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 great First-Year Counselors. Together they make Bingham an especially wonderful place for all first-year Trumbull students.
Emily Cheung
Emily (she/her) is from the suburbs of Portland, Maine. She’s majoring in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology on the pre-med track and has loved branching out with classes in Vietnamese language and religious studies. At Yale, Emily’s found her closest communities through the Vietnamese Student Association, where she’s helped plan events like Phở Night, and the Yale Buddhist Student Community, where she was secretary and later president. She also worked at the Asian American Cultural Center as a Wellness Coordinator and eventually as Co-Head Student Staffer, helping plan events and lead the undergrad team. When she’s not in the Rogers Lab micropipetting the night away, you might find her at the AACC making tea or taking naps in the living room. In her free time, Emily loves to cook, experiment with recipes that remind her of home, go on long, aimless campus walks, and curate a dangerously organized Spotify library of music and podcast playlists. She’s a longtime fan of stand-up comedy and Asian dramas, and she’s recently gotten into basketball too. Emily’s excited to be a warm, dependable face for the incoming class and is always down to chat about campus life, affinity groups, your latest show obsession, or anything else. Moo-rah!
Cory Fan
Cory (He/Him) is from Birmingham, Alabama. He is a mathematics major and an Air Force ROTC cadet who is on track to commission in the spring. Aside from his Air Force commitment and his major, Cory is a part of Yale Math Competitions, a club that hosts math competitions and makes mathematics more accessible for high school students. In his free time, Cory enjoys running, backpacking, climbing, shooting photography, and reading. He is super excited to welcome all the Trumbullians and is looking forward to having a great year! Moorah!
Cate Jacobson
Cate (she/her) grew up in a log cabin in the woods of central Pennsylvania. She studies Ethics, Politics, and Economics and is receiving a certificate in Education Studies. She credits Yale’s mandatory science credits for her love of brains and you can find her interrupting her neuroscience friends (hi Eliana) with questions while they try to study. On campus, she provides Connecticut residents with free legal information through YSASCA (Yale Student Association for Small Claims Assistance) and registers voters with Yale Democrats and the Yale Democracy Project. She is also a FOOT leader and dreams to backpack through Patagonia and walk the Camino de Santiago. At heart, Cate loves to talk—especially with strangers. Her passion for a chat led her to Madrid, Spain where she studied abroad (please help her practice her Spanish) and Zanzibar, Tanzania where she interned at a women’s health clinic. After she graduates, she hopes to live abroad again as a Peace Corps volunteer and then go to law school. If you are ever looking for Cate, you can find her at Trumbull breakfast where she does all her most important work. Cate LOVES Trumbull and she is so excited to welcome every single one of you to Yale’s, and dare she say the world’s, greatest college.
Yana Jayampathy
Yana (she/her) was born in Sri Lanka and raised in New York (Westchester to be specific—and no, it’s not upstate!). She is a Global Affairs major, pursuing a Global Health Studies certificate, and on the pre-med track. She plans to pursue a career that blends her interests in diplomacy, public policy, and medicine. On campus, Yana has served as a Communication and Consent Educator (CCE), works with the Yale College Democrats, and volunteers at Yale New Haven Hospital. She also dabbles in qualitative research at the Yale School of Medicine and will be returning this fall from South Africa, where she has been investigating the relationship between alcoholism and HIV. You can always find her in the Elm sipping her fifth coffee of the day, in the Starr Reference Room (second only to the Trumbull library as the best study spot on campus), or running around New Haven with her friends at an exceptionally… conversational pace. She is beyond excited to welcome the newest class of Trumbullians to the BEST residential college at Yale, and to help you kickstart your next four bright college years.
Hiroko Kawase
Hiroko (she/her) is a senior from Tokyo, Japan. Her go-to fun fact, though, is that she has moved five times across Tokyo, New York, Hong Kong, and London. And despite the many homes, she is quite convinced Trumbull is her favorite one yet. Outside of studying Cognitive Science and Education Studies, Hiroko works as a tour guide, conducts research on emotions and belonging, and does some photography/writing with her exhibition Humans of Yale. At her core, Hiroko loves a good book, hanging out in the courtyard, and ranking restaurants on Beli and Google Maps. But above all, she loves Trumbull and can’t wait to welcome the class of 2029 to the best college at Yale!
Nabiha Khan
Nabiha (she/her) is our neighbor from West Haven. She is a first-generation, low-income (FGLI) pre-health student majoring in Psychology with a concentration in Neuroscience. She is currently doing research on dendritic spine morphology following spinal cord injury. She is passionate about community health and used to volunteer at the Haven Free Clinic, providing Social Services support to underserved populations in New Haven. This opportunity to give back to her community means everything to her. In her free time, she’ll usually be found at Whale Tea, playing power UNO in the Musalla, or watching The Office. She can’t wait to teach her frosh Power UNO (#remix) – it’ll change their lives. Nabiha is also a proud full time Trumbull propagandist (#Trumbulltakeover). She wants the frosh to know that Trumbull isn’t just a college, it’s a home and she can’t wait to welcome the new Trumbullians into the family!”
Adam McPhail
Adam (he/him) is from Rochester, Minnesota, which isn’t even the most populated Rochester in the United States (or at Yale). He is majoring in Humanities and pursuing a certificate in Education Studies. Last year, Adam took a gap year to sing and travel around the world with the Yale Whiffenpoofs, the University’s all-senior TTBB a cappella group: ask him about going on a hot air balloon ride in Turkey or cage diving with sharks in South Africa! Previously, he wrote and edited for the Yale Daily News and the Yale Politic, and he also played percussion for the Davenport Pops Orchestra. When he’s not writing a paper in the stacks, you can find him eating coffee Oreo ice cream at Ashley’s, playing a game of IM soccer (moo-rah!), or attending one of the many lectures and events happening around campus. He cannot wait to welcome Trumbullians to the best residential college at Yale!
Eliana Peyton
Eliana (she/her/ella) was born and raised near Baltimore, Maryland and proudly celebrates her Costa Rican heritage. She majors in Neuroscience and is curious about how communication within the nervous system lends itself to social behavior, avoidance, and more. Eliana is passionate about representation in medicine and aspires to pursue an MD-PhD to practice neurosurgery and research the epigenetic bases of brain tumors. At Yale, Eliana interprets in Spanish at HAVEN Free Clinic, conducts mice research at the School of Medicine, works as a Science Tour Guide, and serves on the board of the Wu Tsai (Neurosciences) Institute. Within Trumbull, late at night, Eliana can be found working in the buttery—either at her laptop or in the kitchen, making the thickest, creamiest milkshakes on campus. In her free time, she loves to lift at Payne Whitney Gymnasium, walk around New Haven to find the best avocado toast in town, sing and dance with her headphones on, and philosophize about what love, spirituality, and community mean to her. Above all, Eliana’s battle cry is “MOO-RAH!”, and she is super excited to let all the new Trumbull frosh in on the magic that has made Trumbull—and more broadly, Yale—her home away from home.