As his junior year came to an end, Jake Vuolo ’25 was excited to stay on campus and be part of the Cornell Summer Research Institute. He was determined to make the most of his final year on the Hilltop, preparing for his future work life and spending time with his Cornell friends.
Jake Vuolo ’25 delved into social media analytics during the 2024 Cornell Summer Research Institute with Professor of Economics and Business Santhi Hejeebu.
With funding from the Stark Endowed Fellowship—established in 2016 to fund experiential learning—Vuolo spent eight weeks investigating social media analytics alongside Professor of Economics and Business Santhi Hejeebu.
“I would love to say a massive thank you to the donors who funded my Cornell Summer Research Institute experience,” says Vuolo, a business analytics major and applied statistics minor from Colorado. “It was life-changing, and I now feel more confident going into the workforce and determining what my life will look like after college.”
Life-changing is exactly the impact the late Jon M. Stark ’52 and his wife, Terry, had in mind when they set up the fund.
“I hope our gift will do for students what it did for Jon and what it did for our son Eric [Stark ’89],” Terry told the Cornell Report in 2016. “In both instances, coming to Cornell was really a life-changing experience.”
Over the summer Vuolo extended his classroom learning with Professor Hejeebu by mastering software tools that unravel online trends. Their goal was to see which set of tools produced the best outcome for collecting and understanding their data, so those tools could be used in upcoming courses.
“My research experience was incredibly impactful. It was very different from what I had experienced in a classroom setting, as I had to be more independent and forge my path,” says Vuolo, who is part of Phi Kappa Nu, KRNL radio, and vice president of Greek Council. “Outside of researching, the Institute was incredible because I was with my friends. Going into my senior year of college, I had been nervous about only having one year left with my friends, so when we weren’t researching, we’d do movie nights and make dinner together, and those nights were the nights when I felt like I was home.”