The 17th annual Soup & Hope speaker series returns to Sage Chapel to feature Cornell staff, faculty, and student storytellers sharing their experiences of overcoming life’s challenges while attendees enjoy a free meal of soup and bread.

The series is open to the public and spotlights speakers and stories of hope. The six talks in the series will be held on Thursdays through March 28, noon-1 p.m. Events are free and do not require registration.

Soup provided by Cornell Catering is available starting at noon; talks begin at 12:15 p.m. and each event concludes around 12:45 p.m. While the series is held in Sage Chapel, the events are not affiliated with a religious organization.

• January 25 – Foula Dimopoulos 
• February 8 – Joseph Margulies 
• February 22 – Joanne Wang ‘24 
• March 7 – Subash Bhandari 
• March 21 –  Adrian Durant 
• March 28 – Wahieñhawi “Hawi” Hall

Feb. 22 Speaker: Joanne Wang ‘24 
Joanne Wang is a senior majoring in Biological Sciences with a concentration in Biochemistry and minoring in Data Science.

Having dealt with anxiety and depression in high school, the symptoms of which were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and discovering that the outdoors and movement in nature helped with her healing tremendously, when she came to Cornell during the height of the pandemic, she found herself enrolled in the Trail Running PE course. After taking this course, seeing how much it had positively impacted her mental health during what was an incredibly difficult adjustment period into a new academic and social environment, she knew she wanted to become an instructor for this course so that she could give back to her peers at Cornell and offer them the same opportunity to find an oasis within running on all the beautiful trails that Ithaca has to offer.

Fast forward a few years, Joanne continues to be a Trail Running PE instructor and is also the co-president of the Cornell Running Club. She hopes to utilize her positions of leadership to provide Cornell students with opportunities to engage in outdoor movement that will benefit both their physical and mental health.

Learn more here: https://scl.cornell.edu/soupandhope