Student research magazine draws avid crowd for first anniversary

By Tom Britton '04

One poster project looked at the evolution of the rattlesnake's rattle, another at the relationship between Cuban and American music, and a third was a scientific examination of the Atkins diet. "This crowd is the largest I've ever seen here," said Mann Library assistant librarian Jaime Martindale. "This is really of great interest."

The Research Paper staff members, from left, Elizabeth Vassallo '03, copy editor; Jack Cognetta '06, managing editor; and Emily Posner '04, editor-in-chief, show off the magazine in Mann Library, April 18. Charles Harrington/University Photography

The April 18 event that drew such a large and diverse crowd of students, prospective freshmen, family members, faculty and staff to the library was an open house to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Cornell's undergraduate magazine The Research Paper.

Student researchers from across campus presented poster displays of their work featured in the third and latest issue of the student-run publication.

Each semester The Research Paper aims to highlight outstanding undergraduate research at Cornell. Those involved with the publication credit the awareness and appreciation, evident from the event, to the work of Editor-in-Chief Emily Posner '04, who is assisted by managing editor Jack Cognetta '06, layout editor Peter Flynn '04 and copy editor Elizabeth Vassallo '03.

"Emily is the sine qua non," said David DeVries, the students' adviser on the project. "Although she has assembled a tremendous staff with wonderful ideas and great energy, she really is The Research Paper. I cannot say enough how important she has been."

Posner's dedication is reflected by the development of The Research Paper in the past year. The staff has tripled in size to 30 members, and color was added to the magazine's pages for the latest issue.

The Research Paper is funded through the offices of Isaac Kramnick, vice provost for undergraduate education and the Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government, and of Robert Richardson, vice provost for research and the F.R. Newman Professor of Physics. Posner, who was instrumental in obtaining the original funding, now is reaching out to alumni and other faculty for further funds. In recent days, Leo Renaghan, Hotel School associate dean, has offered a contribution, said Posner, and she hopes that other deans also will take an interest.

Each issue covers the work of about 10 to 12 undergraduates together with one graduate student and one faculty member, along with any interesting research stories that spring to mind during the semester. One such story in the latest issue is a feature by Posner on former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno '60, on the importance of research at Cornell.

Student-researcher Brian Finucane '03 also is the subject of an article in the latest issue, and he was one of the undergraduates presenting posters at the open house. Finucane's research on a Peruvian mummy in Cornell's Anthropology Collection was featured on National Geographic Channel's "The Mummy Road Show" in October 2002. (In January, Finucane received a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford.)

Also featured, and another who described her research in an open-house poster, was graduate student Laura Granka '02. Using the latest eye-tracking technology at the Human Computer Interaction Group, Granka has researched where the human eye looks most often and for how long when viewing a Web page. Granka's aim is to provide marketing information for Internet advertisers.

DeVries pointed out that the one-year anniversary event was testament to Posner's initiative in helping answer such questions by prospective Cornell students as "How do I find a research mentor?" and "Do I have to be a senior to do research, or can I start as a freshman?" "It was very important for Cornell that so many prospective students and their parents came to the event," said DeVries. "They certainly got a taste of the possibilities available at Cornell for undergraduates in research."

However, Posner is most proud of the magazine's style. She noted that while other university undergraduate research magazines, such as the University of Pennsylvania's PennScience Journal of Undergraduate Research and Harvard's Journal of Undergraduate Sciences, simply publish student research, The Research Paper "humanizes the researcher's story by painting a picture of their experience at Cornell."

Staff writer Andrew Riesenberg '05 does just this in the latest issue of The Research Paper. Reporting on the research of Neil McQuarrie '03, who studied the relationship between Cuban and American music, he highlighted the cultural experience he himself had during his semester abroad and the opportunities his research has given him.