Solar powered water purification

Zhe Zhang ’15 set out to learn about solar-powered water purification. But his summer research project has taught him at least as much about determination and hard work.

He has spent much of his summer trying to make one chemical reaction happen, which he originally assumed would take only a couple of days. But he takes that in stride. “It’s always fun to try different things and to finally get a solution,” he said. “I just don’t want to fail.”

Zhang has long had an interest in ways of using chemical reactions to purify water. Considering the world’s demand for potable water as well as the potential for energy shortages in the future, he thought developing a sun-powered water purification system would be important. Zhang was particularly interested in titanium dioxide, a semiconductor that is known to purify water when it is exposed to sunlight.

If only that process worked quickly.

“The process is not new, but it’s not efficient enough to be practical,” said Bill Bare, a Randolph chemistry professor advising Zhang on this research. “We’re hoping to make it a little more practical.”

Sunlight causes chemical reactions that increase energy in titanium dioxide atoms, causing the semiconductor to break down organic compounds. But it only absorbs ultraviolet light, meaning much of the light that hits it has no effect.

Bare and Zhang suggested that binding a luminescent compound called ruthenium to titanium dioxide could help increase the spectrum of light that can interact with the material. They designed an experiment to test this. Zhang began the summer by measuring the rates at which titanium dioxide would purify water on its own. But he hit a roadblock when he tried to attach the ruthenium to the semiconductor. The molecules that would make the binding possible were not connecting.

Zhang and Bare experimented with the problem for several weeks. Finally, two weeks ago they made the chemicals bind by changing the acidity of the solution, although the process needs more testing to confirm the success. Zhang looked back at the detour as an effective learning opportunity that helped him understand how to solve problems in original research.

“It’s both a process of learning and researching,” he said. “In the lab, the professor knows everything and can answer all the questions. But in research, there may be a topic that the professor is not very familiar with, and you have to research together.”

Bare added that this is part of the purpose of fostering research opportunities for students who may spend much of their lives solving research problems. “In a research project, we don’t know what’s going to work and what isn’t,” he said. “If it doesn’t work, we have to put our heads together and find out why.”

Students begin summer research projects

Students and professors are kicking off the 15th year of the Randolph College Summer Research Program this week.

More than 20 students will spend the next eight weeks working on projects as diverse as improving water purification, writing plays, analyzing the connection between Facebook and self-esteem, and exploring the possibility of distributing unused food to people in need.

“It is an exciting time to see students take on their own independent research projects under the careful guidance of their faculty mentors,” said Amanda Rumore, director of the Summer Research Program. “For some, this is their first taste of research in their field, and for others this is a continuation of a larger project. Either way, the program always proves to be a fruitful learning experience for its participants.”

The students and their faculty mentors met over lunch Monday to meet each other and introduce their respective projects. Throughout the program, they will attend weekly seminars to help them learn more about various kinds of research. Speakers include faculty and two alumnae.

The Summer Research Program was founded in 2000 with a grant from the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund. It helps students learn skills in research, critical thinking, data analysis, problem solving, and communication.

Randolph professor and student research the reality of hunger and poverty

A Randolph professor is exploring the nexus between poverty, hunger, and food in Lynchburg in hopes that his research will generate discussion and solutions.

“My sense is that most people don’t know about the extent of hunger and poverty in this city,” said John Abell, an economics professor. “I’m hoping to draw some awareness to this issue and to start a conversation.”

Abell has a strong personal interest in local food produced with sustainable practices; he grows much of his own food while purchasing more from farmers at a local market. But his interest in social issues related to food grew when he and a group of Randolph students studied the economics of a Lynchburg food desert in 2011. Their data demonstrated the difficulty some city residents had with obtaining nutritious food at affordable prices. Abell wanted to conduct further research about how poverty and limited food access relate to each other.

He is analyzing a variety of data—such as income levels, educational attainment, and participation in government assistance programs—for different neighborhoods in Lynchburg. Abell is publishing videos and insights about the research on a new website. Eventually, his blog will shift focus toward the economics of the solutions he is discovering.

The website includes video interviews with people who have firsthand knowledge about local hunger and poverty, including people who have lived for years in impoverished neighborhoods as well as people who work at nonprofits that seek to provide food to those in need.

Teague Nelson ’14, a history major, is producing the videos for Abell. While it has given him an opportunity to practice skills he picked up in a digital filmmaking class, the project also helped Nelson learn about social and economic issues. “I think it’s a really important issue,” he said. “There are a lot of people working on it, but it needs a lot more attention and a lot more needs to be done.”

Abell’s research also includes potential solutions that go beyond distributing donated food to those who need it, but focus on helping to decrease hunger by decreasing poverty. “I wanted to think about creative ways that food could be used in creative solutions,” he said. “I’m looking at solutions from around the country, including urban farming and community gardening, where food is out there to create legitimate economic development.”

To learn more about Abell’s research, please see http://lynchburgfood.go.randolphcollege.edu/

Faculty and students present research at national physics teacher conference

Three Randolph College students and one faculty member recently presented research at the American Association of Physics Teachers national meeting in Orlando, Florida.

Tim Slesinger '14, Chris Holingsworth '15, physics professor Peter Sheldon, and Jim Kwon '14

Chris Hollingsworth ’15 presented research he conducted with Zahra Adahman ’14, Alex Kwakye ’15, and physics professor Katrin Schenk. Their work delved into understanding communication deficits in mice as a way of understanding human communication disorders.

Jim Kwon ’14 presented research done with professor Evan Goulding at Northwestern University, in conjunction with a project involving other Randolph students and Schenk. His presentation, "Behavioral Analysis Techniques for Mobile Phone Collected Data," explores ways of using cell phone accelerometer data to determine the physical activity level of the person carrying the phone.

Kwon also presented research done by students Sydney Henson ’14 and Katherine Lesnak ’15, along with physics professor Peter Sheldon, education professor Peggy Schimmoeller, and biology instructor Amanda Rumore, "Science and Math Links: Research-Based Teaching Institute," is an annual project that looks at the impact of hands-on science teaching on learning.

Tim Slesinger ’14 presented "Investigating Traditional Methods of Inertial Navigation versus Using a Smartphone," research he conducted with Alex Tran '15, Kacey Meaker '08, and Sheldon.

Sheldon gave a presentation about Step Up to Physical Science and Engineering at Randolph (SUPER), a Randolph program that is helping to increase enrollment of students committed to careers in science, mathematics, and engineering. Funded with a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, SUPER provides some scholarships and additional educational activities for Randolph science students.

Students present research at regional conference

Eighteen Randolph College students presented research at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference of Undergraduate Scholarship (MARCUS) this weekend.

They presented talks and posters on a variety of topics including the impact that Supreme Court language has on political discourse, the ability to kill deadly bacteria in compost using another form of bacteria, and the effectiveness of using cell phones to conduct inertial navigation.

“Research is an important part of a student’s education at Randolph College, and an essential part of research is making a contribution to an academic discipline,” said Peter Sheldon, director of the Randolph College Center for Student Research. “We enable our students to do that by giving them opportunities to present the results of their research at regional and national conferences. MARCUS is an excellent opportunity for students to hone their presentation skills and share the research that they are doing.”

Presenting students included Si Thu Aung ’16, Elizabeth Delery ’14, Meron Demeke ’15, Steve Dinh ’16, Connor Dye ’15, Sydney Henson ’14, Nam Hoang ’15, Jim Kwon ’14, Rebekah Leo ’15, Katherine Lesnak ’15, Kristina Marinak ’14, Kavya Pradhan ’14, Sergio Rodriguez ’14, Timothy Slesinger ’14, Sarah Terlizzi ’15, Alex Tran ’15, Penny Trieu ’15, and Tsubasa Watanabe ’14.

Most of the student research was conducted as part of the Summer Research Program, and one project was funded by the Randolph Innovative Student Experience, a program that makes grants available for students’ independent research and creative works.

Professors present honor code and academic integrity research at national conference

Two Randolph psychology professors recently presented their research on honor codes, cheating, and academic integrity to a standing-room-only audience at a national conference in Hawaii.

Beth Schwartz and Holly Tatum organized the symposium “Why Do Students Cheat: Investigations of Academic Integrity in the Classroom” for the American Psychological Association annual conference this month. The research brought together several scholars who investigate the motivations for cheating and methods for preventing cheating.

“It’s always really exciting when people are that interested,” Tatum said. “I was glad they were there trying to figure out which parts of our research they can use to prevent cheating.”

Schwartz, the Catherine Ehrman Thoresen '23 and William E. Thoresen Professor of Psychology and assistant dean of the College, and Tatum began a research project on academic integrity about two years ago. With the help of Megan Hageman ’13, they investigated the way students’ understanding of academic integrity is affected by an honor code.

“A lot of people look at cheating and what causes cheating,” Schwartz said. “We wanted to look at ways of preventing cheating.”

“Our focus has been more on integrity,” Tatum added.

Their research, which will be published in the journal Ethics and Behavior this fall, found that in small liberal arts colleges, a traditional honor code—under which students feel a responsibility toward the honor code and run the judicial system responding to violations—is more effective at promoting academic honesty than a modified honor code, such as one with a faculty-run judicial process.

Randolph’s Honor Code, overseen by a student judiciary committee and with perks like unproctored, self-scheduled exams, follows the traditional model.

Last year, Hageman expanded the research to look at the way an institution’s size might affect students’ understanding of integrity and cheating. Elizabeth van Noppen ’14 is continuing that research this year.

Schwartz and Tatum organized the symposium at the APA conference to share their findings and collaborate with more professors. They invited Eric Anderman of The Ohio State University, who spoke at Randolph College earlier this year, and David Rettinger of the University of Mary Washington, to present research that complemented their own.

The professors are still receiving feedback from people who attended the symposium. Many have questions about promoting academic integrity.

Tatum said that Hageman’s contributions were crucial to the success of this research and the symposium. “She was involved at every stage in the research,” she said. “She managed the data collection, which was good experience for her and allowed us to do the research.”

In addition to sponsoring the symposium, Schwartz was voted as the vice president for recognitions and awards in the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, a division of the APA.

Students present research at conference for women in science

A recent nationwide conference honoring college women for their accomplishments in science included two Randolph College students.

Zahra Adahman ’14 and Chiamaka Asinugo ’14 were selected to present their research in the Conference of Undergraduate Women in Physical Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Chiamaka Asinugo ’14 presents earthquake research at the Conference of
Undergraduate Women in Physical Sciences at University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

“It was such a great environment to have all these women and be able to sit down and talk about physics, and about science in general,” Adahman said.

Asinugo said she applied to present at the conference at the suggestion of Tatiana Gilstrap, a physics and environmental studies professor with whom she conducted research this summer. She was honored and humbled to be chosen to attend.

“There are so many research programs being conducted, and I have come to find that every contribution—no matter how little—is vital on the broad scale,” Asinugo said.

Asinugo presented research from her summer project with Gilstrap. They analyzed seismic data from several earthquakes, including the aftershocks following the August 2011 earthquake in Virginia.

Zahra Adahman ’14 presents her research about the ultrasonic  mouse vocalizations

Adahman gave a 15-minute talk about research she has conducted with physics professor Katrin Schenk for the past two years. They are studying the ultrasonic vocalizations of mouse pups and the ways that mouse mothers respond. They hope to learn things from studying the mice that could shed light on autism and other communication disorders that affect humans.

“My long term goal is what really keeps me into science. I want to be a doctor,” Adahman said. “Research is very important in medicine, and I want to be involved in it.”

Physics research on roller coasters

Tim Slesinger ’14 boarded Dominator, a popular roller coaster at King’s Dominion that reaches nearly 70 miles per hour. Like other riders, he was seeking thrills from the speed, twists, turns, and dives.

Unlike others, he was seeking scientific data.

This year, Slesinger joined an ongoing research project on the physics of roller coasters. Several years ago, Peter Sheldon, a Randolph physics professor, and Kacey Meaker ’08 set out to use scientific equipment to measure the speed, acceleration, and other forces experienced by roller coaster riders. They have been working on a book that uses roller coasters to explain physics to a mass audience.

How does riding a roller coaster connect with scientific
research? Watch this video to learn how a Randolph professor,
student, and graduate explore the physics of roller coasters.

“The project started because I really like roller coasters,” said Meaker, now a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at Berkley.

As Dominator shot forward, Slesinger raised his hands in the air and cheered along with other riders. Meanwhile, an iPod Touch in his pocket recorded measurements from its accelerometer, an internal device that detects orientation and motion.

He said that his goal was to find out if the accelerometer could be used to perform inertial navigation—like a four-dimensional GPS that doesn’t need satellites.

Sheldon explained that airplanes and large boats use inertial navigation regularly with the help of expensive equipment that tracks exactly where they are—including latitude, longitude, and elevation—at any given point in time. But that equipment is so expensive that inertial navigation is out of reach for educational applications.

“Physics teachers have, for years, taken their students to ride roller coasters, but they really can’t do a lot of useful measurements,” Sheldon said. “We’re trying to develop a way to do inertial navigation on a small, less expensive scale. We’re trying to develop methods that would allow people to do this in the classroom.”

This summer, the research team rode roller coasters while carrying iPod Touches and gyroscopes as well as real inertial navigation equipment. Slesinger then compared readings from devices to determine whether the data from the accelerometer and gyroscope could map the same travel path recorded by the expensive equipment.

“Mostly, we want to be able to know that we can do inertial navigation with these devices,” Meaker said. Slesinger added that inertial navigation could have many applications in high school and college physics classes if it can be performed with affordable equipment.

The calculations showed that accelerometer data can map out an accurate path with enough computation, but this fall, the project will be continued in hopes of more detailed findings.

The Summer Research project was a good opportunity to learn more about the research process and practice computer programming, Slesinger said. It also strengthened his appreciation for the educational environment at Randolph College. “You really get to know professors here on a personal level,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like college, but it feels like family when you’re learning.”

Meaker agreed with that sentiment. “Every summer I’m lucky enough to get to come back,” she said. “It’s like I’m coming home.”

Summer research yields new online English test, insight into college writing preparedness

A rite of passage for most first-year college English students is the traditional test to assess the student’s skills with the language. At the beginning of the semester, students taking the test might read over a collection of sentences and indicate whether each sentence is grammatically correct.

This summer, a Randolph professor and student set out to make a better test for those purposes.

Bunny Goodjohn, director of the writing program, said that the College has been using an online English skills assessment test that was free and worked well—when it worked at all.

“The idea was brilliant, but the execution was patchy,” Goodjohn said. Often, the website that hosted the test stopped working. “So I wanted to see if I could come up with an equivalent that would give us the same results but that would be more reliable, and something that we could tailor to our own needs.”

Goodjohn and Lauren Dowdle ’13 decided to work on the idea during the Summer Research Program.

As part of their research, Dowdle studied trends in students’ preparation for college-level English courses. She collected journal articles about the topic, and she also analyzed statistics about SAT scores.

Average SAT scores have usually risen in recent years, but Dowdle discovered that a high SAT verbal score does not always mean someone can write at the college level. Through further research, including more than 30 interviews, she learned that many students feel like high school writing courses did not prepare them for what college courses required. “Many students aren’t prepared for the expectations of their professors,” she said. “In high school, grammar is not covered as much. I heard that a lot in my interviews.”

Goodjohn said that Dowdle’s research shows a disconnect between what high schools prepare students for and what college professors expect.

Goodjohn focused her research on finding a way to recreate an online English assessment test. With help from Randolph College Information Technology, she found a way to administer the test online with SurveyMonkey.com. That platform has proven more reliable, she said.

Several Randolph English professors plan to start using Goodjohn’s assessment test this fall. Currently, the test uses the same questions as the free test formerly used by the College, but Goodjohn plans to rewrite them so that each sentence related to Randolph College, reflecting the College’s culture, history, and traditions.

Student pushes through programming challenges to create mobile app for medical research

Thawda Aung ’13, left, worked with Katrin Schenk, a physics professor, to program cell phones to track and encourage exercise. Yong Jun “Jim” Kwon ’14, not pictured, worked on the project in Nebraska.

Thawda Aung ’13 hopes a mobile phone app that he wrote this summer could help improve and extend the lives of people with Alzheimer’s, depression, diabetes, or other illnesses. That’s one reason why hitting a quagmire in the middle of thousands of lines of code was so challenging.

He wanted the app, part of a Summer Research project connected to a major medical study, to automatically upload data that it collected so doctors could analyze it. This was not as automatic as he had hoped.

“I’m not the kind of guy who would give up something really easily, but I was about to give up after four nights of not sleeping,” he said. “I was pretty much a zombie.”

Finally, he decided to walk away and focus on other things for a day. He slept, he went to the gym, he went for a run. While he was running, his mind caught hold of an idea. Back at the computer, he worked through his problem and got the app working correctly.

Aung is working with Randolph College Professor Katrin Schenk, University of Nebraska Medical Center professor Stephen Bonasera, and fellow student Jim Kwon ’14 to develop and test a medical mobile monitoring system using cell phones. This fall, Alzheimer’s patients will be given Android phones that will track their daily activities and help doctors understand how the disease is affecting them, and whether medications are working as intended. The study won a $200,000 grant from the Alzheimer’s Association.

Aung and Kwon have worked on the project for the past two summers. Kwon has focused on developing an algorithm that analyzes a cell phone’s accelerometer data to determine a person’s activity level. This summer, he has worked to refine that algorithm with the help of University of Nebraska students who carry phones with them to gather data. “They’re doing things like going hiking, walking up and down stairs, so that we can look at the accelerometer data, and Jim is working on analysis,” Schenk said.

Kwon is also writing a paper about using mobile monitoring to understand a person’s activity level.

Last year, Aung created the monitoring app on a Nokia phone. But Nokia has discontinued the operating system the program was written for, so this summer he converted the code to run on Android phones.

The app is now ready to collect data for the Alzheimer’s study, but Aung plans to continue developing its capabilities and testing it until it is ready to be published in an app store. He said it has features that will set it apart from other apps that track people’s motions.

“People have made pedometers, and people have made GPS tracking apps. But we are analyzing your movement, your behavior patterns, and how they change,” Aung said. This analysis could help app users recognize when they slip into behavior patterns that could signal depression or other health problems. Recognizing those behavioral changes could help them improve or prompt them to seek help.

Research shows strength of traditional honor codes

A traditional honor system really can make students less likely to cheat, according to research by a Randolph College student and two professors.

For the past year, Megan Hageman ’13 has worked with psychology professors Beth Schwartz and Holly Tatum to study the concept of academic integrity and learn more about how honor codes affect academic behavior.

Schwartz, the Thoresen Professor of Psychology and assistant dean of the College, said this research could help all schools, including colleges, promote honesty in academic behavior. “A lot of us understand what motivates students to cheat. Now it is time to understand what we can do to motivate students to have academic integrity.”

The interest in studying academic integrity developed after Schwartz, Tatum, and Jerry Wells ’12 co-wrote a chapter about the teaching and learning environment at Randolph College, which is guided by a longstanding traditional honor code. Schwartz saw that there was not enough research into the effectiveness of honor systems. During the 2011 Summer Research Program, she asked Megan Hageman to sort through existing research on the subject and choose topics for further study. They decided to study the way different kinds of honor codes affect student honesty.

Like most traditional-style honor codes, the Randolph honor system includes a student-run adjudication board, unproctored exams, and trust that students will report dishonest behavior.  These systems aim to build a culture of personal responsibility and integrity.

Some schools use a modified honor code, which is often run by the school administration or faculty and lacks many of the features, such as a student-run judicial process, emphasized by the traditional honor systems.

Hageman and Schwartz designed a survey to gauge students’ attitudes toward various behaviors that are sometimes encountered in college. They asked students to read a list of questionable behaviors, such as turning in the same paper for two different classes or consulting a smart phone for help on a test, and rate them as honest or dishonest. They were also asked whether they would report the behavior.

More than 750 students at eight private liberal arts colleges took the survey last year. The results showed that students in colleges with traditional honor systems were more likely to view questionable behaviors as dishonest. Students in a school with a modified honor code answered almost identically to the students in schools without any honor code.

“Previous research has demonstrated that modified honor systems are supposed to decrease the occurrence of academically dishonest behaviors, but we found that not to be the case,” Hageman said.

Hageman helped Schwartz and Tatum conduct the survey and analyze the data. During this year’s Summer Research Program, she presented the research at a convention of the Association for Psychological Science. Then, she worked with Schwartz to write an article about the research, which they plan to submit to a scholarly journal later this summer.

The next phase of the research, which will form Hageman’s senior project, will seek to determine why a traditional honor code is more effective. If they can identify specific attributes that make a traditional system more effective, other colleges could adopt those features to decrease cheating, Schwartz said.

Hageman said this project has helped her learn more about the process of research and writing, but also about what can make honor codes more effective. She hopes her research can stimulate conversation about how to strengthen honor systems and increase academic honesty in other colleges and at Randolph. “Without talking about academic integrity no one can understand it and it cannot become fully ingrained in the culture of the campus,” she said.

Student-curated exhibition opens Friday at Maier Museum of Art

Lots of students can say they have visited to museums and analyzed exhibitions, but students at Randolph College can now talk about what it is like to curate one.

Watch this short video about what the students learned as they curated this exhibition.

Mirror of a Passing World

Ephemeral Places, Vanishing Spaces

Opening Reception: Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, 4 - 7 p.m.
On View Until: April 15, 2012

For the next three months, the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College will show Mirror of a Passing World: Ephemeral Places, Vanishing Spaces, which was curated by a group of six students last semester. The exhibition explores the way that art preserves memories, events, and locations that otherwise would fade away.

In the past, some students have had the opportunity to curate exhibits in the Maier’s small gallery, but this is the first exhibition curated by a group of students and taking up both of the museum’s galleries, said Leanne Zalewski, who teaches art history at Randolph College.

Zalewski decided to teach a student curatorial seminar so more students could work hands-on with the College’s art collection. This gave students experience with each stage of curating an exhibition, such as selecting, choosing artwork, writing wall text, and hanging art. The process also helped them learn about the strict deadlines involved, especially when the exhibition is curated in a short amount of time.

“In this situation we had to curate the exhibition in a period of one semester, which is unusually short considering the scope of the exhibition—we have almost 50 objects in the exhibition,” Zalewski said.

Glenna Gray ’14 said Zalewski suggested the class to her, and she jumped at the chance to have hands-on experience planning and executing the exhibition. “Since it's student curated, we had a direct role in each decision of the exhibit,” she said.

Stormy Clowdis ’13 said the class gave her experience in the career field she is pursuing. “I want to go into the museum field. I felt taking this class would prepare me for the real world in museum studies and I could establish a good career for myself.”

Zalewski said the exhibition has turned out to be a success, and she and the Maier Museum staff plan to have another student group-curated exhibit in the next couple of years.

The exhibition includes oil paintings, prints, etchings, and other works of art. Each piece inspires a sense of nostalgia for the past, emphasizing how art preserves memories and impermanent locations.

Melissa Halka ’14 said she hopes the exhibition inspires viewers to pause, consider how the world is passing around them, and resolve not to let life pass them by. “I hope it inspires a meditative state, and that visitors will notice more of the smaller details in life and have a richer experience in life,” said Halka.

Students present research at national health technology conference

Thawda Aung '13 and Jim Kwon '14 recently went to a national conference to talk about a technology they are developing with a Randolph College professor.

The two students traveled with Katrin Schenk, a physics professor, to the 2011 mHealth Summit, an annual conference that focuses on using wireless technology to improve medical care. This year's event brought together leaders in government, the private sector, industry, academia, health care providers and nonprofit groups from across the country. 

Kwon gave a talk about using cell phones to measure gait speed. Aung presented a poster about using cell phones to monitor patients and motivate them to increase physical activity.

Kwon and Aung have collaborated with Schenk, as well as researchers from other institutions, to develop cell phone programs that measure a medical patient's activity, giving doctors better information about how to treat various illnesses. Their project won a grant from the Alzheimer's Association to study its application to Alzheimer's disease.

RISE Program Provides Funds for Students' Scholarly Pursuits

Randolph College is pleased to announce the Randolph Innovative Student Experience (RISE) Awards.

Beginning in the Fall 2009, every first-year Randolph College student will be eligible to receive a RISE Award during his or her junior or senior year. The grant provides funds for use in research, scholarly or creative pursuits of the student's choosing.

It could be used for travel, art supplies, computers, lab equipment, conference attendance... just about anything.

The program is designed to show support for students and the advanced scholarly work that is the hallmark of the College.

Learn more about the RISE Program > > >

Randolph Students Make Strong Showing at Research Conference

Seven Randolph College students joined faculty members to present research at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference for Undergraduate Students (MARCUS) Oct. 10.

The conference, held at Sweet Briar College, focuses on the scholarship and research activities of undergraduate students. Randolph’s students and faculty members reported the results of research and experiments conducted through the college’s Summer Research program and independent research projects.

“These kinds of opportunities are so important for our students, as it gives them great experiences that help prepare them for jobs or graduate school,” said Peter Sheldon, director of the Summer Research program and physics professor. “These types of experiential learning activities are what typify the Randolph College experience.”

Participants included:


Yanpaing Soe Oo: Cryptographic Primitives Research Project

Helena Brown and Randall Speer: Randolph College’s Musical Heritage: Exploring and Preserving Four Decades of Musical Performances at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College

Kathryne Allen and Kurt Seidman: An Investigation of the Relationship Between Thermal Bloom Diameter and Physical Properties of Molecules

Poojan Pyakurel and Rosha Poudyal and Kurt Sediman: A Theoretical Investigation of Factors That Influence the Carcinogenicity of Polycyclic Hydrocarbons that Suffer One-Electron Oxidation

Rosha Poudyal and Poojan Pyakurel and Kurt Seidman: A Theoretical Investigation of Carcinogenicity of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) and the Effect of Methylation: One-Electron Oxidation Mechanism

Shi Hua and Jillian Barlowe and Dennis Goff: Finger Digit Ratio as a Predicator of Mental Rotation Ability and Toy Preference Among Adults

Marja Copeland and Tatiana Gilstrap, Peggy Schimmoeller, and Peter Sheldon: Hands-on Inquiry Science for Improving Teacher Quality and Student Achievement

Lesley Tylczak and Ola Fincke: An Examination of the Dreissena Polymorpha’s Impact on the Feeding Behavior of Maromia Illinoiensis

Katelin Shugart-Schmidt: The Billion Dollar Beach: Assessing the Effectiveness of the Marine Life Conservation District at Waikiki

Danielle Robinson and Eve Gasarch and Timothy Seastedt: Covet thy Alpine Neighbor: How Rare Alpine Species Relate to the Abundance of Their Nearest Neighbors

Rachel Crowder: Artistic Value: Integrating the Aesthetic and the Ethical