Twenty-one Union students will present their research at the 21st annual National Conference on Undergraduate Research, hosted this year by Dominican University of California, April 12-14.
“Everyone has worked very hard to prepare for this national showcase,” says Mary Carroll, director of undergraduate research at Union. “It's a wonderful opportunity to meet other students and faculty from around the country, learn about scholarship in their own and other fields and develop their presentation skills. These are strong students engaged in interesting senior theses and projects, and they will represent Union College well.”
Some 2,200 undergraduates from more than 250 colleges and universities will attend NCUR 21. All but one of Union's participants are funded by the College's undergraduate research office. A Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) grant is supporting Judy Ng, who will be presenting HHMI-funded work she did at Syracuse University last summer.
Two faculty members, Brad Bruno of Mechanical Engineering and Chad Orzel of Physics and Astronomy, will travel with the group to San Rafael.
Students at NCUR present either a talk or a poster about their research, which runs the gamut of fields and disciplines, from the creative and performing arts to biomedical, engineering and social science research.
In addition, the conference offers prominent speakers and sessions on educational policy, programs and funding for undergraduate scholarly work.
One of the students making the trip is Bridget K. Austin. The senior, who switched her major from Art History to Mechanical Engineering her third day on campus, remembers her freshman seminar.
“When I walked in, there were only boys in the room. Fortunately, Dean Balmer grabbed my arm as I tried to leave and brought me back.”
Four years later, Austin is the president of the campus chapter of the Society of Women Engineers. Her senior research project under the direction of Professor Ann Anderson continues the bird flight research of Jennifer Panik '04, using the wind tunnel located in the basement of Science & Engineering to test alula feathers from the wings of various duck species.
“I loved art in high school but won awards for math and science achievement. I chose Union because I wanted a school where I wasn't just surrounded by ‘techy' people. At Union, I have friends who are math, history and political science majors.”
The Skaneateles, N.Y., native, who is a member of Sigma Delta Tau sorority and also volunteers for Union's Big Brothers Big Sisters program, thrives on the individualized attention in Union's small academic community and on real-world experience – like participation in NCUR – that is not only a possibility, but a probability.
“I built walking robots, medieval trebuchets and remote-controlled dart throwers in my first 10 weeks, instead of waiting until my junior year like with typical undergraduate engineering programs,” she says. “Union taught me that being creative in my discipline is as important as knowing the technical stuff.”
One of only two women in her ME graduating class of 30, Austin acknowledges, “Engineering can be challenging for women. But today, women are becoming more open to the fact that women can do well in math and science and become successful engineers. It takes word-of-mouth to pull them in.”
Other Union participants, their presentation titles and faculty sponsors are:
Aaron Almeida: “The Synthesis and Evaluation of Novel Molecular Transporters” (Joanne Kehlbeck, Chemistry, and Barbara Danowski, Biology; co-author David Olson '06)
Danielle Baldwin: “Novel Synthesis of Dendrimers with Exact Substitution Patterns” (J. Gregory Reid, Chemistry)]
Mary Berkery: “The Role of Gender in the Vietnam Antiwar Movement with an Emphasis on College Protests” (Andrea Foroughi, History)
Lauren Carlson: “Preparation of C2 Symmetric Transition Metal Complexes as Potential Chiral Catalysts” (J. Gregory Reid and Laurie Tyler, Chemistry)
Carolyn Castagna: “Phagocyte Function During Death and Regeneration in a Colonial Sea Squirt” (Robert Lauzon, Biology)
Leidy Colon: “The Latina Domestic Worker: Race, Boundary Formations and Conflicts in the ‘Home'”: (Janet Grigsby, Sociology)
Risa Dubow: “The Salience of Peer Groups: A Comparison between Middle School and High School Students” (David Cotter, Sociology, and Kenneth DeBono, Psychology)
Matthew Ernst: “Optimization of Aerogels for Transparent Insulation in a Window Design” (Ann Anderson, Mechanical Engineering, and Mary Carroll, Chemistry)
John Ferrarone: “Spectroscopic Analysis of Oxygen-Sensing Aerogels” (Mary Carroll, Chemistry, and Ann Anderson, Mechanical Engineering; co-author Amanda Barrow '08)
Amarilis Francis: “Black Britons: Recollecting West Indian Identity and History in Post-World War II Britain” (John Cramsie, History)
Victoria Leonard: “Krik Krak, Send the Haitians Back! A Study of Racism in the Haitian/Dominican Borderlands” (Michelle Chilcoat, Modern Languages & Literatures)
Michael Mastroianni: “An Optically Excited Metastable Krypton Atomic Beam for Radioactive Background Measurements” (Chad Orzel, Physics & Astronomy)
Julia Mathew: “Attitudes toward Arranged Marriage among Second-Generation Indian-Americans” (Janet Grigsby, Sociology)
Tom Mazur: “Exploring the Quantum Behavior of Light Experimentally via Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion” (Seyfollah Maleki, Physics & Astronomy)
Judy Ng: “Bacterial Multi-Cellular Behavior and Drug Resistance: Correlation between Autoinducer-2 and Drug Resistance in Escherichia Coli” (Dacheng Ren, Biomedical and Chemical Engineering, Syracuse University)
Jazmin Puicon: “A Cultural Study of the Rural People and Working Conditions throughout the Generations in El Valle Del Cauca, Colombia” (Teresa Meade, History)
Matthew Roginski: “Bone Density Distribution in the Symphyseal Region of the Anthropoid Mandible using Quantitative Micro Computed Tomography” (Andrew Rapoff, Mechanical Engineering)
Michael Smirnov: “The Role of Visual Motion in Eliciting Attention in the Lizard Anolis Sagrei” (Leo Fleishman, Biology)
Jenna Welby: “The Synthesis and Structural Characterization of Isotopically Labeled Asymmetric Cobalt Complexes: Through Metal Coupling of NMR Active Nuclei” (Laurie Tyler, Chemistry; co-authors: Derek Wayman '06 and Dr. Milo Westler, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Jonathan Young: “Vaccinating the Next Generation: The Impact of Immigration on Childhood Immunization” (Younghwan Song, Economics)
For more information, visit: http://www.ncur.org.