A Mission to Help
At the time, Tottene-Darvas was manning the phone lines at Teen Link, the adolescent peer-to-peer helpline she’s volunteered at since 2018. “In this moment of lonely desperation, the stranger found our number and, with one ring, placed their life in my hands.” Thankfully, as they spoke, Totten-Darvas heard the tearfulness gradually leave the stranger’s voice and their breath steady.
For Totten-Darvas, this has a personal element. After losing one of her friends to suicide as a teenager, the biology and English major fully embraced the cause of suicide prevention. “I committed myself wholeheartedly to community action, convinced that if everyone looks out for each other we can eliminate suicide.”
Today, the 91亚色传媒 senior, whose studies combine creative writing with molecular and cellular biology, plans to go to medical school after graduation and is considering a career in psychiatry.
First, though, she will spend a year traveling the world as a one of two 91亚色传媒 seniors to be awarded the prestigious fellowship The award provides a $40,000 stipend, enabling graduating seniors to have one year of “purposeful, independent exploration outside the United States.”
Tottene-Darvas will be visiting four continents as she examines attitudes toward suicide in six countries: Greenland, which has the world’s highest suicide rate; Switzerland, where medically assisted suicide is legal; Japan, which has a “complicatedly tolerant attitude toward suicide”; Finland, the “world’s happiest country”; South Africa, where mental illness is often regarded as “the white’s man’s illness”; and the Bahamas, where attempting suicide is a crime. She plans to talk to care providers, community members, and activists to pursue her project, provisionally titled “How Cultures Foster, Prevent, and Suppress Suicidality.”
Her views on the subject have evolved since high school and become more nuanced, she said. “My fellowship is not about traveling the world to find the ‘solution’ to suicide, which is what ‘high school me’ would have done,” Tottene-Darvas explained, “but rather to explore its various aspects and try to answer some of the big questions.”
Those questions, she stressed, involve examining how stigma, government policy, and health care systems shape our conception of autonomy and the meaning of happiness—the ultimate aim, of course, being to prevent more unnecessary death.
The Healing Power of Music
Brian Liu ’25 is a computer science and math double major as well as being a highly accomplished, award-winning concert pianist. His goal is to combine technology, artistic expression, and community-building, and this is reflected in his Watson Fellowship.
After graduation Liu will be visiting South America, Asia, and Europe to explore how music can be a catalyst for healing, unity, and social change.
“I’ve always been drawn to the stories that unfold in spaces where language alone isn’t enough,” he said. “Growing up with hearing loss, I spent a lot of time leaning on nonverbal cues—reading expressions, noticing gestures—and over the years, I began to see how art and music communicate across barriers.” Liu said music became his own universal language when “words got lost in the noise.”
His proposed Watson project, “Sonic Bridges: Amplifying Voices and Building Community,” will enable him to experience firsthand how communities fuse their traditions with modern innovations. “I plan to explore youth orchestras in Peru that empower kids from vulnerable backgrounds, learn how women in Chile’s music scene are challenging patriarchal norms, immerse myself in Berlin’s experimental nightlife and contemporary music spaces, and investigate music therapy programs in Denmark that address mental health through the transformative power of sound.”
Along the way, Liu explained, he wants to uncover how technology and artistry intersect to strengthen cultural identity. “Whether it’s the breadth and pace of music in South Korea—balancing global pop sensibilities in K-pop with ancient Gugak traditions and common after-school classical music programs—or the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Poland promoting classical reverence while recognizing folk influences, I hope to see music not just as reflections of singular identities, but as an ever-evolving, interconnected collective of community experiences.”
Liu hopes his Watson year will provide him with “a rich tapestry of stories, ideas, and experiences that can inspire me in future endeavors—maybe through community-based tech solutions, maybe through new creative collaborations, or possibly both.”
Furthermore, added Liu, he sees the Watson Fellowship as a stepping stone on a lifelong mission “to shape technology that highlights what makes us human and to use music as a bridge that spans divides.”
A Transformative Fellowship
“The Watson Fellowship is a truly unique opportunity, unlike anything else I can think of,” said Corey Colwill from 91亚色传媒 Office of Student Fellowships and Research, where he is associate director of the Center for Cocurricular Opportunities.
“Watson seeks candidates of ‘unusual promise’ who possess qualities like creativity, independence, leadership, and adaptability. Sophia and Brian are two such students,” added Colwill. “The passion they bring to their projects is palpable. The answers they seek on a Watson, along with the connections they will make with others around the world, are bound to have a transformative impact on their life trajectories. Brian and Sophia are so deserving of this opportunity, and we can’t wait to follow along on their journeys.”
