Virtuoso Down Under

Jeff Rodgers '10 takes his talents to Brisbane, Australia

March 31, 2009

Jeff Rodgers '10 hangs out with kangaroos at the Lone Pines Koala Sanctuary. "You can't get more Aussie than that," he says.

From the classical rigor of Franz Joseph Haydn's Cello Concerto in C Major to the jazz of "Julie-O" by Mark Summer of the Turtle Island String Quartet, Jeff Rodgers '10 is accustomed to dramatic shifts in tone and style.

"I've played the cello since fourth grade," he says. "I originally chose the cello because I wanted to play a stringed instrument, and I fell in love with the warm tone and wide range."

Rodgers began playing with the Hershey Symphony Orchestra in 10th grade and now performs with the Dickinson Orchestra. The two pieces—Haydn's and Summer's—are among his favorites.

To prepare for his performance of "Julie-O" during the Noonday Concert in November, Rodgers contacted Summer for additional background on the piece. According to Michael Cameron, contributing faculty in cello, this is just one example of how seriously Rodgers takes his music.

"He's a cellist who always plays from the heart," says Cameron. "As with almost everything Jeff studies, he learned it very quickly and made playing it appear to be easy—and it's not an easy piece to play."

Rodgers, a chemistry major, applies that same concentration to the classroom. He has been researching hydrogen bonding with Cindy Samet, associate professor of chemistry.

"We're interested in this [research] because it bends and breaks the rules of hydrogen bonding that have been accepted for years—it's groundbreaking," he says.

Samet adds that the research could lead to significant breakthroughs in nanotechnology. "It's been shown that hydrogen bonding is an important tool for building nano materials," she explains. "The applications are endless, with important implications for electronics and medical technology."

This semester, Rodgers is taking a break from his research to study at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.

"I'm taking two very interesting science classes: Electronic Structure and Reactivity of Transition Metal Complexes (Inorganic Chemistry) and Biochemistry," he says. "It's been very interesting comparing class size [at Queensland] and the lecture-tutorial style of learning [with Dickinson's]."

Rodgers acknowledges that the large university setting has been a bit disorienting, and he misses the close-knit chemistry department at Dickinson. Nevertheless, he's looking into graduate students' research at Queensland, with the aim of bringing back some of the more interesting ideas.

Samet anticipates Rodgers' return, when he will continue their joint research for his senior thesis. "He's extremely motivated," she says. "He reads on his own to learn and is a creative problem-solver. He's a dream student."

Another group that misses him is Student Senate, where he served for three semesters and was an influential voice on the Information and Technology Services All-College Committee.

"Jeff dealt with many large issues that directly affected the daily lives of students," says Aaron Williams '09, Student Senate president. "He handled two of the largest issues—printing and wireless—to come before the senate in some time. He did an amazing job of relaying student concerns, while at the same time relaying information from the committees to the senate in a fair and unbiased way."

Williams especially valued Rodgers' ability to balance the students' interests with the mission of the college. This trait served Student Senate well when Rodgers wrote the resolution outlining the senate's position on student printing.

"The resolution recognized that unlimited printing was wasteful," Rodgers recalls, "but printing is a necessary part of the academic experience at Dickinson. I wanted to be sure that students would not have to pay exorbitant amounts to print documents for educational purposes."

To Rodgers, this emphasis on balance is what makes his Dickinson experience meaningful.

"I think one of the neat parts of my interests is that they don't exactly intersect," he says. "It's important to have a wide set of skills, and I hope to remain proficient in all of them."