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| At the Cornell Undergraduate Research Forum April 19 in the Biotechnology Building, President Hunter Rawlings, left, acknowledges Marilyn Williams, associate dean in arts and sciences and director of the undergraduate research program, who is holding a plant from Associate Dean Lynne Abel and a plaque given to her by Charles Lo, right, senior and chair of the Cornell Undergraduate Research Board. Frank DiMeo/University Photography |
The annual research forum sponsored by the Cornell Undergraduate Research Board (CURB), the only student-run organization of its kind in the nation, bloomed for the 15th year last week with reports from more than 84 students on subjects ranging from emotional problems among ambulance workers to larval wasp behavior.
But this year's forum, although alive with originality and the enthusiasm of discovery, had a bittersweet element. Marilyn Williams, assistant dean in the College of Arts and Sciences and the person who more than anyone helped develop the undergraduate research program into one that has gained national recognition, announced she will retire in August.
In a salute at CURB's convocation April 19, President Hunter Rawlings noted that it was Williams who "developed the idea of an undergraduate research program into a comprehensive ideology of what it means to be a research apprentice."
Said Rawlings: "Not only has she helped students find research opportunities, but reflecting her own background in Renaissance literature, she has worked very hard to bring students from the humanities, the social sciences and the arts into this as well. The remarkable variety of student projects we see this year is a vivid testimony to Marilyn's broadening of that scope."
In her honor, said Rawlings, an award -- the Marilyn Emmons Williams Award -- will be given annually to the dean, administrator, faculty member or student who has contributed significantly to promoting undergraduate research at Cornell. Each year, the winner's name will be added to a plaque to be displayed in the Visitor's Center at Day Hall. It will, said Rawlings, "provide not only recognition for the recipients, but also recognition for the program that Marilyn Williams helped to institute at Cornell."
The plaque, presented to Williams by CURB chair and graduating senior Charles Lo, carries the inscription: "The Cornell community would like to thank you for the many years of service and dedication you have invested in promoting undergraduate research."
Holding a flowering plant sent by Lynne Abel, the associate dean for undergraduate education in arts and sciences who hired her in 1979, Williams told the students, "Despite the fact that I am sometimes working like the naked mole-rats that Ted Stankowich was talking about -- who make their kids eat dirt and push them around -- despite that, or maybe because of it, it has been a lot of fun and I have enjoyed every minute of it, and I will remember you all."
Williams was referring to a student presentation by undergraduate Stankowich on "Parental Shoving Behavior on Newborn Pups in Naked Mole-Rats." Other student presentations ranged from discourses on Kant and morals (Jacque Darrell) to herbal medicines (Lucine L. Gordon) to the British minimum wage (Steven Seitz). It was a breadth that delighted Rawlings, who noted that "scholarship in the humanities and the arts and social sciences should join with research in the natural and the physical sciences in a way that gives every student an opportunity to show off what he or she might be doing in the research laboratory or the library."
Referring to Williams, Rawlings made another important point: "As the first member of her own family to attend college and to earn a Ph.D., Marilyn has recognized how difficult it can be for first-generation college students to find their way in a large research university. She has put in place programs to ensure that first-generation students who may not have had college in their family background before would be awakened to these opportunities from the time they set foot on the Cornell campus."
It was a theme that struck home with the convocation speaker, Sir Michael Berry, Royal Society Research Professor at Bristol University in England and an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell. He began by pointing out that he came from a family with little education and saw science "as an escape into what I saw as a purer world."
A life in science and research, Berry told his undergraduate audience, is "pretty technical," but they should never lose sight of the perspective that researchers are contributing "to a patchwork of enormous scope whose magic is that we are connecting very different areas of experience, not only in science but in other areas of scholarship as well."
Sometimes, he noted, the researcher's work has an immediate practical application which is easy to communicate. But at other times motives are more intellectual. "Rather than dishonesty, it's better to stress this aspect of unity, this aspect of connections," he said. "Non-scientific people do appreciate these connections, the magic of abstract ideas, even mathematical ones, when applied to widely different situations."
The forum's session topics, with the undergraduate presenters and their paper titles, were:
·"Sleepers, Speakers and Seekers":
Rachel Pulverman, "Bilingual Speech Perception: The Native/Non-native Distinction"; Edward Kulich: "Emotional Desensitization and Altruistic Vigilance in Ambulance Personnel"; Adam J. Sacks: "Identity-Forming Discourses In Berlin Memorial Sites"; Jacque Darrell: "A Study of Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason"; Rosey Ernst: "Direct Democracy, Affirmative Action and White Women: Proposition 209 and Initiative 200."
·"Boom, Boom, Pop, Crash":
Martha DelCampo, "Time and Temperature Dependence of Gypsum Conversion to Plaster"; Rebecca Walden: "Cryopreser-vation of Plant Tissues for Analysis of Metal Detoxification Peptides"; Kwee Geak Lee: "Instabilities in Exploding Wire Plasma"; David M. Ishikawa: "Sustainable Aquaculture: Consideration of Carp (Cyperus carpio) as an Ornamental Fish."
·"Circle of Life":
Donna M. Tscherne: "Identification of Virulence Proteins (Hops) Secreted Through the Type III Pathway in Pseudomonas syringaepv. Tomato strain DC3000"; Ted Stankowich: "Parental Shoving Behavior on Newborn Pups in Naked Mole-Rats"; Stacey Trotter: "Determination of significant residues involved in the folding transition of lactoglobulin"; Chris Butler: "The Effects of Climate Change on the First Arrival Dates of Northeastern Migrant Birds"; Julie Kelsey: "Variation in the Formation of Conjugated Linoleic Acid in Ruminants."
·"The Canandaigua and Cayuga Lake Watershed Planning Processes":
John R. Cochran and Sarah Davidson: "The Role of Local Governments in Finger Lakes Watershed Management and Planning."
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| Nurzalina Jamaluddin, left, a senior chemical engineering major, discusses her research poster on "Production of HBsAG in W82 and NT1" with Eugene Foo, a senior mechanical engineering major, at the Undergraduate Research Forum poster session April 19 in the Biotechnology Building. Frank DiMeo/University Photography |
·Poster session:
Barrett E. Yates and Catherine Waldowski: "Constructing the Body"; Carolyn Lipke: "Biological Modification of Transport and Bioavailability of Polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Soil"; Charles Lo: "The Interaction of ACK-2 and Clathrin Inhibits Clathrin-Dependent Endocytosis"; Christiana Root: "Entry of Influenza Viruses into Cells Is Inhibited by a Highly Specific Protein Kinase C Inhibitor"; Dan Jacobs: "Mobility-Dependent Charge Injection in an Organic Semiconductor"; Daniel Allen: "Novel Blend-Based Donor-Acceptor-Sensitizer Organic Photovoltaics"; Jennifer Whiteis: "Spatial and Temporal Changes in Sea Surface Temperature in the Caribbean Sea: Implications for Coral Reef Disease"; Jose O. Aleman: "Using Polystyrene to Build a Cell Culture Analog Device"; Julie Miller: "Controlled DNA Release into Cultured Cells and Tissues"; Katherine A. Morrison: "Molecular Analysis of Gene Expression in E. coli Biofilms"; Kenneth Tomo Wiggans, Brook Burley and Brooks Haxton: "Droplet Positioning by Acoustic Levitation for Microgravity Droplet Combustion"; Nurzalina Jamaluddin: "Production of HBsAG in W82 and NT1"; Ray Mak: "Expression of Duplicate Genes in Polyploids"; Ruth Chen: "Responsive Nanocomposites of N-isopropylacryl-amide"; Sunny Y. Wong: "An Improved Protocol for Synthesizing Recombinant Adenovirus and a Comparison of Promoter Efficiencies in Advenoviral Vectors"; Weining Qiu: "Optimization of the Production of Extracellular Protein"; John Albeck: "Identification of the Cat-2 Binding Domains of p85Cool-1/beta-Pix and Cool-2/alpha-Pix"; Minh B. Tran: "Biophysical mechanism of the hypothesized fusogenic activity of the GTP-binding, Ca2+-dependent protein Annexin VII (Synexin)"; Musyoka Munyoki: "Particle Interactions with Edged Surface"; Ellen London: "Collaboration and Composition"; Evan McCaskey: "Deuterium NMR Studies of Deformed Poly(diethylsiloxane) Networks"; Krishanu Saha: "Anomalous Plasticity in Face Centered Cubic Metal Thin Films Encapsulated With Metal Nitrides"; Lauren H. Nicholas: "Retirement: Influences of Age, Household Income, Work Satisfaction, and Decisional Factors"; Amanda Jenkins: "Relative Performance of Race Car and Mountain Bike Dampers"; Sarah Zornetzer: "Characteristics of Eye Movements at Sleep Onset: A Pilot Study"; Musyoka Munyoki: "Particle Interactions with Edged Surface"; Christopher Maher: "Converting Data Files for a Multi-User Virtual Environment"; Amanda Senft: "A Tale of Two Subspecies: Hybrid Inviability in Clarkia xantiana"; Abraham Heifets, Amanda Waack, Bryan Audiffred, Brett Nadler, Chao Yung Fan, Chin Hong Tong, Emily Winston, Eugene Foo, Fadzli Hasan, Sandra Yu, Saeed Saeed, Supat Ieamsupapong, William Stokes, Xiaozheng Zhong, Abhishek Uppal, Alison Sheets, Chaileart Wittayawat, Chris Crockett, Eric Strong, Kevin Scharpenberg, Luke Chuang, Mark Schwager, Matt Connelly, Michael Babish, Mike Falkovich, Nan Kong, Nicole Schlegel, Nok Onlamai, Philip Zigoris, Tobias Welge-Luessen, Glen Cha, Joshua Pollak, Justin Kinney, Mike Sherback: "Cornell RoboCup: Defending our Championship Title"; Jennifer Whiteis: "Spatial and Temporal Changes in Sea Surface Temperature in the Caribbean Sea: Implications for Coral Reef Disease"; Saul Mercado, Guillermo Izabal, Sara Elizabeth Troyani, Rocio De Felix-Davila, Jimmy Lou Nieves, Amy Hui-Chung Liu, Maria Elisa Burgos-Ojeda (graduate student): Students performed excerpts from the play, Una tal Raquel, which has been given undergraduate research program support to participate in theater festivals in Belgium and Mexico; Andrea Koschmann: "Mexican Students Against Neo-Liberalism: The 1999 UNAM Strike"; Kevin-William Hughes: "Los Dominicanos, Race, Color and Identity in the Dominican Republic"; Nadia Huancahuari: "Deconstruction of the Misconceptions that Surround the 'U.S. Experience.'"
·"Worlds Apart":
Ashton Hawk: "Citizenship in the European Union"; Nigel Spencer: "Resolving the Dilemma in Living Outside of One's Self: A Careful Reconsideration of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Development of the Self in Mankind"; Richard Hutson: "Is Forty Acres and a Mule Too Far-Fetched?"; Renee Dabney: "Depiction of the African Diaspora in Black Women's Literature, Autobiographies, and Essays"; Vusumuzi Sibanda: "Relationship Between Music and Youth Culture in Southern Africa."
·"Show Me the Money":
Steven Seitz: "The Distributional Impact of British Minimum Wage"; Joseph James: "European Trade Policy for the Millennium Round of World Trade Negotiations"; Gilda Perez: "An Analysis of Human Resources Development Needs in Central America"; Darren Scott: "Revenue Impact of Unconstraining Demand Forecasts for a Revenue Maximization Model"; Steven Driver: "Games and the Mind."
· "Look Who's Talking":
Barbara DeMonarco: "Apoptosis in Three Different Strains of Toxoplasma Gondii: RH, ME49, ts4"; Ben Johnson: "Long Term CD4+ T Cell Depletion in IL-4 -/- Mice Infected with Schistosoma mansoni"; Adam Levin: "Cellular Signaling as a Cause of Cell Death in Cyclically Impacted Cartilage Explants"; Arianne Baker: "Synthesis of Monodisperse Poly (dimethylsiloxane)"; Erik Kim: "Single Track Trigger Efficiencies in the Vertex Detector"; Krishanu Saha: "Anomalous Plasticity in Face Centered Cubic Metal Thin Films Encapsulated With Metal Nitrides"; Lucine L. Gordon: "Exploring the Effects of Herbal/Traditional Medicines on Women's Reproductive Health."
·"Eat This":
Amelia Henry: "A Study on the Responses of Rhizospheric Bacteria to Sorgoleone, an Allelopathic Root Exudate"; Leah Ho: "Alpha Galactosidase in Mancan Buckwheat"; Virginia Vu: "Fagopyritol Synthase"; Mark Novak: "Temporal and Bathymetric Partitioning Within a Guild of Mobile Decapod Predators in a Rocky Shore Community"; Monica K. Lee: "Larval Wasp Behavior and Its Influence on Adult Foraging Choices and Feeding in Paper Wasps (Polistes dominulus)."
·Additional entry:
Diana Cheng-Robles: "The Detection of Intracellular Cytokines and Surface CD Receptors of Brughia pahangi Infected Rats Using Flow Cytometric Analysis."
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