Princeton University Athletics
Four Tiger Senior Athletes Honored For Art Lane Award For Service
June 01, 2007 | Football, General, Men's Soccer, Women's Lacrosse, Women's Swimming and Diving
Dustin Kahler, Caitlin Reimers, Brig Walker and Sandra Zaeh share the 2007 Art Lane Award.
The Art Lane Award has been given to honor selfless contribution to sport and society by an undergraduate. Art Lane, the very embodiment of the award that now bears his name, won the Pyne Prize and captained the 1933 Princeton football team to the national championship as an undergraduate before going on to a career as a Naval officer, a federal judge and a corporate general counsel.
Dustin Kahler of the men's soccer team has gained first-hand experience on three continents through work at the International Trade Centre in Switzerland, the Centro Conviven in Argentina and the Guizhou Provincial Research Center in China.
On campus, Kahler has contributed to the Princeton chapter of Oxfam, coordinating events to raise money for Oxfam International. He has served as treasurer for the Global Issues Forum, organizing presentations for the campus community on vital world issues. Kahler was the co-director of “An Evening for Darfur,” raising money for refugees, while also helping to plan a Pura Vida concert to benefit an organization in Peru.
Kahler has used his international experience to base his thesis, which is titled “Microfinance Incentives for R&D of Agricultural Biotechnologies for Developing Countries.”
Caitlin Reimers of the women's lacrosse team has made two trips elsewhere in the Americas for volunteer work. She first visited the Dominican Republic, serving as a childrens' summer camp director for nearly 200 local kids while participating in the construction of a church and then traveled to Costa Rica to work at a social services home while living with a Costa Rican family. There, she worked with adolescent boys who were without parental care.
Locally, Reimers has participated in the Trenton Bridge Program, serving as a mentor and “big sister” to local youth while also tutoring community members in Spanish at the Princeton Community Center.
Reimers' work has flowed into her academics. She conducted research by visiting recipients of food stamps to find out how to better serve them, translating many interviews from Spanish. Her thesis is titled “Healthy, Wealthy and Wise: Options for Integrating Health and Microfinance in Uganda.”
Brig Walker of the football team has served as a health promotions assistant, collaborating with campus Public Safety to combat sexual violence by creating information sheets to encourage reporting by victims. In a similar vein of promoting safety on campus, he developed a program to focus on safe and reduced alcohol consumption. These initiatives led to an appointment by University President Shirley Tilghman to the Healthier Princeton Advisory Board.
Walker is a member of the Japanese-American Citizens' League, where he served as a local representative to the national organization. He has had a paper on the subject published in the journal of the Princeton Bioengineering Society.
Sandra Zaeh of the women's swimming and diving team traveled to Botswana in the summer of 2006 as part of the BOTUSA project, a joint initiative of the Centers for Disease Control and the Botswanan government. In Africa, her work focused on assisting children who learn of their HIV-positive status. In another public health venture, Zaeh researched childhood obesity in Hispanic children, presenting her findings at Princeton's Health Research Symposium. Zaeh has also worked with Isles, a Trenton-based organization, to further develop their asthma program.
Many of her community service efforts have taken place in the local area while having a far-reaching effect. She has served as a social work intern for Lawyers for Children, a firm in New York City that represents children in foster and abuse cases. Working directly with her team, she coordinated Teams for Toys, a project sponsored by Athletes in Action.
Zaeh plans to continue her education at the Harvard School of Public Health, leading to a career in international health work.