The First-Year Counselor Program was established in 1938 and has been ever since an intrinsic and essential component of Yale’s advising system for first-year students. The program has evolved in many ways over the years, but the general purpose of the program has remained the same: to help ease the transition of incoming first-years to the academic, social, and cultural life of Yale College. Find out more about the First-Year Counselor Program.
Trumbull is lucky to have a team of seven great First-Year Counselors. Together they make Bingham an especially wonderful place for all first-year Trumbull students.
Madeline Art
Madeline (she/her) is from Williamstown, Massachusetts, a town that used to have more cows than people (moo-rah!). At Yale, she studies English and Creative Writing with a particular interest in how prose can capture the inner lives of women. She’s been a ballet dancer for as long as she can remember, and on campus she spends most of her time with Yaledancers. She loves fall in New Haven, Greek salads from Yorkside, Fleabag, talking about books, and above all else Trumbull College!
Email: madeline.art@yale.edu
Victoria DeMersseman
Victoria, or Vicky!, (she/her) was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Across the country at Yale she majors in Biomedical Engineering and is considering finishing out a certificate in Spanish, but has greatly enjoyed taking classes across many different disciplines. Additionally, Victoria is in Air Force ROTC and on track to commission as a Space Force officer in the Spring. When not busy studying in the Trumbrary, Victoria can most likely be found playing rugby or hanging out with fellow members of Yale Women’s Rugby. She also greatly enjoys representing the best residential college at Intramurals, running, biking, hiking (actually pretty much any activity outside) and getting coffee and donuts from Donut Crazy. She is extremely excited to welcome the next generation of Trumbullians to campus. Moorah!
Email: victoria.demersseman@yale.edu
Audrey Hempel
Audrey (she/her/hers) is from Irvine, California and always finds it disconcerting that the sun rises, not sets, over the ocean in New Haven. At Yale, she majors in Cognitive Science focusing on neurological, psychological, and philosophical perspectives around pair-bonding (ooh la la!) and mother-infant attachment (goo goo gah gah!). Guided by her interests, she works with the Perception and Cognition Lab and is focusing on how we perceive attention and attractiveness in one another’s faces. Beyond CogSci, she races with the Yale Alpine ski team on both skis and snowboard — though she has intense elitism about west coast skiing. She is also the lead singer of an alternative rock band that she started her first year called Strictly Platonic (shameless plug: feel free to look them up on Spotify). In her free time she likes looping her friends (and shortly her frosh) into game nights, designing graphics on her iPad (including Trumbull Froco merch!), and writing songs in her notes app. She is so excited to welcome the luckiest members of the class of 2028 to the best residential college!
Email: audrey.hempel@yale.edu
Stacey Lopez Valerio
Stacey (she/her/hers) was born in the Dominican Republic and immigrated to the United States (New York City) when she was nine years old. She is majoring in the History of Science, Medicine, and Public Health and is pursuing a Global Health Studies certificate. After graduation, Stacey hopes to pursue a Master’s in Public Health (MPH). At Yale, Stacey is a member of the Dominican Students Association and was the former buttery manager, dining hall student manager, and a house aide in Trumbull. She is currently doing research in the Human Nature Lab under Nicholas Christakis, studying public health and social networks in rural Honduras. Outside of academics, Stacey enjoys a multitude of hobbies, including reading romance novels, watching TV shows, playing on her Nintendo Switch, biking on the Farmington Canal trail, doing skincare, and listening to music (mainly Sabrina Carpenter, Ariana Grande, and Taylor Swift). She is also a proud cat mom to a sweet-tempered 2-year old girl named Lily and hopes to get another cat after graduation :). Stacey is very excited to welcome this next class of Trumbullians into the best residential college at Yale!
Email: stacey.lopezvalerio@yale.edu
Meridian Monthy
Meridian (she/her) is a loud Houstonian and a quiet Global Affairs major. Most people think she majors in theater, since she’s acted in lots of student productions and is the current Vice President of the Yale Dramatic Association. The misconception isn’t helped by her adoration of her sketch comedy group, Red Hot Poker. Academically, she’s interested in diplomacy, locally driven peacebuilding and human rights across borders. She’s worked around the world, from Mexican migration clinics to the U.S. State department, and when the lovely class of 2028 meets her, she will have just returned from a Trumbull-funded trip to Cambodia to study post-conflict theater (thank you Gurney Fellowship)! While Texas is her heart, Trumbull is her soul – she’s been a buttery worker, student aide, big sib, etc. When not making quesadillas or trying out new random things (she’s in an acapella group for the first time this year!), she’ll be filling your ear about how you’re in the best college in the world. MOO-RAH!
Email: meridian.monthy@yale.edu
Timothy Ward
Timmy (he/him) hails from River Forest, IL, in the west suburbs of Chicago. He is a Statistics and Data Science major on the pre-med track, with plans to attend medical school after college. He is involved with a number of organizations at Yale, including the Hypertension Awareness and Prevention Program at Yale (HAPPY), Demos, and HAVEN Free Clinic—all of which he will be encouraging service-minded first-years to join! He has also served as a peer tutor in the math department for introductory calculus for two years, and he loves to teach (so ask him if you need homework help!). He has done basic science research in the Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Department and is currently doing clinical research at Yale School of Medicine. Timmy is a huge baseball fan and tries to watch as many games as possible of his beloved Chicago White Sox. He also enjoys eating the many ice cream flavor options in the Trumbull dining hall, using the computers at Marx library on science hill as second monitors so he can be extra productive, and telling you that New Haven style pizza and Chicago deep dish pizza should be considered different foods so he can justify loving both equally. He is super excited to welcome all the new Trumbullians to the best residential college at Yale!
Email: timothy.ward@yale.edu
Amber Zettle
Amber (they/them) is originally from Snow Camp, North Carolina, a small town outside of Chapel Hill. They are double-majoring in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) and Psychology. Amber works for the Academic Strategies program and is passionate about helping Yale students navigate Yale’s “hidden curriculum.” Amber has also served on the editorial board for Broad Recognition, Yale’s feminist magazine, for the past two years, in addition to working with Women Against Mass Incarceration as a part of the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project’s Advocacy branch. They also volunteer as an advising fellow for Matriculate, a nonprofit that empowers high-achieving, low-income high schoolers to attend college (shoutout to any former high school fellows!). During the school year, you can find them reading silly little romance books on cross campus, drinking way too much coffee with friends, repeating affirmations to their many houseplants, and probably stressing over their senior theses. Feel free to ask them anything about the best coffee shops in New Haven (spoiler: it’s Pistachio), their favorite queer films and TV shows, being FGLI at Yale, or Taylor Swift “gaylor” lore. Amber is excited to welcome the class of 2028 to Yale and cannot wait to become besties with all of their frosh!
Email: amber.zettle@yale.edu