Inside the Gates

5 questions for Marcus Tsai ’27, who settles the question of the best entry in the Star Wars franchise and can’t help yukking it up at your very worst jokes.

What advice do you have for incoming Lawrentians?

Engage with the School community in as many ways as possible. Repeatedly attending different School events has introduced me to so many different aspects of Lawrenceville. Make the best of
your four years here — trust me, you won’t regret it.

If you could be part of a Harkness discussion with any three figures from history, who would you choose?

Napoleon, Julius Caesar, and Sun Tzu on the topic of war. I have always loved strategy games, particularly those where you have to manipulate your opponent.

What is your favorite book or movie?

Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith. Best George Lucas film of all time, no competition.

What never fails to make you laugh?

Honestly, the worst jokes that no one should laugh at make me crack up. Whether they are terribly timed or hackneyed dad-jokes, the least funny jokes, objectively, make me laugh the hardest.

What person, living or dead, inspires you?

My friend who is able to look on the bright side of anything. They are always so full of positive energy, inspiring me to live my best life. Whenever I feel down, their enthusiasm and joy really cheer me up.

Mystery, Majesty, and Modernity: The Gilded Age and The Chicago World’s Fair | IN514

When history teacher Marisa Hedges P’27 wanted her students to understand the meaning of the “Gilded Age,” she didn’t start with a lecture. She handed them spray paint.

The exercise, coating worthless objects in a layer of gold, introduced the central idea of her honors elective, “Mystery, Majesty, and Modernity: The Gilded Age and The Chicago World’s Fair” — that the glittering achievements of the late 19^th century often concealed deeper social strain beneath the surface.

“I wanted to use a specific, pivotal event like the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 to investigate the larger tensions of the turn of the century,” Hedges said, “wealth versus poverty, big business versus labor, immigration versus nativism, and social Darwinism versus social reform.”

Paired with a reading of Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, this interdisciplinary course enables students to uncover the brilliance and shadows of the World’s Fair, where the marvels of human achievement coexisted with the darker aspects of society — a microcosm of the modern world.

Pranks

(From the “News Roundup” in the August 1981 Lawrentian.)

On Alumni Day, members of the Fifth Form executed what was generally conceded to be the best senior prank since the Class of ’69 installed a cow in the second floor corridor of Mem Hall.

As Bruce McClellan, the last of the day’s speakers in the Kirby Arts Center finished his remarks to the assembled alumni, the microphone suddenly went dead, and the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey emanated from the loudspeakers in the auditorium. Approximately two hundred balloons and much confetti fell on stage from the overhead lighting slots. As the music reached a thundering crescendo, the overhead lights mysteriously blacked out and a single pink spotlight illuminated the curtain, which slowly rose to reveal a huge banner which filled the entire  proscenium and which read, “Welcome Alumni — The Class of ’81 Wants Coeducation to Make a Good School Better.” To emphasize the statement, the two O’s in “coeducation” were fashioned to from the male and female genetic symbols.

The alumni responded with laughter and applause. Board President Edward R. Farley Jr. ’36, who was one of those present on stage, responded in good humor to the members of the class had carried off the prank with such technical precision, “I don’t agree with what you have to say, but I like the way you say it.”

Clean Flow of Ideas
Aadya Agarwal ’29

The environmentalist’s adage, “Think locally, act globally,” speaks to the way that broad practices typically begin at the community level. Thinking about New Jersey’s poor water quality motivated Aadya to begin research focused on remediating local streams.

“I was exploring a sustainable material called biochar as a remediator for water quality in comparison to current methods,” Aadya says, explaining that biochar — a charcoal-like substance made by heating organic waste such as wood or crop residues — can improve water quality by removing contaminants. Its affordability and availability make it accessible even “to communities that essentially need water remediation the most,” she says, “because we want to make sure that methods are able to be implemented in rural communities and areas that don’t have as many resources.”

Aadya presented her research in May at the 2026 New Jersey Water Environmental Association
conference, which featured a mix of professionals and doctoral researchers. There, she also received the Stockholm Junior Water Prize Regional Award, the result of her presentation at the annual Regeneron ISEF Mercer Science and Engineering Fair earlier in the spring.

More recently, after incorporating advanced technology into her research, Aadya was selected as one of five winning entries in the MIT Solve AI for Better World competition. Her innovative biochar water remediation AI-powered IoT project, which proposes using biochar as a buoy-like prototype that can “sense, decide, and act” in water systems by monitoring quality metrics, determining when treatment is needed, and deploying biochar as the remediation method, integrating Edge Machine Learning and coding to drive the device’s decision-making. She  presented her research in July during the 2026 America’s Youth AI Festival.

“That’s where I’ve incorporated AI because I’m very interested in coding,” she says. “I love solving puzzles, so doing that sort of ties in with coding and my other STEM interests.”

3 things we learned producing this issue of The Lawrentian

1. On January 1, 1777, a mounted Hessian solider pursuing local farmer Elias Hunt was shot to death by a marksman from Gen. George Washington’s Continental Army in the middle of what is now Main Street in front of the Lawrenceville Presbyterian Church.
2. Retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Paul Tobin ’58 attended the Naval Academy with not one, but two Heisman Trophy winners – Joe Bellino (1960) and Roger Staubach (1963).
3. Retired Presbyterian minister Larry Jones ’67 and his wife have logged more than 50,000 miles in 19 months (and counting) since selling their Vermont home in 2025.

It’s Rind of a Big Deal

Watermelon is a summertime staple, but you aren’t stuck cutting it into wedges. “One of our favorite seasonal dishes on campus over the years is our watermelon salad,” says Gary Giberson H’11 ’18 P’10, the founder and president of Sustainable Fare, who developed the recipe. “It combines the sweetness of perfectly ripe watermelon with the briny flavor of kalamata olives and feta cheese, the tartness of lemon, and the bright flavor of mint. It makes a great summer barbecue side dish or a wonderful lunch topped with grilled shrimp or scallops.”

Summer Watermelon Salad

Yields four to six portions as a side dish

Ingredients

• 3 cups cubed seedless watermelon
• 2 cups sliced cucumber, peeled and seeds removed
• ½ cup thinly sliced red onion wedges (cutting from root end to top end; not rings)
• ¼ cup loosely packed fresh mint leaves, torn or thinly sliced
• ½ cup crumbled feta cheese
• ½-cup kalamata olives pitted and split into halves

For the dressing:

• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

Procedure

• Toss the watermelon, cucumber, onion, mint, feta, and olives together in a bowl.
• Season with salt and pepper, add olive oil and lemon juice, and toss. Place in serving dish, and garnish with mint sprigs.

If you could have kept one physical object from your House — a piece of furniture, a sign or a picture, or even a specific mug — what would it be? And where would it sit in your home today?

(Alumni responded to this issue’s question.)