Opening doors to discovery and opportunity

By Stella Katsipoutis-Varkanis

Jackson Eshbaugh ’27 | Photo by JaQuan Alston

Although he grew up in Bethlehem, Pa., less than 20 miles away from the College, Jackson Eshbaugh ’27 had never seen Lafayette before his senior year of high school. Yet, as soon as he stepped out of his family’s car and onto campus for a tour, he felt at home. 

“I got this immediate feeling of, ‘Yep, this feels right,’” he says. “Lafayette was the most open, the most welcoming to prospective students of all the schools I had visited. There was an apparent intimate culture. And as I was walking around and experiencing that culture from the outside, I knew I wanted to be a part of it.”

Now a computer science and French double major with a planned minor in mathematics, Eshbaugh says choosing Lafayette at that moment transformed the course of his life.

“It’s given me opportunities I didn’t expect,” he says. “Conducting research, first-authoring papers, traveling to international conferences. … I don’t think these things would be happening if I had gone to a different school.” What made these opportunities possible, Eshbaugh explains, is Lafayette’s distinctive liberal arts environment, where he quickly realized he didn’t have to choose among his interests.

Eshbaugh knew from the jump he wanted to study computer science in college, but he soon found a second passion: language, French in particular. He initially planned to take only required language courses at Lafayette; instead, he discovered a love for French literature, linguistics, and the deeper meaning of language. That interdisciplinary curiosity eventually led him to his interest in computational linguistics, where computer science and language intersect. For his honors thesis, Eshbaugh hopes to explore how artificial intelligence understands idiomatic expressions, combining linguistic theory with machine learning. Embracing the intertwining of passions, he says, is one of the most valuable lessons Lafayette taught him.

“When I used to give tours [as a tour guide for Admissions] during my first two years here, I would talk about Lafayette’s focus on the power of ‘and,’” he says. “You’re never just in one thing. You are combining interests, passions, and skills to do something specific to you.”

And that’s precisely the philosophy Eshbaugh embodied throughout his time at the College. Beyond the classroom, he serves as president of DiscipleMakers Christian Fellowship; performs as a trombonist in Pep Band, Concert Band, Jazz Ensemble, and Jazz Combos, and in theater pit orchestras; and has developed into a jazz vocalist. Working as an Admissions tour guide as a first-year and sophomore also gave him the opportunity to welcome prospective students, much like he was welcomed to campus four years ago. He also has served as a teaching assistant for six of his eight semesters at Lafayette, delighting in mentoring fellow students. “I love doing it,” he says. “It’s just been a joy encouraging people.”

Academically, Eshbaugh has immersed himself in a variety of research projects. Working alongside Jorge Silveyra, assistant professor of computer science, he investigates artificial intelligence methods for improving energy-efficiency planning through machine learning. His independent research explores why AI systems make the decisions they do. Earlier this year, he traveled to Rio de Janeiro to present his work at the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), one of the world’s premier conferences on artificial intelligence.

These experiences have only affirmed his aspiration to pursue a career in higher education—a calling he first recognized while sitting in French class during his first semester. “My professor at the time asked, in French, ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’” Eshbaugh recalls. “I just said, ‘I think I want to be a professor.’ It just kind of came out. I felt called into that position because my dad teaches the gospel every Sunday as a pastor, and my mom teaches kindergarten. And I want to teach too—I just happen to want to teach computer science.”

Faculty mentors, he adds, have played a defining role in helping him realize that vision. He credits professors including Silveyra, Jeffrey Pfaffmann, Sofia Serrano, Jia Tao, Christian Lopez, Maria Hernández, and many others for encouraging his research, challenging his thinking, and helping him to grow as a scholar. “I’m so grateful for their guidance,” Eshbaugh says. 

These close relationships he was able to establish with faculty also helped pave the way to one of the accomplishments he’s most proud of: This spring, Eshbaugh was awarded a Beinecke Scholarship, one of the nation’s most prestigious awards supporting graduate study in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Eshbaugh is the sixth student in Lafayette’s history to be named a Beinecke Scholar.

“The scholarship is two things to me at large: It is confirmation and aid,” says Eshbaugh, who will be receiving $35,000 toward his graduate studies. “It confirms I have a promising profile as a researcher according to a national board of reviewers, and I cannot articulate how reassuring that is. And all of my academic training—chiefly my research training—is all thanks to Lafayette’s faculty.”

After graduation, Eshbaugh hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in computational linguistics before joining a higher education institution as a faculty member. As an academic, he envisions himself continuing to ask difficult questions, mentor students, and contribute to future scientific discovery.

“Lafayette has given me an enhanced understanding of how to learn and acquire information, and this new way of thinking is one of the most valuable things I could have gained,” Eshbaugh says. “And if there’s one message I would want to share with fellow students, it’s this: Open up doors. The road to what success is for you isn’t straight; there are turns that will pleasantly surprise you. Don’t close yourself to one path when life may curve.”