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The Summer 2009 issue of Dartmouth Medicine features Chiquita Palha De Sousa ’08, a second-year student at Dartmouth Medical School, and “Sisters,” a painting she created as part of her senior art project at Lafayette. The painting “depicts a young girl, orphaned by AIDS, fetching water to care for herself and her younger sister, whom she is carrying on her back,’” she explains in the article. “‘I tried to portray sadness, but determination and hope, as she keeps her chin up bravely and walks determinedly to the river.’”
A native of Zimbabwe, De Sousa first felt the devastating effects of the AIDS epidemic when it took the life of the daughter of her family’s domestic worker. She writes about this and her art in a first-person piece posted on the Dartmouth Medicine web site.
Last year, DeSousa, who earned a B.S. in biology and an A.B. with a major in art, was one of 35 recipients of a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Scholarship worth up to $50,000 per year. At Lafayette, she conducted research with faculty guidance through independent study, the EXCEL Scholars program, and a senior honors thesis in biology. Her research has been presented at regional and national conferences and published in international academic journals. She also participated in a seven-week, Lafayette faculty-led program in London comparing the U.S. and U.K. health systems, where she interned in the pediatric oncology ward of University College of London Hospital.