoped to attend a West Coast university with a marine science program, King said K ultimately proved to be the right fit. She credits the College’s collaborative chemistry department for opening the door to research opportunities early in her undergraduate career.

Balancing research with summer training for cross country and track has been manageable thanks to the flexibility of both pursuits. After spending the day in the lab, she heads out to complete the mileage assigned by her coaches while staying connected with teammates through summer running challenges.

King hopes to continue contributing to the air-quality project throughout her time at K, eventually sharing findings with the community while helping advance the research toward new applications.

Jensen said King’s experience illustrates why student-athletes often thrive in research settings.

“I think Ava hit the nail on the head in terms of research taking a lot of resiliency and perseverance,” Jensen said. “I’d add that it takes a lot of teamwork with the ability to listen to feedback from others, whether that’s a professor, advisor or coach, and then modify what you’re doing to become better. In this lab, we’re working together toward one common goal.”

Those qualities make student-athletes valuable contributors in the laboratory, where breakthroughs rarely happen without persistence, collaboration and a willingness to learn from every challenge. For King, the same determination that carries her through miles on the course is helping move scientific discovery forward one experiment at a time.

In Athletics and the Lab, Resilience is a Part of the Game

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Mallory Gentry ’28 shows resilience in the summer lab of chemistry professor Daniela Arias-Rotondo.
Mallory Gentry ’28

On most fall mornings, Mallory Gentry ’28 and Simran Magnan ’29 can be found at swim practice or lifting weights. This summer, however, they’re in a chemistry lab at Kalamazoo College, working alongside Daniela Arias-Rotondo, the Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Endowed Chair in Natural Science, on research into manganese-based coordination complexes that could one day help improve solar energy technology.

Gentry, a swimmer from Pendleton, Indiana, and Magnan, a soccer player from Northville, Michigan, are both members of Arias-Rotondo’s lab, where they’re working to synthesize new compounds that absorb visible light.

According to Arias-Rotondo, the goal is to make new manganese compounds that might prove useful for capturing sunlight—compounds no one has made before.

Magnan, who was on crutches recovering from surgery, started her summer away from the lab bench, instead digging through research articles to help chart the lab’s next steps.

“I’m more so on the computer looking at research articles, trying to figure out next steps and what different types of ligands that we could use for these new molecules,” she said.

Both students say the extended, uninterrupted stretch of summer research, compared with the single weekly session they typically manage during the school year, has let them dig deeper into their projects.

“It gives me the time to actually do more things and be able to look into it,” Gentry said.

For Magnan, the structure of summer research keeps her connected to chemistry through the offseason. “It keeps me engaged and focused to slide right back into chemistry in the fall,” she said.

Both students found their way to Arias-Rotondo’s lab well before this summer. She was the first chemistry instructor at K for both, and both say their working relationship grew out of office hours conversations that started as early as freshman year.

“I really enjoy working with Dr. DAR,” Gentry said, referring to how students affectionately address Arias-Rotondo. “She’s very good at explaining things and open to questions. She’s very easy to talk to.”

Magnan agreed.

“The way that she teaches really works well for me,” Magnan said. “She gives us a couple first steps and then has us try it on our own. Later, we’ll come back to her and ask questions because she’s always available for questions, without giving away how to do something.”

For Arias-Rotondo, having student-athletes in her lab isn’t a scheduling accommodation, it’s an asset.

“Having student-athletes in the lab is awesome because they know how to fail and recover from failure, which is so important in research,” she said.

With a research success rate she estimates at around 20 percent, resilience matters, Arias-Rotondo said.

“They already have that resilience, that willingness to just pick yourself back up and try something again,” she said, adding that athletes also tend to bring strong time-management skills to the lab. “They already have some incredible qualities that they’ve learned through sports that can translate.”

Both students see the connection clearly in their own experience. Magnan described a similar overlap between soccer and chemistry.

“Coming at it from a soccer angle versus coming at it from a chemistry angle just provides more opportunities and strategies for me to approach problems,” she said. “That skill building is probably what I’m going to remember more than the chemistry or the soccer combined.”

Arias-Rotondo said she thinks carefully about lab chemistry of a different kind: how her students work together.

“I think the lab is more like the swim team, where in most cases they have their own events, but they are still rooting for each other,” she said. “A win for one of them is a win for all of us.”

She praised both students’ work ethic and problem-solving under pressure, noting that when experiments don’t go as planned, they think about their next step and how something can work the next time.

Both students say K’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and its emphasis on undergraduate research, played a role in their decision to enroll at K. Their advice to fellow students weighing whether to pursue summer research: do it.

“It gives you time to fully focus on what you’re doing and learn, and also gives you a community in the science,” Gentry said.

Magnan echoed the sentiment: “You get to go so much more in depth and get much more individualized learning. There’s just so much growth possible.”

For Magnan, the summer has also offered an unexpected benefit beyond the science.

“Being here has been so much better mentally for me than being at home, just on the couch,” she said of recovering from her surgery in the lab rather than away from campus. “It really gives my brain something else to focus on.”

Simran Magnan '29 shows reilience while working in the summer lab of professor Daniela Arias-Rotondo.
Simran Magnan ’29
Mallory Gentry '28 working in the summer lab of Dr. Daniela Arias-Rotondo
Mallory Gentry ’28
Simran Magnan '29 shows resilience while working in the lab of Daniela Arias-Rotondo
Simran Magnan ’29

Beyond the Game Connects Student-Athletes, Alumni for Career Planning

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Students and athletes network during Beyond the Game
Rick Gianino ’78 talks with Maddie Hanulcik ’26 during Beyond the Game.

Editors Note: Carson Williams ’25 wrote this story for College Marketing and Communication.

At a table in the Hornets Suite, Annslee Ware ‘27 leaned into conversation with alumni, asking questions about careers, choices, and what comes next. Like many Kalamazoo College student-athletes nearing graduation, she’s beginning to look beyond the structure of practices and games to a new question taking shape: Who am I beyond the game?

That question brought junior and senior student-athletes together with alumni in March for the Beyond the Game networking event, hosted by Center for Career and Professional Development (CCPD), and the Office of Alumni Engagement (OAE), in partnership with Kalamazoo College Athletics. The gathering connected students with graduates to discuss post-graduation journeys.

“The goal of Beyond the Game was to create a meaningful space to explore careers of interest, gain advice on navigating life at and after Kalamazoo College, and continue building professional networks,” CCPD Director Valerie Miller said.

About 80 students and 20 alumni attended the event. Many participants said they valued both the opportunity to practice networking and to learn how academic experiences at K translate into careers.

Ware, a women’s lacrosse player double majoring in psychology and business, said the event helped her see new possibilities. She hopes to build a career helping others in the sports realm.

“Connecting with alumni and learning from them are essential to my career journey,” Ware said. “It was fun learning what majors and minors alums had and how they related to their profession.

She left the event looking forward to what her future could be like after K.

“My biggest takeaway was to always be open to any career paths and work hard,” she said. “Openness to experience and a strong work ethic are key when you’re aiming to be successful.”

Director of Athletics Jamie Zorbo speaks to students and alumni during Beyond the Game
Director of Athletics Jamie Zorbo speaks to students and alumni during Beyond the Game.
Students and an alumnus talk during Beyond the Game
Students and an alumnus talk during Beyond the Game.

Jacob Gallimore ‘15 majored in chemistry with a business minor and a biochemistry concentration and was a member of the football team. He is now Vice President of business development at Ansira, a software development company based in St. Louis, Missouri. He returned to campus for the opportunity to help fellow Hornets.

“I know how stressful it was my junior and senior years, beginning to make plans post-graduation,” Gallimore said. “I’m always about networking, and as I progress in my career, I would love to hire some Hornets down the line.”

He enjoyed talking to student-athletes across all sports and was impressed by the number of students who attended and asked pertinent questions about career paths and the job market.

“There is a new challenge current seniors face, entering a rapidly changing job market in the artificial intelligence era, where the number of entry-level roles has decreased in the past few years,” Gallimore said. “However, this reinforces the value of the K-Plan in preparing students to be adaptable and the necessity of the plethora of tools that K provides, including networking events like this one.”

Three students and an alumna talk during Beyond the Game
Students and alumni connect in the Hornets Suite for the Beyond the Game networking event.
A student-athlete and an alumnus talk
About 80 students and 20 alumni attended Beyond the Game.

Miller says feedback from alumni about the event was overwhelmingly positive.

“Among the alumni who completed our survey, 100% said the event was a positive experience and worth their time, and that they felt it was genuinely useful for student-athletes.”

As students like Ware look ahead, events like Beyond the Game offer more than networking. They provide a starting point for imagining a future beyond college and athletics, one conversation at a time.

“At Kalamazoo College, we emphasize the ‘student’ in student-athlete by intentionally creating opportunities like this for career exploration, mentorship and meaningful connection,” Director of Athletics Jamie Zorbo said. “It also serves as a strong reminder of the reach and impact of the K network. Our alumni are deeply invested in giving back, and that support plays a critical role in helping our student-athletes move forward with confidence.”

Soccer Study: Team Dynamics Matter More Than Individual Talent

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Miyani Sonera driving downfield during a Kalamazoo College women's soccer game
For Miyani Sonera ’27, a biology project about soccer was as much about learning the research process as it was about the result. “Getting to design a study, analyze data and see it published, that was incredible,” she said. “It showed me how much there is to explore when you ask the right questions.”

In soccer, chemistry might outweigh star power.

A new study from Kalamazoo College, published in Football Studies, found that a soccer player’s individual ability accounts for only about 11% of performance variation in small-sided games. Their combination with teammates? Roughly double that.

In the study, Associate Professor Santiago Salinas, soccer alumnus Shun Yonehara ’24 and student-athlete Miyani Sonera ’27 ran 78 small-sided matches—three-on-three, men and women, rotating teammates through ever-changing combinations. Because each athlete played with many different teammates, the researchers were able to separate the influence of individual ability from the impact of specific teammate combinations.

The research drew inspiration from an unlikely source in quantitative genetics. “In biology, we often separate the effects of genes and environment to understand why organisms differ,” Salinas said. “We realized we could apply the same idea to soccer. Players are like genotypes, teammates are the environment, and performance is the resulting phenotype.” 

What they found surprised even the researchers. Individual player effects accounted for only about 11% to 12% of the variation in performance, while teammate combinations explained 20% to 23%. The rest, nearly two-thirds, remained unpredictable, likely influenced by opponent dynamics, moment-to-moment decisions, and the inherent randomness of low-scoring games. 

“When you actually see the numbers, it’s eye-opening,” Yonehara said. “I expected teamwork to matter, but I didn’t expect individual impact to be that small.” 

For Yonehara, the research question was personal. A biology major who played soccer throughout his life, he had long felt that games are won in moments that often miss the highlight reels.

“People talk about great teams like they’re just a collection of great individuals,” he said. “But from playing, you know that without cohesion, without players doing the unseen work, the whole thing falls apart.”

The study also compared match performance with traditional skill assessments including passing accuracy, dribbling speed, shooting precision and ball control. Those measures, commonly used in evaluations and tryouts, did not strongly predict how much a player helped their team in games.

“That was a big takeaway for me,” Sonera said. “Being great in isolated drills doesn’t necessarily translate to being effective in real gameplay.”

Sonera, who has loved soccer since childhood, was drawn to the project because it merged science with a sport built on collaboration.

“Soccer demands understanding your teammates,” she said. “That’s part of what makes it beautiful. This research puts numbers behind that idea.”

Shun Yonehara during a rainy Kalamazoo College men's soccer game
Shun Yonehara ’24 currently works as a research assistant for Momoko Yoshimoto, an associate professor at the Western Michigan University Homer Stryker, M.D., School of Medicine.
Santiago Salinas, one of five endowed chairs, kneels in a river
Associate Professor of Biology Santiago Salinas traditionally teaches classes such as vertebrate biology and human physiology. His research interests include his work in the K Fish Lab, where he and his student collaborators study the ways fish populations cope with changes in the environment.

In the men’s dataset, the researchers observed that teams made up of complementary roles such as a scorer, a facilitator and a defensive-minded player tended to outperform teams of similar player types. Although that pattern did not appear in the women’s data, Salinas cautioned that the difference might reflect sample size rather than a fundamental distinction.

Together, the results challenge conventional approaches to scouting and performance analysis, which often rely on individual statistics or fixed lineups.

“Our findings suggest that some players make everyone around them better,” Salinas said. “But that kind of impact is hard to see unless players are tested in multiple contexts.”

Sonera hopes coaches take that message seriously.

“I’d like to see coaches think beyond who looks best on their own,” she said. “Building balanced lineups and focusing on how players connect could make a huge difference.”

Yonehara echoed that idea, comparing team building to constructing a well-balanced system rather than collecting stars.

“It’s like building chemistry in a video game or a trading card deck,” he said. “It’s not just about rating, it’s about fit.”

Although the study focused on soccer, the researchers believe the approach could apply broadly across team sports, particularly those that are fluid and fast paced, such as basketball or hockey.

For the research team, the findings support a long-held belief in team sports that what matters is not just who the players are, but how they work together.

Student-Athlete Finds a Family Legacy, Her Own Mark at K

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Zara Strauss prepares to throw the shot put and set a new personal mark during a women's track and field meet
Zara Strauss ’29 became the first Hornet to be named MIAA Field Athlete of the Week since Kalamazoo College relaunched track and field. All photos by Kimberly Moss.
Track and field student-athlete Zara Strauss '29 holding a javelin
Strauss competes in shot put and weight throw and plans to expand into additional outdoor events this spring.
Track and field student-athlete Zara Strauss '29 prepares to compete in the shot put and set a new personal mark
Strauss’ first collegiate track meet was January 17 at Trine University’s Sean Brady Invitational, where she beat her personal record in the shot put with a throw of 9.84 meters.

When Zara Strauss ’29 stepped into the throwing circle for her first collegiate track meet at Trine University’s Sean Brady Invitational on January 17, she was focused on one thing: beating her own mark. A personal record in the shot put—9.84 meters, nearly a third of a meter beyond her high school best—felt like a solid start, especially with a sixth-place finish in the competition. 

What she didn’t expect was the flood of Instagram tags that followed on January 20, alerting her that she had just made Kalamazoo College history. Strauss became the first Hornet to be named Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) Field Athlete of the Week since K relaunched the sport, marking an early milestone in the program’s new era. The conference honor is given to a female student-athlete who demonstrates a standout individual performance in competition. Recipients are selected from nominations submitted by head coaches at each MIAA member school.  

For the first-year international student from Tokyo, Japan, the honor was both surprising and affirming. 

“I was really shocked,” she said. “I didn’t even know the award was a possibility, to be honest. People started tagging me on Instagram when it was announced, and I wondered what was going on. I wasn’t disappointed in my performance that day, even though I wanted to do better. Getting the award boosted my confidence. I felt a lot better about how I had done.” 

When Strauss first pursued track and field as a sophomore in high school, she discovered her strength in throwing events after a coach nudged her away from sprinting. Since then, she has embraced the technical challenges of shot put, discus, javelin and hammer throw, constantly refining her form and experimenting with new techniques such as rotational throwing. 

At K, Strauss competes in shot put and weight throw during the indoor season and looks forward to expanding into additional events outdoors. She trains closely with head coach Kyle Morrison and throws coach Luke Decker, both of whom she credits with helping her see measurable improvements in technique and distance.  

But choosing K was about more than athletics. Strauss has deep family ties to the College as her grandparents, Professor Emeritus of History David Strauss and retired instructor Dhera Strauss, both taught at K. 

Her family’s connection to Japan traces back to her grandfather taking students there years ago. Her father, Benjamin Strauss, then studied abroad in Japan during college, where he later moved with her mother, Monique. An unexpected job transfer for her dad turned what was supposed to be a couple of years into 19 years in Tokyo, where Strauss was born and raised. 

With her brother and cousin also enrolled—and her cousin living immediately across the hall at Hoben Hall—campus quickly felt like home, even as she navigated life far from Japan. She visits her grandparents weekly, a routine that helped ease the homesickness she felt early on. 

That sense of connection extends to her teammates. As one of six throwers and the only woman in the group, Strauss describes the squad as tight-knit and supportive. Teammates offer feedback on technique, share late-night meals after practice and travel together to meets. A friendship formed during LandSea with sprinter Gwyneth Dunaway ’29 has also carried onto the track, reinforcing the community she hoped to find at a small college. 

Strauss admits that earning conference recognition so early in the program’s return brings a mix of pride and perspective. She feels some responsibility to continue that excellence as one of the first standouts of the relaunch, but she’s determined to keep the experience grounded in enjoyment and growth. 

Her achievement also arrives at a meaningful moment on the calendar. February 4 marks the National Day of Women and Girls in Sports, a global celebration of participation, visibility and equity. Strauss, who attended an all-girls school and helped pioneer a new wrestling team for girls in her high school league, sees the day as a reminder of why representation matters. 

“I think it’s important to create that space for women to be able to have their own league and to see themselves in their sports,” she said. “I feel like I’ve always grown up around women in sports, and it’s important to give women the attention they deserve.”  

Student-athlete Zara Strauss competes in the shot put during a track and field meet at Trine University
Choosing K was about more than athletics for Strauss, who has deep family ties to the College.
Track and field student-athlete Gwyneth Dunaway climbs on the shoulders of Zara Strauss
Strauss formed a friendship with sprinter Gwyneth Dunaway ’29 while the two participated in LandSea orientation. Their friendship has carried over onto the track.

Make Your Mark
with the Hornets

You can support Kalamazoo College student-athletes like Zara Strauss ’29 by participating in Hornet Athletics Giving Day on February 18. Visit our website to make a mark with a gift that will help fund the highest priorities of our teams and provide resources such as equipment, travel and coaching excellence.

As K’s track and field program builds momentum in its return season, Strauss hopes to keep building, too, while refining her form, chasing new personal records and contributing to a team goal of making an immediate mark on the MIAA standings. If her debut is any indication, both she and the Hornets are off to a record-setting start. 

“I’ve made some good friends, and K is a fun place to be,” Strauss said. “I’m really enjoying my first couple of months here, and I can’t wait for the next four years.”