The Miami University Report 1

RTREPThe Miami University August 2010

RTREPUndergraduate research: Summer 2010

At Miami, undergraduates take advantage of research opportunities year-round. Summer, especially, provides time for in-depth research on campus, off campus or abroad.

Students in every disci-pline can pursue independent research through Miami-funded programs supported by the office for the advance-

Designing a gerontology curriculum

Chris Napier, USS, in the Opening Minds Through Art (OMA) studio at the Oxford Community Arts Center.

ment of research and scholar-ship (OARS). Students present their research to the Miami community at an annual fo-rum in April.

For more information, go to www.muohio.edu/under-gradresearch.

This publication presents a sample of undergraduate research activities at Miami this summer.

Researching genetics, evolution in beetles

“My passion for working with older adults really caused me to question my major since gerontology seemed to be what I was most interested in,” says Chris Napier, junior mathemat-ics education and mathematics and statistics double major from Somerville.

With guidance from his mentor Thomas Kopp, assistant professor of teacher education, Napier realized that his ideal career would be “a high school educator teaching gerontology classes and coordinating service learning projects.”

As this job does not yet exist, Kopp encouraged Napier to design his USS project to create it: “Venturing into the World of our Elders: Designing a High School Curriculum in Gerontol-ogy.”

Napier took a gerontology class as an elective and, as part of its service learning aspect, worked with the Opening Minds Through Art (OMA) pro-gram at the Knolls of Oxford. He has since been a student leader for the program for two

semesters and will begin his third in the fall. The OMA pro-gram, which promotes creative expression among older people with dementia, was developed by Elizabeth “Like” Lokon, research associate at Scripps Gerontology Center and has been implemented in several nursing homes in the area.

As a student leader with OMA, Napier, who has also spent hundreds of hours tutor-ing students during high school, discovered that the “skills needed are the same no matter what you are teaching: plan-ning ahead; organization; creat-ing lessons; evaluation.”

Napier has arranged for a professional focus group to review his curriculum once it nears completion.

“I hope to use the project as a catalyst to bring gerontology and the study of aging to high school students so they can work with older adults and value their elders.”

Undergraduate summer scholar Holly Steigelman’s interest in doing research was sparked by the research post-ers lining the walls of Pearson Hall. A series of “small world” encounters led her to the lab of mentor Yoshinori Tomoyasu, assistant professor of zoology.

Steigelman, a senior zoology major from Columbus, partici-pated in Miami’s India Semester Program at the University of Hyderabad during spring se-mester of her sophomore year.

Later, she worked at a local

Indian restaurant, where she met customer Bhavani Madakashira, a doctoral student of Michael Robin-son, professor of zoology. A conversation led to the topic of research, and Ma-dakashira mentioned that Tomoyasu was looking for an undergraduate to join his genetics and molecular biology lab.

Steigelman joined his lab in fall semester last year and has been preparing for her project “Exploring the

Conserved and Diverged As-pects of Wnt Genes in the Beetle Tribolium (Red Flour Beetle),” part of Tomoyasu’s research program on the evolution of morphological diversity.

“I am really glad about the USS opportunity,” she explains. “Now I have time to collect data and see the results,” after spend-ing the previous two semesters learning correct techniques and preparing experiments. “USS makes it all worth it.”

Keeping her link with India, she is a member of Miami’s In-dian Student Association (ISA) and a member of Miami’s chap-ter of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA).

See inside for details on:

• Undergraduate Summer Scholars

•Miami Hughes Internships in the Biological Sciences

• ECO REU

Holly Steigelman, USS, left, and below with mentor Yoshinori Tomoyasu.

August 20102

Community and faith in design

SpaceLab and HIVE research

Summer Scholars program More than 100 Miami stu-

dents do research or creative projects each year through the Undergraduate Summer Scholars program (USS).

Each scholar receives up to 12 hours of academic credit with tuition waived, a $2,600 fellowship, a $400 project al-lowance and the opportunity to pursue in-depth research one-on-one with a faculty mentor.

Administerd by the of-fice for the advancement of

Anna Chifala, USS.

Tamara McPeek (l), Larissa Spreng, USS (r).

Virtual environment

Pesticides’ effects on salamanders

After participating in Miami’s Center for Community Engagement Over-the-Rhine (CCE/OTR) Residency Program last fall semester, Anna Chifala, senior architecture major from Oakwood, became passionate about the idea of balancing community and faith. Encouraged by her roommate to apply to the USS program, she is now conducting her research

project, “Historical and Cultural Effects of Sacred Architecture in the Catholic Church,” with mentor Robert Benson, professor of architecture.

Chifala’s CCE/OTR residency experi-ence, which involves students living, working and taking a full course load for a semester within the Cincinnati inner-city neighborhood of Over-the-Rhine, led to “finding something greater than college, finding a true commu-nity,” she explains.

That experience, following a summer

of work that helped deepen her Catholic faith, combined with her architecture major, led her to pursue her project. Chifala, a member of the Catholic Student Advisory Board of St. Mary’s Church in Oxford, will also produce a series of drawings of church design integrating themes of hierarchy versus unity and how they can mesh, aided by the architectural de-sign.

research and scholarship (OARS), the program is open to any student in any major who has completed his/her sophomore or junior year.

For more information and a list of the 2010 scholars, their projects and their mentors, go to

http://www.units.muohio.edu/oars/undergrad_re-search/summer_scholars_program/index.php.

Larissa Spreng, a senior zool-ogy and gerontology double major, never thought she would do research since she is so involved on campus and takes a heavy class load.

“But the USS program is great - summer is the perfect time to do research,” she says. “USS is one of those hidden secrets that many people don’t know about.”

Her USS project involves investigating the effects of the pesticides carbaryl and atrazine on the life cycle of streamside salamanders. She started working this spring — salamander breeding season — with mentor Michelle Boone, associ-ate professor of zool-ogy, and doctoral stu-dent Tamara McPeek. She dosed salamander embryos with the pesti-cides at different levels commonly found in local water samples.

After metamorpho-sis, the salamanders were transferred to mesocosms at Miami’s Ecology Research Center, where Spreng

monitors their growth; she also subjects them to endurance and performance tests (on a tread-mill). Her research is part of a larger project on cross species effects of pesticides.

Spreng, from Westlake, is a member of the honors program and the undergraduate associate honors program; she is also ser-vice co-chair for Miami MED; a resident assistant and president of the Panhellenic Association.

“A year ago I never would have picked up a frog,” says Spreng. “Now I love it.”

Undergraduate Summer Scholar Ben Nelligan has been working with mentor David Waller, associate professor of psychology, for the past two years in Waller’s SpaceLab, which investigates human spatial perception, action and cognition.

Nelligan, a senior psychol-ogy major from Beavercreek, has worked with Waller on independent research on differ-

ent methodologies for testing spatial representations. He also worked with Susanne Abele, research scholar in psychology, during the last school year – research that he presented at last spring’s Undergraduate Research Forum. This summer finds him working on his USS project “Effect of Cognitive Load on Spatial Reference Frames.”

To determine if cognitive load testing affects subjects’ learning of spatial frames of reference, he will test them with a series of tasks while they are learning/remembering object placement.

SpaceLab is a partner of the HIVE (Huge Immersive Virtual Environment), a joint research project led by Waller and Eric Bachmann, professor of computer science and software engineering.

Josh Wonser, senior chemis-try and computer science dou-ble major from Toledo, found out about the “awesome virtual reality research” at Miami after taking a networking class from Eric Bachmann, professor of computer science and software engineering.

Bachmann, co-director of Miami’s HIVE facility (Huge Immersive Virtual Environ-

ment), is mentor for Wonser’s USS project, “Full Body Track-ing to Enable Virtual Bodies in Immersive Synthetic Envi-ronments.” Wonser’s project involves computer program-ming on redirected walking algorithms, to help “trick the user into walking further and turning within the boundaries of the HIVE,” explains Eric Hodgson, postdoctoral fellow in psychology and HIVE opera-tions manager.

The HIVE allows users to explore a simulated environ-ment by naturally walking, turning and looking. Although the HIVE is large — the largest such facility in the world at more than 10,000 square meters — users need to be enabled to physically walk through a much larger virtual environment, says Hodgson, such as a simulated college campus or military simulation, while wearing the “virtual headset.”

That’s where the computer programming on redirected walking fits in, explains Wonser, who enjoys the cutting edge research.

Josh Wonser, USS (l), Eric Hodgson (r)

Ben Nelligan, USS, in the SpaceLab

Spatial cognition

The Miami University Report 3

ECO REU: Research Experience for Undergraduates in Ecology

Geodynamics of Afar, Ethiopia

Left to right: Maria Gonzalez, professor of zoology, Tyler Field (ECO REU student from University of Central Oklahoma) and Carmela Chevre, ECO REU student from Miami.

Miami-Hughes Internships

Audrey Ragle at Geology Field School

Computer science, Bioinformatics

Iddo Friedberg, mentor (l); Ryan Kelly, Han Wang, USS.

Jessica Hall, Miami Hughes Intern

Through Miami’s Research Experience for Undergraduates in Ecology and Environmental Science (ECO REU), students from across the country are selected to conduct research focusing on the ecology of human-dominated landscapes.

The 10-week program offers 12 hours of academic credit with tuition waived, a $4,200 stipend and on-campus housing. This year eight students, from Puerto Rico to Chicago and including Miami

student Carmela Chevre, have been selected for the program.

Chevre, a senior zoology major from Cincinnati, has been working with mentor Maria Gonzalez, professor of zoology, for the past year. Her ECO REU project in aquatic ecology involves work in the laboratory and in the field, at Miami’s Ecology Research Center mesocosm facility.

For more information about the ECO REU program go to www.muohio.edu/ecoreu.

Seedlings grown in space

Senior computer science majors Ryan Kelly, from Hudson, and Han Wang, from China, are undergrad-uate summer scholars working with Iddo Friedberg, assistant professor of microbiol-ogy and affiliate in computer science and software engineering.

This is the first un-dergraduate research experience for Kelly and Wang, whose USS projects are part of Friedberg’s research program in bioin-formatics, microbial genomics and metage-nomics, and protein function prediction.

Wang’s project, “Constructing a Useable Computa-tional Pipeline for Genomic and Metagenomic Sequence Assem-bly,” involves using test data of microbe genomics from the lab of Mitchell Balish, associate pro-fessor of microbiology, to create a “pipeline” of data. Kelly’s project, “A Useable Function

Prediction Server for Molecular Sequences” involves using the data from that “pipeline” for assembling information on molecular sequences.

They will both have the opportunity to use the Ohio Supercomputer Center for their research.

How do computer science majors find out about research opportunities in bioinformat-ics? “I sent an e-mail out to computer science students...and received more applications than I could use,” said Friedberg, who is also mentor to a Miami Hughes intern in the biological sciences.

Audrey Ragle, a senior geol-ogy major and environmental science co-major from Ocean Township, N.J., is also partici-pating in the Miami University Geology Field School (MUGFS) in Wyoming this summer. She has been working with mentor Bill Hart, chair and professor of geology, for more than a year. “Undergraduate research is heavily advertised in the geolo-gy department because research is such a critical component of geology,” she says.

Her USS project, “Geody-namics of the Tendaho Graben, Ethiopia,” involves looking at a suite of basalt samples from the Tendaho graben, in the Afar region of Ethiopia. “My project ...is a very exciting opportunity

for geologists to study an oceanic spreading zone on land if my basalts actually prove to be of a more oceanic origin,” explains Ragle.

Hart is part of the Middle Awash research project, a large, multidisciplinary, international team of experts that has un-covered the oldest hominid skeleton yet reported. The discovery of the 4.4 million-year-old female partial skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus (“Ardi”) was named a Science Magazine Breakthrough of the Year in 2009. The Middle Awash is an archaeological site along the Awash River in Ethiopia’s Afar depression.

Originally a philosophy major, junior Jessica Hall took a philosophy of religion course that focused on the origin and nature of the universe that led her to want to understand more about cosmology, so she added physics as a second major. A series of astronomy courses she took brought up discussions of sustainable life support systems in space, and her roommate, a botany and geology double major, told her about the re-search of John Kiss, chair and professor of botany, who studies gravitropism of plants in space.

Naturally, Hall gravitated to Kiss’ laboratory, where she is now a Miami-Hughes intern in the biological sciences working on her project “Analysis of seed-lings grown in Tropi-2 on the

International Space Station.” “I was drawn to the

gravitropism part of the project and growing plants in space as a foundation to one day supporting life on the moon or Mars,” said Hall, a junior from Rockford, Ill., and a native of Newfoundland, Canada.

Kiss’ research focuses on understanding how light and gravity affect plant growth. His latest project - Tropi-2, a semi-autonomous space-based experiment to study Arabidopsis thaliana (the thale cress) seed-ling sprouts to observe their response to light and gravity at a cellular level – was launched with space shuttle Endeavour in February, conducted on the International Space Station (ISS) and returned on the Discovery.

Miami-Hughes internships in the biological sciences provide a $3,000 stipend and a $750 research expense account to work on indepen-dent research with a faculty

mentor. Interns also receive 12 hours of academic credit with tuition waived.

Up to 15 students are selected each summer for the Miami-funded program.

August 20104

Sacred pair bonds: Who gets into the time capsule?

Beckman Scholars committed to research year around

Megan Stoll (USS) with mentor Liz WIlson (right), chair and professor of religion.

REPORTSpecial issue written and pub-

lished by the Miami University news and public information office, Glos Center, Miami Univer-sity, Oxford, Ohio 45056, phone (513) 529-7592. Available online: www.miami.muohio.edu/news.

Tim Richmond (front) with Michael Crowder, professor of chemistry and biochemistry

Academic yearprograms

Miami-sponsored research programs for undergraduates during the academic year include:

• First Year Research Expe-rience (FYRE);

• College of Arts and Sci-ence Dean’s Scholars program;

• Doctoral Undergradu-ate Student Opportunities (DUOS);

• Undergraduate Research Award (URA) program;

• MU Interdisciplinary Technology Development Challenge.

Megan Stoll, senior religion and women’s studies double major, was encouraged to conduct her USS research by her mentor Liz Wilson, chair and professor of comparative religion. Her project, “Who Gets Into the Time Capsule? Narra-tives of the Sacred Pair Bond” will be used as a template for

students in a new honors course developed by Wilson that has a research and writing focus.

Stoll “will blaze a trail for students to follow, while pro-viding a sample of research that represents what a comparative religion major ought to be able to achieve in the junior or senior year, ” explains Wilson.

Her project involves choosing sacred narratives of the sacred pair bond that could be put in a time capsule as somehow rep-resentative of the human condi-tion at the dawn of the 21st cen-tury. Justifying the choice raises many questions: why select the sacred narratives chosen? How are they representative of what it means to be human? For whom are they representative?

Stoll, a member of the honors program, the honors and schol-ars program and the sailing team, selected the pair bonds of Odyseuss and Penelope from The Odyssey and Gilgamesh and Enkidu from The Epic of Gilgamesh.

She says of her selection of these ancient, sacred narratives: “Both have endured over time... they have value over history...and (have been) reinterpreted in pop culture...(I hope to) cover more possible questions...to give students (in the class) more to think about.”

Aaron Coey (left) with Gary Lorigan, professor of chemistry and biochemistry.

Aaron Coey and Tim Rich-mond have been selected as 2010-2011 Beckman Scholars. Supported by $19,300 scholar-ships, Coey and Richmond will conduct research with their faculty mentors this summer and next and through the inter-vening academic year.

Coey, a senior biochemistry and microbiology double major and molecular biology minor from Cincinnati, has been work-ing with Gary Lorigan, profes-sor of chemistry and biochemis-try, since his first year at Miami. Interested in participating in undergraduate research, he “e-mailed Dr. Lorigan...had a 10 a.m. interview and started with him at 11 a.m the next day,” says Coey. He has been working with Lorigan year-around since then, and also was an Under-graduate Summer Scholar last summer.

“Aaron is extremely motivat-

ed,” explains Lorigan. “He is a rising star... (in graduate school) anybody who gets him will be thrilled to have him working in their lab group.”

Coey’s Beckman project, “KCNE1 as a Model Protein for the Development of EPR Spec-troscopic Techniques – Study of the Structure and Function of Membrane Proteins Found in the Human Heart,” involves working in Miami’s recently es-tablished Ohio Advanced Elec-tron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) Laboratory, learning the techniques of EPR. When not in the laboratory, Coey, a member of the honors program, is an accompanist for Miami’s music department and has been the conductor/manager of a sum-mer service chamber orchestra.

Richmond, a senior chemistry major from Oxford, has been working with Michael Crowder, professor of chemistry and bio-

chemistry, since his sophomore year. “I worked in the chem-istry storeroom my first year; students would come to get supplies for their projects and talk about their research, and I became interested in doing research,” says Richmond. His Beckman project, “Using DEER Spectroscopy to Probe Mo-tion on Metallo-ß-Lactamase” involves investigating the struc-ture of the metallo-ß-lactamase enzyme, which can destroy penicillin and cephalosporin antibiotics.

Richmond, who was also an Undergraduate Summer Scholar in 2009, explains that it takes about a year to get the proper experience and summer research is a great way to gain more experience.

“Tim... is doing a remarkable job,” Crowder says. “He has worked on two projects, and he is a leader of an all-undergradu-ate research team in the lab that is examining enzyme motions during catalysis.”

Richmond is also a member of the Miami Redfin Masters swim team and plays trumpet in the Oxford Brass Quintet, a community ensemble.