When Emily Stolzenberg ’07 started writing a biweekly opinion column for The Daily Princetonian, she had no idea how far her impact would reach.

“In my freshman year, I wrote a column about what I considered the growth of extremism in the mosque in my town,” recounts Stolzenberg, a native of Morgantown, West Virginia. “The journalist Asra Nomani, who also comes from my hometown, read that column and invited me to join her in a march for women’s equality in Islam.”

The march garnered widespread media coverage and influenced the national discussion on women in Islam. For Stolzenberg, the chain of events served as a compelling demonstration of the power of words.  

“Writing a column feels like a very solitary experience,” she points out. “As you’re writing, you’re having a dialogue between yourself and an imaginary audience. When that audience chooses to talk to you, it’s a really neat thing.”

Many of Stolzenberg’s activities at Princeton, including her newspaper work, were fueled by what she calls “an insatiable curiosity” about people, places and ideas. She spent two summers abroad, studying Chinese through Princeton in Beijing and German with Princeton in Munich. She studied for a semester at the Freie Universität in Germany through the Berlin Consortium for German Studies, and she built playgrounds and houses during two Alternative Spring Breaks through the Center for Jewish Life.

Stolzenberg chose German as her Princeton concentration. “I couldn’t see staying in one subject — that’s too monolithic for me,” she says. “I chose German in part because of its multidisciplinary nature. I was able to study literature, art, philosophy, history and culture. It was a great way to bridge fields.”

At Princeton, Stolzenberg appreciated the opportunity to work with brilliant, engaging professors. Among her stand-out courses: “Creative Nonfiction” with Pulitzer Prize-winner John McPhee.

“My family fought over who would get to read his most recent book first,” she says. As a birthday present for her sister, she asked McPhee to sign a copy. “He said, ‘Come by,’ and we hung out and chatted for a while. I still e-mail him with writing questions, and he e-mails back — the same day — apologizing for the delay. You find that kind of professor interaction all the time at Princeton.”

Now that she’s graduated from Princeton, Stolzenberg is studying political theory at the University of Oxford on a Daniel M. Sachs Class of 1960 Graduating Scholarship. What’s next after that? Law school, maybe, or a graduate degree. But whatever career she decides to pursue, she says, “It’ll be something in which curiosity is valued and where there’s always something new to discover.”