research Archives - Page 5 of 8 - Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP)

Two SMCM Students Accepted into National Institute of Standards and Technology Summer Research Program

May 8, 2019

Nicholas (Nick) D’Antona ’19 and Peter Orban ’20 were recently awarded fellowships from the National Institutes of Standards & Technology (NIST) Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF). NIST is one of the nation’s premiere research institutions for the physical and engineering sciences. The two SMCM students will work at labs in Gaithersburg, MD during the summer of 2019.

Peter Orban ’20

This will be the second consecutive NIST SURF fellowship for Peter, who will work in the Physical Measurement Laboratory in the Fluid Metrology Group. Peter is majoring in both mathematics and physics, with a materials science minor. After graduating from SMCM he plans to go into a PhD program in applied physics. Peter’s project title is: “Improving Stack Flow Measurements by making them faster and more accurate”.

Nicholas D’Antona ’19 (right) examines spin-coated thin film solar cells with Dr. Troy Townsend

Nick will work with Dr. Lee Richter in the Materials Measurement Lab on a project titled: “Wide bandgap metal oxide films as electron transport layers in scalably-printed quantum dot solar cells”. Nick is pursuing a double major in physics and chemistry and plans to attend graduate school to study chemistry or materials science in pursuit of a PhD after graduating from SMCM.

SMCM students present at 2019 National Conference on Undergraduate Research

April 23, 2019

From left to right: Katie Gross, Alejandra Diaz, Rachel Yates, Alana Demones, and Katherine Kempton

SMCM International Languages & Cultures students Kathleen (Katie) Gross, Alejandra Diaz, Rachel Yates, Alana Demones and Katherine Kempton presented their research projects at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, GA, held from April 10-13, 2019. Katie Gross and Rachel Yates were awarded the Geneva Boone Award to support presenting their St. Mary’s Projects (SMP) at the conference. The Geneva Boone Award for Outstanding St. Mary’s Projects is given annually to support students who will present work from their SMP to a wider audience beyond the College.

NCUR is an annual conference promoting undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative activity done in partnership with faculty or other mentors and is sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR). As part of SMCM’s enhanced institutional membership with CUR, all students, staff, and faculty can become members and have access to CUR publications, webinars, and reduced rates for conferences and events such as NCUR.

Katie Gross’s SMP is titled: “Racial Discourse and Why it Matters: White Privilege, Race and Colorblindness in France and America”. Alejandra Diaz presented: “The Cultural, Economic and Educational Impact in Latin America of Technology in the Age of Globalization: Latin America as Adopter and Agent of Technology Development”. Rachel Yates’s SMP is called: “The Académie française vs. Anglicism: Franglais and the politics of language in France’s Fifth Republic”. Alana Demones is researching: “Black and White: How language reflects Colorism in China”, while Katherine Kempton’s SMP is titled: “I am from the Gutter Too”: Institutions, Power, and Identity Formation in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables”.

Dr. Brandon Guernsey, Visiting Assistant Professor of French, stated that the International Languages & Cultures Department is very proud of these students’ accomplishments – a sentiment broadly and strongly shared across campus. Keep up the great work!!

SMCM History Student Receives Simpson Scholarship in Egyptology

April 5, 2019

Student on a camel in front of a pyramid in Giza, Egypt

Poppell at pyramid in Giza, Egypt

St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM) student Brandon Poppell ’19 recently received the prestigious Simpson Scholarship in Egyptology. The Simpson Scholarships in Egyptology are available to students who wish to focus their studies on the history and culture of Ancient Egypt.

When asked about the scholarship and his current research Poppell stated “I am a Classics-trained student meaning I have taken ancient history classes at SMCM through the lens of the Ancient Greek and Roman worlds, and my main research interest is Ptolemaic Egypt, which was a Macedonian Dynasty”. In order to gain further background in Egyptology and to understand the way Ptolemaic Egypt functioned, Poppell aspired to study at the American University in Cario (AUC). At AUC, Poppell will pursue courses ranging from archaeology, to history, to art and architecture under Salima Ikram, one of the leading scholars in the field.

Poppell is currently awaiting responses from graduate schools but plans to continue his research on Ptolemaic Egypt for the rest of his academic career. In the meantime, during the 2019 summer he will be working on an archaeological site on Crete which is a Minoan site (1700-1430 BC), while also possibly working at a Greco-Roman site (4^th century BC- 4^thcentury AD circa) later in December. Poppell would like to thank Dr. Sarah Malena, Dr. Michael Taber, Dr. Linda Jones Hall, and Dr. Julia King for being extremely supportive in his academic endeavors while at SMCM. Poppell “would not be where I am without them”.

This article was written by St.Mary’s College of Maryland student and Office of Research and Sponsored Programs Fellow Mackenzie Brooks ’21.

A statue of Seraphis, a Greco-Egyptian deity (left) and clay depictions of amulets Poppell worked on for an experimental archaeology project.

SMCM Student Awarded Grant in Support of St. Mary’s Project

April 4, 2019

St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM) student Brooke Steinhoff ’19, was selected to receive a research grant by Beta Beta Beta to support her SMP in Psychology under the mentorship of Dr. Aileen Bailey. Beta Beta Beta (TriBeta) is an honor society for undergraduates dedicated to enhancing and improving not only the understanding but the appreciation of biological study through experimental research.

Steinhoff’s study aims to evaluate the effects of direct infusions of L-655,708 into the medial prefrontal cortex utilizing an animal model of depression. The study animals will be given various behavioral tests including the sucrose preference test, social interaction test, open field test, and novelty suppressed feeding test. Steinhoff believes that L-655,708 will have an antidepressant-like effect when infused directly into the medial prefrontal cortex. All research involving vertebrate animals must be approved by the St. Mary’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

Steinhoff is a biology major and neuroscience minor, and is conducting this study jointly with biochemistry major and neuroscience minor, Katie Robey ’19. More information about this collaborative research can be found on the Current Sponsored Research tab of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs webpage.

This article was written by St. Mary’s College of Maryland student and Office of Research and Sponsored Programs Fellow Mackenzie Brooks ’21.

Professor King’s NEH-funded work with the Rappahannock Tribe Featured in National Council of University Research Administrators Magazine

March 27, 2019

Professor of Anthropology Julia King (left) and Rappahannock Tribe Chief Anne Richardson (right)

Professor of Anthropology Julia King’s National Endowment for the Humanities-funded work with the Rappahannock Tribe is featured in the March/April 2019 issue of National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) Magazine.

King, in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Chesapeake Conservancy, and the federally-recognized Rappahannock Tribe of Virginia, is tracing the history and development of the Rappahannock Indians in early American history (200-1850 AD).

NCURA Magazine is a member-only magazine available both in print and online for all NCURA members, published six times a year. It is arguably the leading national organization for research administrators with membership in the thousands.

Katie Robey ’19 Awarded $992 Research Grant from Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research Program

March 7, 2019

St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM) student Katie Robey was selected to receive a research grant for her SMP by Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society. Sigma Xi’s mission is to help foster the next generation of researchers and that is what they have done for Katie. With her SMP titled “Antidepressant Efficacy of L-655,708 Following Infusion into the Medial Prefrontal Cortex”, she hopes to uncover more about the neural circuitry that is responsible for the etiology of depression.

Katie’s project measures baseline depressive-like behavior by the novelty-suppressed feeding test, social interaction test, sucrose preference test, and open field test in a rodent model of depression. Robey will surgically implant treatment animals with guide cannulas and they will receive direct infusions into the medial prefrontal cortex of either the L-655,708 antidepressant or the drug vehicle. The drug vehicle is the solvent used to transport the drug into the system and when delivered on its own, serves as an experimental control. Robey hypothesizes that rats receiving L-655,708 will show significantly reduced depressive behavior when compared to the control group. All research involving vertebrate animals must be approved by the St. Mary’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

Robey, a biochemistry major and neuroscience minor, is working with fellow student Brooke Steinhoff ’19 under the guidance of Professor of Psychology Aileen Bailey. When asked about her research Robey stated: “I have been doing research with the same fast-acting antidepressant (L-655,708) for a couple of years and have studied its effect on several brain regions including the hippocampus and nucleus accumbens”. However, she wanted to extend the investigation by also looking into the medial prefrontal cortex since that region of the brain also plays a role in reward processing. Ultimately, the goal of Robey and collaborators’ research is to identify a safe, fast-acting antidepressant without the negative side effects of other alternatives.

Robey hopes that after she graduates from SMCM, additional future SMP students will continue working with L-655,708 in order to help further expand our understanding of its efficacy as a fast-acting antidepressant.

This article was written by St. Mary’s College of Maryland student and Office of Research and Sponsored Programs Fellow Mackenzie Brooks ’21.

Students Raynaud and Mehaffey Selected as Undergraduate Research Fellows

March 7, 2019

St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM) anthropology students Melody Raynaud and Daniel Mehaffey have been selected as inaugural Undergraduate Research Fellows for the American Anthropological Association. Raynaud and Mehaffey are two of only six fellows selected from a nationwide pool of applicants that received the fellowship. Since receiving the fellowship from the American Anthropological Association, a first-year student, Colette Nortman, has joined the team in order to gain first hand ethnographic research experience.

Funded by the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, this program supports research projects that use ethnographic or mixed methods to address the question, how do anthropology majors prepare for life after college?

With mentor and professor of anthropology William Roberts, Raynaud and Mehaffey will focus their research on answering questions regarding students’ experiences of navigating career development. Their study also explores how building a community of practice among students and faculty at SMCM promotes the development of skills and knowledge that develop graduates’ character.

We asked Raynaud what she hopes to gain from this experience and her future directions after graduating from SMCM. Raynaud commented she is hoping the fellowship will enrich her anthropology experience beyond the skills learned in the classroom and hopes this study will help to reinforce how her anthropology degree will help her excel in any career she chooses to pursue.

This study will enable Raynaud and Mehaffey to submit a proposal to present their findings at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association jointly with the Canadian Anthropological Association in November, 2019, in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Professor Roberts believes that these fellowships will provide the anthropology department with empirical information that will be useful as the College transitions to a renewed core curriculum, Learning through Experiential and Applied Discovery (LEAD). He also believes that while the department has done well preparing students for life after SMCM, this study will help strengthen the links between SMCM alumni and the department and our current anthropology majors and minors.

This article was written by St. Mary’s College of Maryland student and Office of Research and Sponsored Programs Fellow Mackenzie Brooks ’21, who adapted Michael Bruckler’s January 16, 2019 story published in the SMCM online Newsroom.

St. Mary’s College Professor to Teach in Amsterdam via Prestigious Fulbright Grant

February 13, 2019

A St. Mary’s College of Maryland professor has received a Fulbright Scholar grant for research and teaching abroad.

Jennifer Cognard-Black, professor of English and current chair of the English department, has been selected for a Fulbright grant for the spring semester of the 2019-2020 academic year. This award is for a “Senior Professorship in American Culture.” She will be teaching a special topics seminar for master’s degree students at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) in Literary Food Studies, titled “Just Food: American Food Writing and Social Justice,” as well as taking over part of a core course on literary practice and holding a workshop for PhD students that instructs them on ways to integrate teaching with research. She also intends to conduct a research project in which she will ultimately produce an anthology titled “Recipes for Social Justice: Transatlantic Essays on Ethical Eating.”

Cognard-Black is familiar with the Fulbright grant. She joins SMCM faculty Robin Bates, Bruce Wilson, and Charles Musgrove as one of a select few SMCM professors to receive two Fulbright awards. The first took her to Slovenia in 2012, working with students that she still has ongoing relationships with today. “I am honored to have a chance once again to be an educator-ambassador on behalf of the United States and of our college,” Cognard-Black said. “This Fulbright award is an incredible opportunity to share American literature and pedagogy with students and colleagues in another country, but it’s also an opportunity for me to expand my own thinking on food justice issues and concerns in a global context.” Cognard-Black hopes to build on the work she began in Slovenia, by continuing to foster connections between St. Mary’s College and the global community. Over the course of the 2020 semester, she plans to find meaningful and lasting ways to bring the SMCM and UvA communities together.

“Yet publication will not be the sole means of sharing this work,” she explains. For instance, Cognard-Black plans to host a student panel on Food, Power, and Culture at the yearly conference hosted by PhD students at UvA, an event that draws graduate students from around the globe. She also hopes to give her students at UvA the chance to share their work in a broader sense, and to have them collaborate with students here in the U.S. “For one of the key reasons to analyze food and foodways is to enrich others’ understanding of worldwide food disparities, economies, and cultural identities,” Cognard-Black explains, “and sharing essays on ethical eating practices may help student participants both recognize and resist the barriers between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ thereby promoting culinary empathy across borders.”

St. Mary’s College of Maryland is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education through 2024-2025. St. Mary’s College, designated the Maryland state honors college in 1992, is ranked one of the best public liberal arts schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Approximately 1,600 students attend the college, nestled on the St. Mary’s River in Southern Maryland.

Written by St. Mary’s College student Zoe Smedley ’19

New Partnership Between Environmental Studies and Historic St. Mary’s City Receives Grant Award from the Maryland Agriculture Council

February 12, 2019

From left to right: Project Coordinators Peter Friesen, Barry Muchnick, Madeline Beller (’19), and Bonnie Kangas

On Thursday, February 7, a faculty, staff, and student team representing the Heirloom Garden Project – a new partnership between the Environmental Studies Program at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and Historic St. Mary’s City – received a grant award from the Maryland Agriculture Council during the Annual Taste of Maryland Agriculture gala in Glen Burnie, MD.

Hosted by The Maryland Agriculture Council – whose mission is to promote Maryland agriculture and to educate the public on its importance – the award gala included special presentations from U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen, Governor Larry Hogan, and Joseph Bartenfelder, Secretary, Maryland Department of Agriculture. Attendees included a large contingent of Senators and Delegates from Maryland’s General Assembly and Congressional Delegation.

Selected from a large, competitive pool of proposals as an outstanding example of creative and unique programs being done on a local level, the Heirloom Garden Project will grow historically accurate heirloom crops for living history programs at Historic St. Mary’s City; facilitate agriculture-based service learning opportunities for St. Mary’s students; and produce educational materials about the importance of past and present sustainable agriculture practices for the general public.

Project Coordinators Dr. Barry Ross Muchnick, assistant professor environmental studies, and Peter Friesen, Director of Education at historic St. Mary’s City, accepted the award on behalf of the project, along with Bonnie Kangas, acting manager at the Kate Chandler Campus Community Farm and environmental studies major Madeline Beller (’19), a student member of the larger team that collaborated on the project proposal.

Environmental Studies students researched and wrote the grant proposal as part of the upper-level, interdisciplinary Keystone Seminar (ENST490) in Fall 2018, which examined the relationship between food systems and environmental citizenship. Committed to learning through experiential and applied discovery, the seminar hosted a grant-writing workshop by Sabine Dillingham, Director of Research and Sponsored Programs, and enabled students to break ground on the project through structured service-learning hours and reflection writing assignments.

Located at the Kate Chandler Campus Community Farm, The Heirloom Garden Project embodies how the Environmental Studies Program links theory and practice by building bridges between campus and the broader community.

For more information about the Heirloom Garden Project, or to learn how you can volunteer, contact brmuchnick@smcm.edu

SMCM Hosts Second Annual Research Excellence Workshop

January 25, 2019

Dr. Jeff Osborn presenting faculty workload models

St. Mary’s College of Maryland held the second annual Research Excellence Workshop (REW) on January 11^th 2019 in Daugherty-Palmer-Commons and the Blackistone Room in Anne Arundel Hall. The REW provides broad professional development opportunities (beyond grants), institutional support for and recognition of faculty research, scholarship and creative activities. The specific goals of the 2019 REW workshop were to: present funding and research opportunities to arts, social science and humanities faculty, discuss faculty workload and research integration into scaffolded undergraduate curricula, formally recognize the efforts of faculty and staff in seeking external funding to support their endeavors, and provide a forum for networking with external guests and colleagues across campus.

The day’s events included:

Funding and research opportunities in the arts, social sciences and humanities (e.g., Smithsonian, Social Science Research Council, MD State Arts Council, NEH, MD Humanities, Library of Congress, Folgers Shakespeare Library, ACLS, external foundations). Presented by: Lauren Sampson, SMCM Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations, Dr. Sabine Dillingham, SMCM Director of Research and Sponsored Programs, and Marilyn Hatza, Program Officer Grants & Strategic Partnerships, MD Humanities. The scheduled NEH visit by John D. Cox, Deputy Director, NEH Division of Education Programs had to be cancelled due to the partial federal government shutdown but might be re-scheduled for later in the spring semester.
Lunch, inaugural Sponsored Research Awards, and ‘Meet & Greet’ with external stakeholders. In celebration of outstanding efforts and achievements, Dr. Julie King, Professor of Anthropology, was recognized as Most Successful Grant Seeker; Dr. Angela Johnson, Professor of Educational Studies, and Dr. Cassie Gurbisz, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, were recognized as First-time Awardees. We also held a drawing where the number of free raffle tickets for faculty and staff was equal to the number of proposals they submitted for external funding in FY18. Dr. Samantha Elliott’s ticket was selected from the random drawing, earning her a note of congratulations and $25 gift card to the campus bookstore. External networking guests included Ms. Hatza from MD Humanities, researchers from Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (Drs. Tom Miller, Dave Secor, Carys Mitchelmore, Hali Kilbourne, and Johan Schijf), Morgan State’s PEARL (Dr. Tom Ihde, Dr. Ming Liu, Richard Lacouture, and Amber DeMarr), and Dr. Jeff Osborn, TCNJ Dean of the School of Science, AAAS and CUR Fellow.
Presentation by Dr. Osborn, introducing the CUR Transformations Project with emphasis on creating a more research-rich, connected, and scaffolded curriculum, and an overview of faculty workload models that work well for primarily undergraduate institutions such as SMCM. The SMCM CUR-Transformations teams also provided brief overviews of their goals and progress.
Panel discussion on faculty workload solutions and research integration into scaffolded undergraduate curricula facilitated by Dr. Katherine Gantz. Panelists included: Dr. Osborn, Provost Michael Wick, Dr. Joe Lucchesi, Dr. Aileen Bailey, Dr. Pamela Mertz, and Dr. Christine Wooley.

Sincere thanks to all the attendees and congratulations again to our inaugural sponsored research awardees! The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs plans to hold annual research-focused workshops in support of faculty and staff scholarship. If you have ideas about future topics of interest or networking partners, please contact Sabine Dillingham at x4192, sldillingham@smcm.edu.

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