Profile:
Class of 2013
 In the summer of 2011, Sophia
Demuynck ‘13 was working as a researcher in the psychiatry
department at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s
Hospital when she realized exactly what she wanted—or rather,
did not want—to do.
But more on that in a moment.
When she first arrived at Smith,
having played field hockey since 6th grade, Demuynck was
hoping to continue playing in college, seeking the same familial
team atmosphere she had experienced at Moorestown Friends
School (MFS), a Quaker school in Moorestown, N.J. “I wanted to keep playing field hockey, I loved the
family environment,” she says.
Under the tutelage of MFS
head coach Danielle Dayton, Moorestown Friends won the Friends
School League championship in 2007, and Demuynck was named
First-Team All-League player in both her junior and senior
seasons.
Enter Smith College head coach
Jaime Ginsberg, a fellow Quaker school alumna. “I hadn’t been able to meet
a team on any of my other college visits, and Jaime took
me out to where the turf field is now, showing me where it
was going to be,” recalls Demuynck. “I really felt like I
would be appreciated here as an athlete.” It didn’t hurt
the recruitment when she learned that a couple other Quaker
school alumnae were on the team as well.
“I wanted a place that was safe,” says Demuynck. “Jaime was phenomenal, and I
wanted to be in a space that would offer me a different educational perspective
on the world, and life.”
After an early Smith visit,
and a discussion of her options with her guidance counselor
back in New Jersey, Demuynck applied early decision and was
accepted.
Demuynck has accomplished a
lot in her four years at Smith. This year, her senior season,
she captained the field hockey team to its most wins in five
years. She received the Sarah Pokora Award for the highest
individual GPA in the entire athletic department, while completing
a double major in neuroscience and sociology. Her senior
thesis, titled Holding a Piece of the
Earth: Gendered Space, Field Hockey Embodiment and the Politics
of Getting Low,
was a magnum opus that explores the spatiality, portrayal,
and history of field hockey in the United States.
But it
was there at Harvard in the summer of 2011, studying cognitive
development in children ages 8 to 18 with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, when Demuynck
started to see a clearer direction for her life.
“I felt like they were not interested in mentoring me [at the hospital], but
I had such a great time getting to know the kids,” she says. “I realized then
that I wanted to work more with people and not spend my time in the lab.”
Returning to Smith, she got
more engaged with her other major, sociology. “I
really got involved, academically, in sociology as a critique of science,” she
explains. “Science doesn’t always acknowledge multiple perspectives. From there,
I really started thinking about teaching at the university level.”
Ultimately, Demuynck hopes to
pursue a doctorate in sociology and the history of science.
But for now, after her Smith graduation, she will join the
Americorps NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps), leaving
in August for training. From there, she could get placed
anywhere from Maine to Maryland as a community service team
member.
“I want to go and share some of my Smith experience,” she says, “the openness
that Smith has taught me.”
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