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Eighty-Five Undergraduates Display Work in Annual Student Research Symposium
Ned Conway presented two posters on his birds studies at the symposium.
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5/13/2003
Contact: Bill Giduz 704/894-2244 or bigiduz@davidson.edu
by Amy Poe
About eighty-five students recently filled hallways and several classrooms of the Baker-Watt Science Complex with posters explaining their undergraduate research projects in biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, and mathematics. The presenters stood by their respective displays during the afternoon Student Research Symposium to answer questions from a large crowd of students and faculty who attended the event.
Assistant Professor of Physics Tim Gfroerer, organizer of the "science fair," said, "The symposium gives the students an chance to display their research in one of the formats scientists use for presenting their work – a poster presentation." Gfroerer continued, "We try to teach them how to present projects and research as effective posters that will catch someone's eye. Knowing how to create an effective poster is crucial for undergraduates since all major scientific conferences use poster presentations."
Among presenters was Nicole Harlan ' 04, who has been engaged in a long-term study on aquatic, detritus-based treehole communities with biology professors Dave Wessner and Chris Paradise. This summer she's switching gears and traveling to Australia to research snails with Reef HQ, a program run by the park authority. Harlan applied for the job after she saw a posting in the Biocenter News Letter, and with recommendations from her professors, secured the internship.
Fellow biology major Ned Conway ' 04 has spent the last two years as professor Mark Stanback's field research assistant, studying nesting habits of bluebirds and swallows. The experience he gained won him one of just two undergraduate internships from the National Science Foundation that involve tracking seals for two months this summer in Alaska. He stated, "It's pretty much unheard of for undergraduates at big universities to have the close contact with a professor that I've had here at Davidson. My experience and work with Dr. Stanback were critical in securing this internship."
Matt Armstrong sported a tie with the periodic table on it for the occasion.
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Drew Weber ' 04 completed an independent research project for Dr. Barbara Lom's developmental biology class entitled, "Nicotine reduces growth and movement but enhances pigmentation in Xenopus tadpoles." He exposed tadpoles to nicotine, and documented the damage it caused as they grew. He said the study might implicate nicotine as a factor in human Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, which is more prevalent among children whose mothers smoke cigarettes. After spending next fall with Davidson's program at the Beaufort Marine Biology lab, Weber will graduate in December and pursue his goal of becoming a doctor.
Matt Armstrong ' 05, from Richmond, Va., presented a poster on the element yittrium that he created as a student in Davidson's first-ever "Green Chemistry" class this fall. Armstrong said, "We looked at classical chemical processes and evaluated them to determine environmentally friendly alternatives to those processes. Then we examine the benefits and drawbacks of those alternatives."
He discovered that PPG Corporation is using yittrium as a non-toxic substitute for the toxic element lead in coatings on car bodies. Armstrong's poster was strictly informational, and didn't reflect personal research on the subject. This summer he has secured an internship with a chemical company that specializes in synthesis of active ingredients in pharmaceuticals.
Another chemistry major, Gregory Scott ' 05, displayed a poster detailing his work at developing a synthetic compound that Associate Professor of Chemistry David Blauch hopes to study. Scott conducted the project as the five weeks of independent research each student must conduct in Blauch's Chemistry 362 class.
Audrey Swift '04, Kindiya Geghman '03, and Professor Kristi Multaup shared their findings on source memory.
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Blauch said, "Greg did a really nice job with a hard synthetic scheme. He created a process that gets us ninety-five percent of the way to being able to synthetically produce the compound we want to study."
It was Scott's first major lab research project, and one of the lessons he said he learned was, "Things don't always work out the way you expect them to."
Scott will spend his time this summer conducting quantum mechanical computations as winner of an undergraduate fellowship with the National Institutes for Standards and Technology. "It's a cutting edge area," said Blauch.
Math student Parul Karnik became interested in studying how family names become extinct over generations after learning that her mother's name is one of those headed for extinction. For her mathematical modeling class with Laurie Heyer, assistant professor of mathematics, Karnik created a computer model that simulates what is known as the "Galton Model." Developed in 1874, the Galton Model used traditional math to determine the expected number of generations until a name becomes extinct. Karnik created a computer model that verifies results gained with traditional methods. In addition to this project, Karnik worked with Heyer last summer to develop a computer program for the biology department that will be used this coming academic year.
Psychology students Kindiya Geghman ' 03 and Audrey Swift ' 04 displayed a poster showing how they and their teacher, Associate Professor Kristi Multhaup, proved the experts wrong with research on how generation affects source memory. Multhaup said the idea for the project began in a memory lab where Kindiya noticed that her research produced different results than the outcomes anticipated outcomes by published study.
Students share their posters with professors and fellow students at the symposium.
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Multhaup said, "So in typical Kindiya fashion, she whipped out her notebook and showed me a model that she thought would solve our problem. I listened to her explanation and sure enough, she was right."
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