In making its decision, the subcommittee considered excellence with respect to the journal’s evaluation criteria, specifically “manuscripts that describe novel programs that can serve as models for other institutions, those containing significant assessment of outcomes, and those articulating research on the efficacy of undergraduate research programs.” It also weighed timeliness (addressing current issues in undergraduate research) and/or timelessness (demonstrating the potential of value over time), broad appeal in terms of generalizability to disciplines and types of institutions, and pedagogical value.
The Best Article honoree receives a $100 honorarium and a certificate. The Honorable Mention honorees receive certificates.
Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Researchpublishes scholarly work that examines effective practices and novel approaches, explores pedagogical models, and highlights the results of assessment of undergraduate research. As a peer-reviewed publication of the Council on Undergraduate Research, the journal provides useful and inspiring information that increases understanding of undergraduate student-faculty engagement in research, scholarship, and creative work in all disciplines and at all types of higher education institutions in the United States and abroad.
The CUR Biology Division has selected the following recipients of its small research grants (maximum $250 each), designed to assist undergraduate research mentors in conducting a research project with biology undergraduates:
• Paula Checchi, associate professor of biology, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY. Project: Validation and Characterization of a Mutant Generated by CRISPR-Cas9 Genetic Engineering.
• John J. Dubé, associate professor of biology, Chatham University, Pittsburgh. Project: Bridging the Gap in Understanding of Physical and Mental Health.
• Ava Howard, associate professor of biology, Western Oregon University, Monmouth, OR. Project: Water Stress of the Dominant Tree Species in Threatened Pacific Northwest Savannah-Woodland Oak Ecosystems.
• Joong-Wook Park, associate professor, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Troy University, Troy, AL. Project: Distribution of Waterborne Pathogenic Bacteria in the Mobile Bay Area
The Council on Undergraduate Research serves a broad and diverse community of academic mentors who support and guide the scholarly work of our future leaders. This past year has been exceptionally trying for our community as we have been disproportionately affected by emotional, physical, and financial impacts of a global pandemic, the continued fight to end institutional racism, and most recently the attack on the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to undermine the results of a lawful election and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. We are here to support you as you support your students during these difficult times. We believe that the mission and vision of CUR is more timely than ever. Providing our future leaders with the necessary skills to question, collaborate, and communicate thoughtfully, respectfully, and effectively with a broad community will better equip them for an unpredictable future. We are preparing future leaders by building their self-confidence, nimbleness in the face of unexpected obstacles, belief in the need for supporting evidence, and so much more. The more we reach out to diverse communities of students and mentors, the greater the opportunity for impactful societal change. CUR will continue to advocate for increased support to make these opportunities more broadly accessible; provide platforms for sharing, learning, and support; and focus on developing an organizational culture and community that actively prioritizes diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The CREATE! Micro-Grant Program supported the launch of 12 student projects that analyze and respond to racial injustice and the struggles brought on by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. These projects, ranging from interpretive dance and musical performances to traditional Anishinaabe quill work, videos, podcasts, personal essays, and poetry, can now be viewed online through the CREATE! Micro-Grant Virtual Exhibit.
“What you will see is artists and writers facing their struggles head on, in form and content,” said Divya Victor, Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Transnational Poetry, who organized the competition. “What you will see is young change-makers using their art, music, materials, and language to pull themselves out of the pit of darkness and find their way through the riot of feeling within them. A riot that is within many of us.”
The CREATE! Micro-Grant Program jury selected 12 student project proposals to each receive $500 in funding. The winners then used the money to undertake their projects, which engaged in a variety of expressive mediums portraying messages about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the winning projects also reflected on the fight for social justice in the Black Lives Matter movement by producing art that responds to struggles brought on by the pandemic and acts of police brutality.
The following are the 12 student projects that received CREATE! Micro-Grant funding and that are featured in the online exhibit:
Jason Dernay, senior Fine Arts in Acting and Arts Management double major, and Nate Davis, junior Acting major, created a 10-episode podcast where they interviewed multiple artists and discussed how the pandemic has affected them and the art industry.
Hugh Downs, sophomore Jazz Studies Performance major, showcased his original Jazz performance, Here We Go Again, to provoke critical reflection during the pandemic and to invoke healing.
Paula Duva-Rodriguez, junior Vocal Performance and English Literature double major, created a combination of poetry and images of her body, titled In Process, to represent mental illness in the time of a pandemic.
Jack Huber, junior Integrative Biology major, created a personal essay discussing the loss of his grandmother during the pandemic and the social value of funerals.
Devin McKinney, senior Media and Information major, and Donte Smith, senior Film Studies major, created a video project that addresses how the pandemic has affected the Black community, particularly in the Detroit metro area, as well as how the public consumes media.
Jake Gerard Price, junior Arts and Humanities major, performed a contemporary dance, titled Fractures & Folds, set to Nils Frahm’s track “Less” to portray the embodied and social impact of the virus.
Marshall Ross, junior Acting major, created a film that follows a man alone in isolation during the lock-down order, highlighting the effects of anxiety/depression.
Marissa Rubaiai, junior Studio Art and Media and Information double major, created an art installation of three human forms that each tell a story about death suffered at the hands of COVID-19 and police brutality.
Lauren Slawin, freshman Creative Advertising and Graphic Design double major, produced a video documenting the creation of a portrait of George Floyd to bring light to racial discrimination.
Emma Stoolmaker, junior Art Education major, created a large-scale collaged postcard addressed to Rome, Italy, to invoke communication and sensitivity during the pandemic, as well as acting as a tribute to a city that suffered greatly.
Sarah Whitaker, sophomore Percussion Performance major, combined prose, music, soundscape, and writing to push the boundaries of comfort in relation to the pandemic and writing to document the positive yet complex impacts of virtual learning on self-image and the healing of traumas caused by microaggressions and anti-Black racism in institutions of higher education.”
Jenna M. Wood, senior Apparel and Textile Design major, created a mask using traditional Anishinaabe quill work as a tribute to the smallpox outbreak that occurred in her tribe, the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians.
The CREATE! Micro-Grant program was made possible through the collaboration of the Michigan State College of Arts & Letters and the Dean’s Arts Advisory Council, with the support of several departments within MSU, including the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education; Center for Interdisciplinarity; College of Arts & Letters; Department of Art, Art History, and Design; Department of English; Department of Theatre; Film Studies Program; Honors College; and the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities.
The members of the Dean’s Arts Advisory Council are all artists, writers, filmmakers — we all have living arts practices that are helping us get through this difficult time,” Victor said. “We knew that supporting student arts and literary practice through the pandemic, even in a small way, would affirm the practical and emotional purpose of art-making, which is to clarify, document, and intervene into global situations in our own particular ways.”
Train cars in Connecticut may be modified for safer travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to the work of two Yale undergraduate students in the Department of Chemical & Environmental Engineering.
After their summer plans were canceled, Marley Macarewich ’22 and Nathan Pharr ’22 turned to the SEAS 2020 Summer Design/Research Scholars Program, created by Deputy Dean Vincent Wilczynski, for virtual research opportunities. In partnership with the Connecticut Department of Transportation, Macarewich and Pharr worked on an eight-week long project in which they researched ways to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in railcars. They also developed criteria and design features to inform decisions regarding the purchase of a fleet of new railcars by the CT-DOT.
“We were paired with the DOT to work on a project to redesign railcars that would mitigate the risk of spreading COVID-19,” Pharr said. “The way we did this was looking at current railcars and what could be changed or fixed to address this problem, and then looking at more long term solutions and ways that new railcars could be introduced.”
Macarewich and Pharr initially spent two to three weeks conducting a detailed literature review and speaking with Yale professors, as well as other local universities, to gather background information on virus transmission and air filtration systems in trains.
The group looked into the three primary modes of virus transmission — droplets, aerosols and infected fomites, but their initial research was not very rewarding.
“The biggest challenge would be how little information there is out there,” Macarewich said. “If you Google COVID-19 in railcars, very surface level stuff will come out, but there’s not a lot of deep information you could make informative decisions about.”
This was not the only hurdle the pair faced. Pharr also noted that the problem they were addressing is very complex. Both Macrewich and Pharr said that the rapidly developing information on COVID-19 made it difficult to effectively propose solutions.
According to Macarewich, however, some solutions that the pair suggested were surprisingly simple. For example, restricting the standing area around air intake vents could prevent particles that a passenger exhales from circulating throughout the cabin.
Still, overall, tackling the problem was not as easy as Macarewich and Pharr originally believed.
“Initially we thought we could just change the filtration system and everything would be perfectly fine,” he said. “But realizing how these train cars that are tons of years old, don’t really have the technology or equipment to support some of the recent filters we have now, we really had to look into different solutions that could be approached to the current trains.”
These challenges led Macarewich and Pharr to employ a combination of engineering and non-engineering measures — such incorporating a personal, passenger-individual ventilation system and evaluating cleaning protocols — to develop solutions.
They also considered passengers’ comfort and experience taking the train. For example, although leaving train windows open is the easiest method of increasing outdoor airflow and filtering out potentially infectious particles, according to Pharr, this could result in the constant inflow of cold air, which could make the passengers’ experience less pleasant. This is especially true for the many passengers with longer commutes of 45 minutes to two hours.
“It’s interesting focusing on the main component at hand, being the virus, but also having to take into account everything else in terms of publicity, the passenger convenience and comfort and all these things,” Pharr said.
The pair of researchers met virtually with the CT-DOT three times over the summer to discuss proposed solutions and obtained the blueprints to railcars of trains in Connecticut to aid with their research.
Macarewich and Pharr synthesized their findings into a 40 page report. Proposed solutions outlined in the report include a universal mask requirement, potential seating charts designed in accordance with social distancing guidelines, the creation of a separate car for high-risk individuals, increased outdoor airflow, the use of non-porous, smooth materials for seat covers and train surfaces and the implementation of plexiglass shields between seats.
According to Assistant Dean for Science & Engineering Sarah Miller, who mentored the pair on the project, Macarewich and Pharr’s final report was regarded by the CT-DOT as “extraordinary.”
“For my part, working with Marley and Nathan was a summer highlight for me,” Miller wrote in an email to the News. “This team modeled the kind of collaboration skills the best engineers are known for. Through diligence, a willingness to pursue hard questions, and lots of reading, they became fast experts in COVID transmission.”
Macarewich and Pharr are now working with Krystal Pollit, assistant professor of epidemiology, to prepare a manuscript of their summer research to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
They say that they hope to apply the skills they gained over the summer to their new research ventures. Macarewich is working in Associate Professor of Chemical & Environmental Engineering Drew Gentner’s Lab, and Pharr hopes to work at the School of Architecture in the near future.
“Being able to have a job that was impactful, even remote, during the pandemic was a really incredible experience to have and just gaining so much knowledge in terms of research…as well as the niche topic of aerosols and railcars,” Pharr said. “We kind of took our skills that we learned in this project and have moved them over to new areas.”
According to Macarewich, train ridership in Connecticut is down by 95 percent due to the pandemic, as of early July.
On November 12, undergraduate researchers, mentors, and organizational partners took over the Twitter account of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) in its first virtual UR Exchange, highlighting many inspirational stories of faculty-student research conducted during the challenges of the COVID-19 environment.
These tweets yielded 18,500 impressions, more than 100 mentions (including from a news outlet and a blog), more than 130 likes, 72 new followers, 22 retweets, and numerous tweets from colleague organizations such as the American Historical Association (AHA) and the American Chemical Society (ACS). Stories ranged from the artificial intelligence research of Ziqi Wang (Georgia Southern University) that has implications for the COVID-19 pandemic and the research of Harnoor Kaur (Michigan State University) on transgender homicide to research by Annamae Harmon (Indiana University Southeast) on the power of women through painting and a student-faculty team from UNC Greensboro that used game theory to show how Ebola could be eradicated. These accounts and more can be viewed on Twitter via the hashtag #URExchange.
“We were delighted by the enthusiasm of our UR Exchange participants,” said Lindsay Currie, CUR’s executive officer. “Amid a disruptive time for campuses, the resilience, creativity, and hard work in these accounts of undergraduate research students and mentors provide ample evidence of the transformative power of undergraduate research.”
In addition to UR Exchange, CUR provides ongoing opportunities to highlight undergraduate research initiatives such as its series of undergraduate research stories that appears on the front page of its website, member institution videos on its YouTube channel, articles in its academic journal Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research (SPUR), and participation in the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR). To submit an undergraduate research story or provide news of an undergraduate research-related video, contact Elizabeth Moris. For more information on SPUR, visit the journal webpage. For further details on NCUR, visit the NCUR webpage.
When biology major Anh Phan ’21 was a sophomore at the College of the Holy Cross, she was looking for “a way to apply my knowledge to real-life science,” and Professor Robert Bellin’s breast cancer research lab proved to be the perfect fit. Bellin is using an innovative device, a chip the size of a postage stamp, to create 3-D models that replicate the environment in a mammary gland, where breast cancer tumors can form.
Phan had already worked on breast cancer research at UMass Medical School in Worcester and, after taking cell biology, microbiology and biochemistry at Holy Cross, said she wanted to “apply what I learned in the classroom to research.”
Phan has worked alongside Bellin, a professor of biology, since her junior year. His lab is staffed by Phan and three other Holy Cross students, who are working on a project to discover which circumstances in the mammary gland cause tumors to grow, and why some breast cancers grow more aggressively and are harder to treat. The postage stamp-sized device they are using, called the EpiChip, was developed by The Chen Lab in the biomedical engineering department at Boston University, where Bellin has conducted research while on sabbatical from Holy Cross. This type of chip is an alternative to studying disease models in animals and allows the researchers to replicate the human body more accurately.
Their hypothesis is that the presence of a certain protein, syndecan-1, promotes tumor formation in the mammary gland, so they are using the EpiChip to create replica glands both with and without the presence of the protein. If they find that the protein does promote tumors to form, that could lead to further testing on how to block this protein and, ideally, slow or prevent the development of certain kinds of breast cancer.
And while Bellin is working alongside undergraduates in these efforts, he points out the student researchers are doing graduate-level work.
“It’s a really interesting research environment, and one that I really enjoy working in, because we don’t have graduate students and post-doc researchers working in our research laboratories. In most biomedical sciences laboratories, undergraduates tend to be primarily in an assistant role. But all our labs at Holy Cross are staffed by undergraduates and they are the primary researchers working with faculty members,” Bellin said. “I structure my lab so they are in roles that would be equivalent to what a graduate student would be doing in graduate school.”
That was one of the reasons Jason Cunha ’21, a biology major from Hudson, Massachusetts, was interested in Bellin’s research team. Cunha wants to work in a biomedical research laboratory after graduation and then apply to graduate school. While he hasn’t settled on what he will study, Cunha is interested in continuing to work with “disease on a chip” models like the one he is using in Bellin’s lab, and feels well-prepared for whatever comes next, thanks to his research experience at Holy Cross.
“My experience in Professor Bellin’s lab has been phenomenal. I have found that maintaining a close-knit and transparent working relationship with lab members is imperative to long-term success in the lab,” Cunha said. “Professor Bellin is by far one of the best academic and professional mentors I have had at Holy Cross. He always makes time to listen to all lab members’ comments and concerns, and he will use his extensive experience and reassurance to guide us through any challenging or unfamiliar tasks.”
Bellin says that his researchers who go on to graduate school “hit the ground running, because they already know what it means to be in those environments” from their experience in undergraduate research at Holy Cross. But there are also benefits for students who pursue other paths, such as Phan, a Worcester resident, who plans to go to dental school.
“Working on research in Professor Bellin’s lab allowed me to grow immensely. I’ve grown in terms of professionalism, time management, multi-tasking, leadership, teamwork and more,” she said. “Professor Bellin has made himself accessible and approachable for any matter throughout my time at Holy Cross. Whether it was about choosing my classes, something I did not understand in our biochemistry class, or something about lab, he never hesitated to help me. I am so thankful to have a mentor like Professor Bellin, who has been so impactful not only during my time at Holy Cross but also beyond my time on The Hill.”
On behalf of the CUR Engineering Division, I would like to extend an invitation to all members of our division to submit a self-nomination to serve as a councilor. I am a Councilor in the CUR Engineering Division and representative in the CUR Nominations Committee. Elected councilors serve a term of 3 years. The responsibilities include attending the CUR Annual Business Meeting held in June and representing our division in one or more of the CUR committees. Councilors also volunteer for activities in our division such as our Student Video Awards. You can find out more about the requirements and how to nominate yourself or another division member here.
The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) Health Sciences Division is offering awards to cover the cost of registration (up to $150) for undergraduate students presenting original research at NCUR2023 — the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR), April 13-15, 2023. The goal is to celebrate and support students’ participation in NCUR while contributing to their discipline and future growth.
Award recipients are required to acknowledge CUR for support of their registration in their talk or poster. Students from all diverse backgrounds and perspectives are encouraged to apply.
Successful award recipients will be notified by Feb. 15, 2023, and the award notification letter will provide information regarding disbursement. The award is contingent upon abstract acceptance to the conference.
Please combine all application materials into one PDF file and submit it online by January 20, 2023.
Student must be an undergraduate at either a two- or four-year institution
Student’s mentor must be a CUR member, or the student’s home institution must be a CUR institutional member
If there are multiple undergraduate student authors on the same abstract submission, only the presenting author is eligible for the award.
Submission Process
The submission form requires the following information:
Information about the student including academic year and major.
Information about the student’s mentor including name, title, contact information, and CUR membership status.
A brief statement (maximum 500 words) regarding how attendance to NCUR will assist the student in their future career goals.
Abstract information including title, co-authors and their affiliations, and a 300 word abstract, which should be the same that you have submitted in the NCUR abstract submission portal. Abstracts should include:
A sentence that clearly states the study’s OBJECTIVE (unless included in the title)
A brief statement of METHODS (if pertinent)
A summary of the RESULTS
A statement of CONCLUSIONS (it is not acceptable to state “the results will be discussed”)
A statement of SIGNIFICANCE
If chosen for the award, you must forward the NCUR presentation acceptance.
Review Process
A committee composed of councilors from the Health Sciences Division will review applications. Award recipients will be chosen based on the scholarly merit described in their abstract and how NCUR attendance will impact the student. We are planning to notify the award recipients by February 15, 2023.
Awardees
All CUR Award recipients are responsible for any and all applicable tax obligations associated with receipt of the award.
All students, faculty, mentors, organizations, and institutions honored with becoming a part of the CUR award recipient community, you have the professional and ethical responsibility to maintain the highest professional conduct standards and embody the CUR Code of Ethics for Undergraduate Research in your words, actions, and deeds. In addition, all participants are expected to abide by the CUR Code of Conduct. Expectations for awardees are to show courtesy and civility in both their personal and professional communications while forever representing CUR and the distinguished honor of the specific award rewarded. One must conduct oneself in a manner both professional and ethical.
A University of Louisville student group is launching a peer-reviewed journal to highlight undergraduate research and scholarship across all disciplines, from astrophysics to art history.
The journal, The Cardinal Edge, will publish its first annual issue in the spring of 2021. Jahnavi Sunkara, a joint chief editor, said the goal is to help UofL undergraduates share their work.
“The point of research is to communicate it,” said Sunkara, a junior biology major and Guaranteed Entrance to Medical School (GEMS) student. “We wanted to create an opportunity for undergraduate students at UofL to do that, because they’re doing some really amazing research in lots of different fields.”
The Cardinal Edge editorial team worked with UofL Libraries to develop an open-access portal on ThinkIR, the university’s institutional research database, where students can submit their work and read the journal. The first issue will be completely digital — and free — but the team plans to print physical copies of future issues.
Students can submit their full-length manuscripts, abstracts and brief reports through December for the spring issue. The journal also will focus on the research culture at UofL with spotlight articles on student researchers and current topics in research, such as diversity and COVID-19’s impact.
Currently, only UofL students can submit articles to the journal, but there is a possibility that the team may accept work from other universities in the future. Submitted papers will be evaluated by faculty and students through a single-blind peer review, in which the identities of reviewers are kept hidden.
“It was important to us to have students involved in every single aspect of the process,” said Betty Ngo, a sophomore psychology major, Grawemeyer Scholar and joint chief editor. “It’s a research journal by students, for students. Students are our authors, reviewers, staffers and readers.”
Priyadarshini Chandrashekhar, a junior biology major, Vogt Scholar and a joint chief editor, said the goal is to provide opportunities for undergraduate students to share ideas and gain experience, whether conducting research, publishing their findings or working on an editorial board.
Aside from faculty advisers Mark Running and Shira Rabin, of the Department of Biology, and their journal sponsor, Charlie Leonard, executive director of the UofL Grawemeyer Awards, every member of the 14-person editorial staff is an undergraduate student.
“They’re all students,” Chandrashekhar said. “And they can participate in everything — design, review, outreach. It’s a great experience.”
For Ngo’s part, working for and publishing in The Cardinal Edge could show graduate school admissions reviewers that she has research experience and is familiar with the publication process. Chandrashekhar and Sunkara have their eyes on medical school.
“This will help me later in my career,” Sunkara said. “It’s such a unique experience and I really feel we’re building something special here that can contribute to the long-term growth of UofL’s research culture.”
