As the 2019-2020 academic year draws to a close, The Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities would like to recognize and celebrate our outstanding grant recipients. If you would like to read more about what our award recipients are up to, project abstracts can be found at the end of the article. 

2020 Summer Undergraduate Research with Faculty (SURF)
The purpose of SURF grants is to expand the opportunities for undergraduate students and faculty to work collaboratively on scholarly projects during the summer.
The recipients are as follows:

• Sophia Bernstein and Dr. Daniel McGlinn, Optimizing Indoor Saltwater Agriculture using Salicornia europaea
• Chris Blouin and Dr. Michael Larsen, Investigations of Light Transmission through Clouds 
• Katrina Bynum and Dr. Joe Carson, A Hubble Space Telescope Direct Imaging Investigation of Extrasolar Planets
• Hannah Collins and Dr. Kate Pfile, Lower Extremity Jump-Landing Biomechanics after Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction with Quadriceps Tendon versus Patellar Tendon Autografts
• Conner Cozad, Dr. Norman Levine and Professor Lancie Affonso, Developing a Mobile Application for Flood Warning in the Charleston, SC Region
• Madison Davis and Dr. Christine Byrum, Mapping Importin Distribution in the Developing Sea Urchin
• Emily Dombrowski and Dr. Jody Beers, Physiological Effects of Temperature and Parasite Load on Metabolism of Spotted Seatrout
• Ashley Dowd and Dr. Ashley Pagnotta, Long-Term Evolution of Novae
• Sydney Eiland and Dr. Eric McElroy,  Evolution of Pelvis Musculoskeletal Anatomy in Lizards
• Johnathan Ellwood and Dr. Kris Ghosh, Automated Repair of Programs 
• Andre Gagliano and Dr. Gamil Guirgis, Preparation, Characterization and Conformational Analysis of 1,1-dichlorocyclohept-2-ene, 1,1-dicholoro-1-silcyclohex-2-ene
  
• Pearce Hamilton and Dr. Michael Larsen, Studies of Heterogeneous Ice Nucleation on Treated Mica
• Hawken Hass and Dr. Adam Doughty, Revisiting the Relation between Derived-Relations Testing and Transfer of Function
• Raija Haughn and Dr. Beth Sundstrum, Women with HIV’s Perception of Coercion during Contraceptive and Infant Feeding Counseling
• Timothy Hunter and Dr. Rick Heldrich, Part I – Modeling Substitution Elimination Reaction Manifold; Part II -Preparation of bis-para-anisylalkanes and [n.0]-metacyclophanes
• Vernon Kennedy and Dr. Jennifer Wilhelm, The Effects of Estradiol Treatment on Synaptic Reorganization and Plasticity around Motoneurons after Traumatic Peripheral Nerve Injury in Mice
• Harrison Koller and Dr. Brooke Van Horn, Toward Antimicrobial Materials: Synthesis and Characterization of Cl-Hydantoin-PCL
• Katherine Martin and Dr. Kris de Welde, Expanding LGBTQ+ Responsiveness at CofC Student Health Services
• Chloe Mattila and Dr. Stéphane Lafortune, Pattern Observed on Mussel Bed Formation
• Fabio Najjar and Dr. Kate Mullaugh, Synthesis, Efficiency and Recyclability of Magnetic Nanoparticles the Removal of Micropollutants from Water
• Vershelle Peterson and Dr. Jennifer Wilhelm, Effects of steroid hormones on voluntary physical activity levels
• Ethan Pierce and Dr. J.D. Adams, Time-Course Decay of Urine Electrolytes: Effect of Environment and Time
• Natalie Sorrem and Dr. Theodore Them, High-resolution sedimentary [Hg] records across the PETM from a terrestrial latitudinal transect in North America
• Ryland Talmadge and Dr. Jody Beers, Physiological Effects of Temperature and Parasite Load on Swimming Performance of Spotted Seatrout
• Gabi Tutelo and Dr. Allison Welch, Growing up Salty: The Effects of Transient Salinity Stress on Tadpole Growth and Development
• Duncan Weller, Dr. Sarah Hatteberg, and Dr. Kristy Kollath-Cattano, Encountering Overdose: How College Students Are Impacted by Overdose Experiences
• Patrick Wohlscheid and Dr. Jonathan Neufeld, The Use and Abuse of Philosophy in History: James Warley Miles ‘Hegelian’ Defense of Slavery

2019-2020 Major Academic Year Support (MAYS)
The purpose of MAYS funding is to expand the opportunities for undergraduate students and faculty to work collaboratively on scholarly projects that take place during the academic year.
The recipients are as follows:

• Kelly Ackerly and Dr. Daniel Greenberg, An Exploration of Maternal Factors Affecting Children’s Autobiographical Memory
• Bailey Borreson and Dr. Allison Foley, History, Ethics, and the Body: Establishing the Provenience of a Mummified Medical Specimen
• Madison Crow and Dr. Ricard Vinas-de-Puig, Expanding Indigenous Language Knowledge and Preservation in South Carolina: A Survey for Immigrant Indigenous Language Speakers in Charleston County
• Ashley Dowd and Dr. Ashey Pagnotta, Long-Term Evolution of Novae

2019-2020 Research Presentation Grant (RPG)
The purpose of RPG’s are to expand the opportunities for undergraduate students to present their student-faculty research and creative activity at meetings, conferences, competitions, etc.
The recipients are as follows:

• Hannah Addis and Dr. Jennifer Fox, Interactions between Heme Biosynthetic Proteins in Mitochondria 
• Miranda Badolato and Dr. Kathleen McInvale, Exploring the Role of Social Support in Peruvian Women’s Physical Activity Levels
• Blaine Billings and Dr. Ricard Vinas-de-Puig, Modality and What Should Would Be Acceptable: Syntactic Promiscuity in Spanish and English Double Modal Constructions
• Andrew Bogatkevich and Dr. Timothy Barker, Synthesis of Amines by Nucleophilic Ring Opening of Aziridines
• Bailey Borreson and Dr. Allison Foley, History, Ethics, and the Body: Establishing the Provenience of a Mummified Medical Specimen
• Niamh Cahill and Dr. Wendy Cory, Investigating Meclizine Tablets for NASA Space Mission Planning
• Xandre Clementsmith and Dr. Sorinel Oprisan, Delay Embedding of Low-Dimensional Attractors of Local Field Potentials from Optogenetic Data
• Tanner Crunelle and Dr. Kris de Welde, Towards Equit/Ecology: One Student’s Praxis
• Samantha Czwalina and Dr. Chris Freeman, An Investigation of Detritus Production by Caribbean Sponges
• Jaclyn Dunne, Dr. Marcello Forconi and Dr. Michael Giuliano, Modifications of Thiols via Nucleophilic Aromatic Substitution
• Gracie Eldridge and Dr. Barbara Beckingham, Partitioning and Bioaccessability of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Tire Materials
• Bailey Fallon and Dr. Chris Freeman, Microplastics and Caribbean Sponges
• Bailey Fallon and Dr. Robert Boessenecker, Ancient Leatherbacks of the coastal United States: Fossil Ossicles from California and Carolina and the Stories They Tell
• Phia Gierszal and Dr. Timothy Barker, Reaction of Alkylboronic Esters with Epoxides
• Hawken Hass and Dr. Adam Doughty, Effects of Changeover Requirement on Between-Sequence Variation in Pigeons
• Elizabeth High and Dr. Kathleen McInvale, Presenting Social Support as a Predictor of Obesity Related Behaviors in Peru
• Catherine Hill and Professor Megan Goettsches, Systematically Counted and Silenced: Exploring the Effects of Prison Gerrymandering
• Mason Huebsch and Dr. Jennifer Fox, Investigating the Mechanism of Eukaryotic Heme A Synthase
• Skye Jacobson and Dr. Amy Rogers, Expression and Purification of the Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase Heme Domain R367K Mutant
• Dashiell Jay and Dr. Michael Giuliano, Bilayer Interactions of the Endogenous Opioids
• Vernon Kennedy and Dr. Jennifer Wilhelm, Estrogen Signaling is required for Treadmill Exercise Mediated Effects on Synaptic Plasticity around Axotomized Spinal Motoneurons
• Marissa Knight and Dr. Theodore Them, Assessing the Chemostratigraphic Record of Sedimentary Mercury Concentrations across the End-Cretaceous Mass Extinction Event
• James Linzel and Dr. Marcello Forconi, Introduction of Fluoroaromatic Probes into Peptides and Proteins via Nucleophilic Aromatic Substitution
• Mary Britt McDonald and Dr. Jay Forsythe, Investigating the Role of Chirality in the Formation and Hydrolysis of Model Prebiotic Peptides
• Emily McGee and Dr. Michael Giuliano, Toward an Understanding of the Relationship between Sequence, Acylation, and Solution Behavior in Human Ghrelin
• Clara Meier and Dr. Theodore Them, Ocean, Atmosphere, Land: Assessing the Source(s) of Mercury across the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
• Gabrielle Mullins and Dr. Stephen Short, The Role of Place Attachment and Message Framing on Climate Change Risk Perception
• Claire Natiez and Dr. Gretchen McLaine, Senesce
• Lauren Nelson and Dr. Kathleen McInvale, Presenting Social Support as a Predictor of Obesity Related Behaviors in Peru
• Bach Nguyen and Dr. Katherine Mullaugh, Sulfidation of Silver Nanoparticles by Zinc Sulfide
• Andrew Pampu and Dr. Frederick Heldrich, Metal Catalyzed Coupling in the Synthesis of Bis-Para-Anisyl Alkanes
• Lyndsey Prosser and Dr. Richard Himes, Vitamin K2 Analogs as Anti-Epilepsy Therapeutics
• Emily Ramsayer and Dr. Katherine Mullaugh, Influence of Ligands and pH on Dissolution of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles
• Abigail Reeves, Dr. Jennifer Fox and Dr. Marcello Forconi, Predicting Reactivity of Homologous Sulfohydrolases via Bioinformatics
• Keon Rezaeerod and Dr. Jay Forsythe, Development and Validation of a Differential FTIR Method for the Analysis of Model Prebiotic Peptides
• Casey Roche and Dr. Amy Kolak, The Perfect Narcissist
• Emmaline Sheahan and Dr. Gretchen McLaine, Cogito: An Undergraduate Modern Dance Work
• Elizabeth Smolenski and Dr. Marcello Forconi, Kinetic Isotope Effect on the Kemp Elimination
• Shawn Spann and Dr. Richard Lavrich, Origin of Conformational Flexibility in Linear Amino Alcohols
• Abigail Stephens and Dr. Chris Freeman, Sponge Babies: Larval Survey of Caribbean Sea Sponges
• Briana Taormina and Dr. Marcello Forconi, Kinetic Isotope Effect in the Kemp Elimination Catalyzed by Heme Systems
• Reilly Walker, Dr. Michelle McLeod and Dr. Tom Parry, Effects of Yoga Participation on Dynamic Balance and Core Strength
• Emma Watt and Dr. Richard Himes, Vitamin K2 Analogs in Toxicant-Induced and Genetic Models of Parkinson’s Disease
• Kristen Weeks and Dr. Neal Tonks, Synthesis and Analysis of Biologically Compatible Drug Delivery Systems

2020 SURF RECIPIENTS ABSTRACTS

2019-2020 MAYS-RPG RECIPIENTS ABSTRACTS

Summer brings so many opportunities for college students. Some of them have full-time jobs. Some travel. Some serve internships while others enroll in classes and study. And still others invest their energies in research.

At the College of Charleston, the Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (URCA) is dedicated to supporting students who engage in serious, hands-on research. Each summer, this office supports faculty-led research projects by providing funds for student researchers in the form of SURF grants (Summer Undergraduate Research with Faculty). Student-recipients can obtain grants of up to $6,500. And this summer, 28 students will be the beneficiaries of the program.

Collectively, these students will work on an array of projects that span the spectrum from examining the role of tires as a source of microplastic pollution to studying the effects of controlled burns on Swallowtail butterflies to analyzing the 43-year correspondence between renowned Southern writer Eudora Welty and her friend Frank Lyell.

According to Elizabeth Meyer-Bernstein, an associate professor of biology who directs the URCA office, these summer research projects can be pivotal for students.

“The research experience these SURF projects provide can be life-changing,” she says. “This kind of immersive experience challenges students to think beyond the classroom and helps them develop disciplinary and professional skills under the guidance of a faculty mentor. In the end, that experience will help each student be a more competitive applicant for graduate school or for roles in the professional world.”

Meyer-Bernstein says that this summer, URCA is funding projects from 13 different academic disciplines housed in four schools across campus. View the full list of SURF Grant projects here.

Here are some of the different SURF projects students will work on this summer:

A Social Network Analysis of Obesity in Northern Peru: An Examination of the Adult Social Networks

Exercise science major Miranda Badolato will investigate the social influences on obesity in Peru, a country that has recently begun to experience the obesity epidemic. Existing research in this field has focused on high-income countries and in the aggregate it indicates that adults who have obese friends or life partners are at greater risk of becoming obese themselves. But research in this area has yet to focus on the populations of low-income countries, so that is what Badolato will do under the direction of public health professor Kathleen McInvale. Working with colleagues in Peru, she will create a social network database that includes information regarding subjects from three villages in coastal Peru. She hopes that this work will ultimately lead to the development of obesity interventions using social networks.

Investigating Meclizine Tablets for NASA Space Mission Planning

Biochemistry major Niamh Cahill plans to become a physician one day. Before that she hopes her research efforts will help lay important groundwork for NASA’s 2033 mission to Mars. This summer she’ll be working in the lab under the guidance of chemistry professor Wendy Cory to test whether certain medications that astronauts need are stable beyond their expiration dates and after being exposed to space radiation. In particular, the duo will conduct chemical analyses of meclizine (also known as Dramamine II) after the tablets have been exposed to high heat, humidity and dangerous radiation.

Potential Herbivory by Bonnethead Sharks in South Carolina and Florida Coastal Habitats  

Marine biology major James Strange intends to explore a new phenomenon in shark behavior. Though sharks have long been considered carnivores, the Bonnethead Shark (Sphyrna tiburo) has recently been discovered to possibly include marine vegetation in its diet. Working under the direction of marine biology professors Gorka Sancho and Bryan Frazier, Strange will investigate the potential ingestion of aquatic plants by Bonnethead Sharks in Florida and South Carolina by examining the stomach contents of previously collected specimens. He hopes his efforts may lead to improved management of the species as a natural resource.

Potential Lifelong Consequences of a Self-Focused Society

Casey Roche, who is majoring in psychology, will be investigating whether members of the current generation of emerging adults are more entitled, lazy and less prepared for adult life than previous generations. Prior research indicates that the self-focused tendencies of emerging adults may influence or correlate with their levels of narcissism, and Roche wants to test that hypothesis. She’ll do so by conducting online surveys of a diverse sample of subjects while working under the direction of psychology professor Amy Kolak.

Horror and Hope: Reproductive Justice in Ireland, Past and Present

Public health major Mackenzie Pelletier will examine the cultural and political contexts surrounding Ireland’s 2018 repeal of the constitutional ban on abortion. She and other social scientists view this change as an emerging reproductive justice movement. Pelletier and her mentors, communication professor Beth Sundstrom and history professor Cara Delay, will use document analysis and in-person interviews with activists to conduct their research.

Article by Dan Dickison

Read more on The College Today 

Are we alone in the universe? It’s a question that humans have wondered about since we first became self-aware and peered up at the stars.

To help find the answer, two astrophysics majors, Lucy Williamson and Blake Mino, journeyed to the Atacama Desert in northern Chile in January 2019 to visit the La Silla Observatory and use its one-meter telescope (named for the diameter of its main light-collecting mirror). Although it’s an older telescope, it has a new, advanced spectrograph that the students will now be able to access remotely from the College, making it a terrific resource.

Lucy Williamson and Blake Mino visit the Instituto de Astronomia in Chile.

“It is very unusual for undergraduate researchers to have the opportunity to travel to a remote site to use an advanced international telescope and take advantage of one of the best observing sites in the world,” says Joe Carson, the physics professor who is supervising their research. “It is a nice example of the kind of undergraduate research opportunities that occur at CofC.”

The aim of Williamson’s and Mino’s research was to measure short-term (days or weeks) stellar activity on three young, nearby stars. It’s something that no one has really ever meaningfully done before, Carson notes, even though such phenomena may play critical roles in the evolution and/or eventual habitability of planets. A sun might be stable over a million years, but one day of high radiation blasts could be enough to incinerate all life on the surface or boil away the atmosphere on orbiting planets.

“If a planet can’t retain its atmosphere under a barrage of this stellar activity, it’s not very viable for hosting life and that can narrow the constraints for future search for habitable planets,” says Mino, whose travel was funded by a competitive grant Sigma Xi (the international honor society of science and engineering) awarded him. To cover her travel expenses, Williamson received a $4,000 Summer Research with Faculty (SURF) grant.

Mino and Carson also received an $18,000 grant from NASA to cover their salaries. NASA is very interested in the students’ research because its big stated mission over the next 20 years, starting with the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope in 2021, is to study planets in the habitable zone, referred to as “exoplanets” that can support life.

“They need to know whether the planet system they’re exploring has very little chance for life because its atmosphere has been stripped away or if the planet system is very comfortable for life,” says Carson, adding that the research will guide target selection for the $10 billion telescope.

While it will take a few more months before Carson and his protégés make sense of the spectrographic data they collected, the Chilean trip represents a milestone just on its own: it’s the first three-nation, science collaboration between astronomy faculty and students from the U.S., Colombia and Chile (CofC, Universidad Nacional de Colombia and the Universidad Católica del Norte).

During their trip, they also had a chance to work closely with the co-leader of their project, Maximiliano Moyano, a world expert in extrasolar planets and the director of Cerro Ventarrones Observatory, yet another next-generation observatory under development in Chile. Moyano, a professor at the Instituto de Astronomia at Universidad Católica del Norte, organized Mino’s and Williamson’s visit as part of the scientific partnership between College of Charleston and Instituto de Astronomia, which controls the guaranteed time on the La Silla telescope.

“That type of collaboration in astronomy has never existed before, so it’s exciting to be able to set that up,” says Carson.

In addition to working at the La Silla site, Williamson and Mino also visited the Very Large Telescopes (VLT), some of the world’s largest at more than eight meters, as well as the future site of the Extremely Large Telescope, which is just starting construction nearby on a flattened mountaintop. With its 39-meter mirror, it will become the world’s biggest when it is completed in 2025.

By then, Williamson, a senior from Charleston, and Mino, a junior from Colorado, should be well into their careers working for NASA or another space-related industry following graduate school. And whatever stellar activity they wind up discovering from their Chilean trip, they already have stars in their eyes from the experience and their time here at the College.

“It’s hard to replace the passion they both have in terms of characteristics for research,” says Carson. “They know that parts are really exciting, like when you’re on a mountaintop in Chile, and other parts you need a lot of endurance, like when you’re back at the College working at the computer for the 100th hour. That’s when that passion comes in extremely handy.”

Article by Tom Cunneff

Read more on The College Today 

Having a love of learning is exactly what it sounds like – it’s a deep, passionate desire to explore the unknown and discover something new. That’s why a group of students under the guidance of College of Charleston mathematics professor Alex Kasman set out this summer to delve into the world of abstract equations.

Students Albert Serna, John Cobb and Monique Sparkman have spent the last two months investigating solitons (waves first seen on a Scottish canal in 1835 that behave like particles) which are described by quaternions (an abstract system of numbers discovered by mathematician William Rowan Hamilton as he walked beside an Irish canal in 1843 and now frequently used by aerospace engineers to describe spatial rotations).

The purpose of the project, says Kasman, was to create a summer research opportunity for students.

Math professor Alex Kasman (Photos by Mike Ledford)

“My motivation was to find something that I didn’t know the answer to that I thought students could work on in the summer,” he says. “But actually, this is a question that I don’t think has been sufficiently studied. We have already made some surprising new discoveries about what happens when quaternionic solitons crash into each other.”

Kasman adds, “There are connections between these two phenomena aside from the coincidence that they were both discovered next to canals in Great Britain at about the same time.”

Serna, a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in math, says the research has been a great way to see how two seemingly unrelated areas of math interact.

“A lot of math really just seems to be two very different things that you may not see a connection between coming together in unique and interesting ways,” he says.

Sparkman, a rising junior majoring in math, says the experience has been challenging, noting she “knew nothing” about solitons or quaternions before she signed onto this research project.

“I knew I wanted to do research in math, but I also knew I didn’t want to strictly focus on math,” says Sparkman, who is an Honors College student. “I liked this project because you can apply it to other fields, such as physics.”

Cobb, a rising senior who is triple-majoring in math, chemistry and data science, says he wanted to get more experience in a research setting, and the depth of the subject matter was appealing.

“It’s a cool way to see a lot of different types of math,” he says.

Each student is receiving financial support from the College to undertake summer research. The School of Sciences and Mathematics is supporting Cobb’s research. Serna has a paid research assistantship through the Graduate School, and Sparkman received a SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research with Faculty) grant through the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Program.

And for Serna and Cobb, the project has inspired further research that will extend well beyond the summer. Serna is using the group’s research as the basis for his master’s thesis. Similarly, Cobb is using the findings as the inspiration for his Honors College bachelor’s essay.

The research, says Kasman, isn’t about finding a practical application for these equations – it’s about pushing the boundaries of what’s known.

“Someday it might have a practical use in biology, physics or engineering, but today this is an exercise in seeing theoretically how these two things [quaternions and solitons] would interact,” says the math professor.

Simply put – they want to learn something new.

Article by Amanda Kerr
Read more on The College Today