Student research heats up during summer

In addition to summer jobs, internships and vacations, an increasing number of UD undergraduates spend the time between spring and fall semesters in libraries and laboratories, farms and fields, assisting faculty members with research.

This past summer saw “a sizable increase” in the number of students participating in the Undergraduate Research Program, according to Joan Bennett, professor of English and longtime coordinator of the program, who recently stepped down. She says about 350 students helped conduct research, most of them engaging in an intensive, full-time effort extending over 10 weeks.

The University has become well known for its research opportunities for undergraduates, and the Summer Scholars Program offers students housing and a living stipend to compensate for missing out on paid summer jobs.

Although most undergraduate research assistants also work during the academic year, commonly for two semesters, summer is the key to the program, Bennett says.
“Summer is the time when faculty really focus on their research,” she says. “It’s also the time when students can have a full-scale immersion into research—no classes, no jobs, no volunteer work, just research experience.”

In addition to learning hands-on research skills, students in the summer program meet weekly to learn more about such topics as research ethics and presentation skills. Most also make presentations showcasing their work at one of several symposia that are held on campus in August.

“The students who participate are very enthusiastic about what they get out of the experience,” Bennett says. “Many will decide to go on to graduate school, but even those who never work in research again usually find it valuable. Doing research teaches higher-order thinking skills, and that’s an important part of anyone’s education.”

Both during the academic year and in the summer, students conduct research in all seven colleges and most departments. A sampling of some projects from summer 2007 are highlighted here.

Under the leafy umbrella

Del Levia entered Clark University planning to graduate in four years and become a financial adviser. His plans changed, he says, when in one of the science courses he always enjoyed, he was given the opportunity to assist with research. He was hooked.

“Undergraduate research changed my life,” says Levia, now an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and its Center for Climatic Research. “That’s why I do as much work as I can with undergraduates, to give them a chance to see if research is for them.”

One of those undergraduates, Greg Marchesiello, AS ’09, who worked with Levia during the summer, has decided that research is, indeed, for him. Initially planning on a career as a physician, Marchesiello instead changed his major to geography and is looking ahead to graduate school in meteorology.

“This project is a great fit for me,” he said one late June day while using a specialized instrument to measure the amount of area covered by the leaf canopy in the woods at Fair Hill (Md.) Natural Resource Management Area.

Levia’s research project at Fair Hill, in which he is collaborating with Shreeram Inamdar, assistant professor of bioresources engineering and of plant and soil sciences, focuses on what is called the Earth’s “critical zone.” That life-sustaining area encompasses the outermost surface of the planet from the vegetation canopy to groundwater.

Specifically, Levia is investigating the amounts of dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen that move through the vegetation and into the soil. He and Marchesiello have gathered data from a state-of-the-art meteorological station at Fair Hill, along with their measurements of the leaf canopy and analysis of precipitation that falls directly through the leaves to the ground and that which runs down the tree trunks to the ground.

“This project takes us outdoors doing fieldwork, and it also has a lab component,” Levia says. “I think that mix makes it an especially good experience for students.”
Marchesiello agrees, calling the research “really interesting and a good fit with my interest in meteorology.”

Of snake venom and cancer

For Mollie Kostielney, AS ’09, the summer days followed a routine.

She says that “a typical day in the lab” started around 8:30 a.m. and ended around 5 p.m. But the biology major, who took a research side-trip into medical technology, is quick to add that the tasks that filled her days were anything but predictable.

“I’m testing six cancer cell lines for melanoma, and it’s a pretty routine process all summer long,” Kostielney says of the painstaking work that involves thawing, growing, dyeing and testing the cells. “But the cells take a lot of time to culture, and we’re following a new protocol that hasn’t been done in the lab for a while at UD, so of course I have to take very careful notes, because little changes really can alter results.”

Working under the guidance of Mary Ann McLane, associate professor of medical technology and of biological sciences, and Carrie Paquette-Straub, research associate in medical technology, Kostielney is studying the growth-inhibiting effects of eristostatin—a protein found in snake venom—on two enzymes created from melanoma cells. She presented her findings at this year’s UD Undergraduate Research Symposium in August.

In addition to gaining a summer of hands-on lab experience, she plans to use her training to carve her career path.

“Having the opportunity to spend a summer in the lab is really valuable, because it gives me the concentrated hands-on training I don’t get in classes,” Kostielney, who wants to pursue a doctoral degree in cancer research, says. “Having my own project to present also puts my understanding on a whole different level.”

Tiny fossils key to ocean history

Livia Montone, MS ’08, spent much of this past summer around sand—not the vast expanses enjoyed on a beach vacation but the tiny amounts she meticulously separated out from deep-sea samples in a campus laboratory.

Working as a research assistant with Katharina Billups, associate professor of oceanography, Montone prepared samples of sediment taken from deep under the ocean. She used a double sieve to wash sand and other coarse materials from the samples, separating out the fossilized shells of one-celled marine organisms known as foraminifera.

Later, Billups will dissolve the so-called “forams” in acid, producing a gas that can be analyzed through a spectrometer. What she learns about the makeup of forams from various time periods can help scientists determine what the climate was like at those different times.

Montone spent the first half of the summer processing about 32 samples a day, letting them dry overnight, and carefully tracking and labeling each according to the exact part of the core sediment sample from which it came. She then picked the forams out of the samples, identified the species found and made slides for microscopic study.

A former pharmacy student, Montone transferred to UD when her interests shifted to geology. She’s now hoping to attend graduate school in Billups’ specialty, paleo-oceanography, the study of the ocean’s history.

“Research can seem intimidating at first, but once you get into it, you realize that people will help guide you, that you don’t have to have every single thing formulated ahead of time,” Montone says. “I love doing research because you learn things you’ll actually be able to use.”

Wearing ‘The Weary Blues’

When Erin Am Ende, CHEP ’09, a fashion and apparel studies major, decided she wanted to do research in her junior year, one of the undergraduate scholarships being offered by the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy caught her eye. It was for a project to design a fabric using as inspiration a work from the Paul R. Jones Collection of African American Art, housed at the University.

She was taking a class on the fundamentals of textiles with Rosetta LaFleur, associate professor of fashion and apparel studies. When she applied for and got the scholarship, LaFleur became her mentor.

“My work is to investigate how African-American art and culture inspires creativity,” Am Ende says.

She studied the pieces in the Jones Collection and selected “The Weary Blues” by Phoebe Beasley. It’s a silkscreen print and part of a collection paying tribute to poet Langston Hughes. “The Weary Blues” is one of his best-known poems.

The poem and the print are about a piano player in a Harlem nightspot.

Am Ende says the print’s “muted colors, blocky design and jazz theme” were just what she was looking for: “I wanted to show all of the influences that went into this work of art—the jazz, the poetry—all in one medium.”

She says she learned a great deal just researching the project, reading about what textile designers use for their sources of inspiration. But, mostly, she says she’s learned to “always keep your eyes open and don’t overlook anything.”

Once Am Ende finishes the design, it will be digitally imprinted on a fabric she selects, and she’ll then make a dress or top and skirt combination that she intends to enter in design competitions.

Robots modeled on dragonflies

Ray McCauley, EG ’09, is not a fly-boy in the usual sense of the word. Instead of piloting a plane, he studies dragonflies—which flap their wings an astonishing 60 times a second—and other insects to help develop tiny flying robots.

Such microrobotic insects, when equipped with sensors, can be used in indoor surveillance and search and rescue operations in areas that are inaccessible or dangerous.

McCauley says he has always been fascinated by aircraft and spacecraft, but he downsized his interests this past summer to
work on micro flying machines. He and Aliza Greenblatt and Anne Martin, both also EG ’09, have been working in the lab of Xinyan Deng, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.

The three undergraduates are doing hands-on work, constructing a hovering mechanical insect with sensors, about twice as large as a dragonfly.

The students’ first attempt was not successful because the material was not strong enough, McCauley says, so Greenblatt began work on a new insect body using a different material. Meantime, several sets of wings, all the same size but of different thicknesses, were manufactured to attach to the body. Testing takes place in a tank of clear, lightly bubbling oil in the lab, using a time-frame camera to record the results.

In addition to doing research and helping the graduate students in Deng’s group with special projects, McCauley says he is learning the nuts and bolts of how a lab is run, how to decide what is needed and how to research and order materials.

Deng says the students are motivated and have contributed a great deal to her research program.

Economics as a solution to pollution

Solving the problems of pollution and global climate change might seem to be in the hands of engineers and chemists.

But Colleen Walsh, BE ’08, spent much of her summer conducting research on possible economic approaches. Under the direction of Laurence Seidman, Chaplin Tyler Professor of Economics, Walsh explored the use of tradable permits as one policy that might be implemented to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emissions into the air.

With a system of tradable emissions permits, companies that exceed a set “cap” on emissions must buy permits to do so, penalizing them financially for the emissions.

On the other hand, companies that produce less than the allowable amount of carbon dioxide can sell their permits and reap an economic benefit.

“I took Dr. Seidman’s ‘Public Policy’ class last year, and we covered environmental issues, including the question of whether tradable permits or emissions taxes would be more effective,” Walsh says. “I thought it was so interesting to look at a subject like global warming and realize that there are many different ways to address it.”

She asked Seidman if she could assist with his research, and she began studying the pros and cons of tradable emissions permits. She says she found, for example, that a system already in place in the U.S.—for sulfur dioxide, not carbon dioxide—seems to be quite effective, while a carbon system implemented by the European Union has had difficulties with price fluctuations for the permits.

“Dr. Seidman is going to be taking my research and also looking at the pluses and minuses of an emissions tax system to compare the two policies and determine which one might work better for controlling carbon dioxide,” Walsh says. “I’ve learned that I really like research and I’d like to do more of it, either in business or in graduate school.”

Biomedical research leads to prestigious award

Charles Drummer IV, AS ’08, decided to attend UD specifically because of its strong undergraduate research program, and his varied work since then has landed him a major national award.

Drummer is one of 15 students to receive the United Negro College Fund-Merck Undergraduate Science Research Scholarship Award for the current academic year.

The award, which includes two summer internship stipends, is designed to increase the number of African Americans in the pipeline of biomedical science education and research.

Drummer’s summer internships in Boston included work on background research, techniques and presentations.

As a freshman, Drummer chose biological sciences as his major and joined the Network of Undergraduate Collaborative Learning Experiences for Underrepresented

Scholars (NUCLEUS), which assists academically talented and underrepresented students majoring in the sciences in entering into graduate and professional school programs and science-related professions.

By his sophomore year, Drummer had narrowed his focus to a concentration in cell and molecular biology and genetics. He began working that same year on research involving the mechanisms of resistance in prostate cancer metastasis to bone, assisting in a research group led by Carlton Cooper, assistant professor of biological sciences.

“Charles is very methodical,” Cooper says. “He’s not into vague details; he likes to know what exactly the purpose of his work is. He is very inquisitive.”
Drummer, who hopes to pursue medical and doctoral degrees and work in cancer research, says that conducting research brings his classroom material to life.

“Undergraduate research really illustrates the concepts you learn in class, and for me it just affirmed that this is what I wanted to do,” he says. “Some people don’t necessarily like working in the lab because they think it moves too slow. For me, I like the process. I like coming in the lab, and I like doing the techniques, and I like having an idea in your mind and then following through with experiments and proving your hypothesis.”

A better diet for the dairy

Lindsey Reich was walking across the UD campus a few years ago, wearing a suit and heels as she headed toward a business class, when she says she realized that what she most wanted to do was revisit her childhood dream of becoming a farmer.

She switched her major to animal science and went to talk to Limin Kung, professor of animal and food sciences, about career possibilities. Reich had worked for years on a dairy farm near her home, so she was especially interested in what Kung could tell her about his work in the field of nutrition and microbiology in ruminants, a category of cud-chewing animals such as cows and sheep.

The next thing she knew, she says, she was one of Kung’s research assistants.

Beginning in August 2006, Reich, AG ’08, began working on studies of bacteria that are added to the feed given to dairy cattle. “I packed five-gallon buckets full of feed, with the idea that each bucket was a kind of miniature silo,” she says.

By experimenting with the addition of different types of bacteria to the bucket “silos,” researchers assessed the effects of each—some hasten the fermentation process that is necessary for silage and some prolong the useful life of the feed, for example—and observed if and how one type of bacteria affects another in the same batch of feed. The research is part of Kung’s ongoing efforts to improve the productive efficiency of ruminants.

Reich says she now plans to attend graduate school and, after earning a master’s degree, she hopes to put the results of all sorts of research to practical use by working in extension to consult with and advise farmers. This year, she was a summer intern with UD Cooperative Extension, getting experience in outreach.

“I feel like I’ve really found what I love to study and what I want to do with my life,” Reich says. “And being given the opportunity to do research has helped me realize all that.”

Observations from the Amazon

Dan Jordan, AS ’08, traveled to the Peruvian Amazon in July to gather material for a nonfiction writing project on which he is working with McKay Jenkins, Cornelius A. Tilghman Professor of English. In preliminary excerpts, Jordan notes that few Peruvians he met practice their religion. But, he writes, he found one exception:

“The village of Canaan is different. Founded in 1980 by missionaries of a small sect of Christianity, the village is now host to over 400 followers of Jose Francisco de Cruz, a Brazilian priest who set up villages similar to Canaan throughout the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon regions in the mid-20th century….

“Everyone here must practice the religion and services are held three times a day. Unlike most villages in the area, there are no shamans here, and it is forbidden to drink alcohol or smoke tobacco. Every woman in Canaan, beginning at age five, must wear a long dress that covers her knees. In the brutal heat and humidity of the jungle, this is no easy task. By age fifteen, most women (and I call them women because the idea of adolescence is nonexistent in the village) are married and are expected to have large families, both to strengthen the village and help provide for the parents when they are older….

“Outside the church a giant 50-foot wooden cross stands high above the canopy of the surrounding jungle. The church in Canaan sits on the highest point of the village; to reach it you have to climb up the slippery hill, sliding in your rubber boots up to the top where the land levels out. The cross is painted red and stands in front of the church. On it are the initials ‘STA’: ‘save your soul’ in Spanish. Stepping through the front gate and into the wooden church, I examined the sparsely decorated walls and accompanying benches. In front of me was a gorgeous portrait of the Virgin Mary casting her eyes downward. This Canaan may not be the land of milk and honey, but it is certainly a unique place.”