Campus Life

Two important papers chronicling Academy students’ malaria research were published in the Journal of Genomics. Guided by Science Instructors Shimaa Ghazal and Anne Rankin ’92, students in the 2022 Bio650: Exploring Bioinformatics and Next-Generation Sequencing course mapped a full genome sequence for a strain of the African mosquito species Anopheles gambiae, a leading host for the parasite that causes malaria. In spring 2024, another Bio650 cohort sequenced Anopheles stephensi, an Asian malaria mosquito. Both projects were published in 2025 and deposited in GenBank, the National Institutes of Health’s annotated database of publicly available DNA sequences. This research on different strains, funded by the Aileen and John Hessel, Class of 1952, Innovation Fund, might help scientists determine what genetic material makes some mosquitos more or less successful carriers of the disease. “The students did a great job,” Ghazal, who has a doctorate in microbial genetics, says. “We are so proud of them.”

Read the papers: jgenomics.com/v13p0055.htm and jgenomics.com/v13p0046.htm

Cube Day

Sixty-eight cubers — ranging in age from 7 to 40 — gathered in Grainger Auditorium in October to test their skills in an official World Cube Association competition. Daniel Chen ’26, Max Webster ’26 and Owen Cosgrove ’26 organized the day of fierce competition, which also pitted teams from Exeter, Andover, Groton, Noble and Greenough, St. John’s Prep and St. Paul’s against one another in a New England Interscholastic Speed Cubing League event. “When Max, Owen and I revived our cubing club last year, we consistently had only four to five regular members,” Chen says. “Having a place where we can meet cubers from other schools is very uplifting.”

Campus Development

The Academy recently purchased the historic First Baptist Church of Exeter on Front Street and has retrofitted it to house seven temporary classrooms. A few sections of winter term math classes are being taught there, allowing construction on Academy Building classrooms to move expeditiously. Eventually, the 150-year-old landmark may be converted into a dorm.

Big Red Digit

18:28.887

Exeter’s girls 4+ boat finished fifth in a field of 86 crews from around the world with a time of 18 minutes, 28.887 seconds at the 2025 Head of the Charles. The crew of Georgia Menge ’28, Iris Fisher ’27, Eleanor Unger ’26, Charlotte Dassori ’26 and Chloe Bosma ‘26 was the top high school finisher.