14 Named to Research Conference
Fourteen Occidental College students have been accepted for the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR), an annual spring event in which students showcase their findings at the national level.
Participation in NCUR provides a tremendous opportunity for our students to present their outstanding work,” said Chris Craney, director of the Undergraduate Research Center and professor of chemistry. “Over the last decade, undergraduate research has become a signature program at the college involving hundreds of students and the majority of faculty members.”
The 20th annual NCUR will be held April 6-8 at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. The conference will bring together undergraduates from up to 300 colleges and universities involved in scholarly and artistic activities representing a range of disciplines that include creative arts, mathematics, business, social science, humanities, physical and life sciences, natural resources and engineering.
Since its inception in 1987, NCUR has become a major annual event. This year it will draw 2,400 undergraduates, faculty members and administrators to hear and discuss undergraduate research through oral presentations, interdisciplinary poster sessions and artistic performances and visual art exhibits.
In addition, NCUR presents an opportunity to hear nationally prominent speakers and to discuss educational policy, programs, and funding for undergraduate scholarly work.
Following are the Occidental students accepted to attend (included are hometowns, majors and titles of research projects):
Nathaniel Adkins ’07, Fair Oaks, chemistry; “Reactions of 2-Halogeno-3-Methyl-1,4-Naphthoquinone with Primary Amines”
Kevin Adler ’07, Livermore, politics; “Variations in Rhetoric and Coverage: How American and English-Language Arab Newspapers Differ in their Presentation of International Conflict”
Tracy Bessette ’07, San Juan Capistrano, biology/English and comparative literary studies; “Poetic Duration: A Study of E.E Cummings Sonnets as a Critique of Scientism's Unreality”
Jonathan Brogaard ’06, Los Angeles, economics/politics; “Swiss Banking: Depositor Confidence and Regulation”
Jeffrey Cannon ’06, Austin, Texas, chemistry; “Enantioselective Synthesis of (-)-Coniine”
Young Yee Cho ’06, La Cañada, diplomacy and world affairs; “The Moral Economy of Care Labor”
Heather Graham ’07, Venice, chemistry; “Evaluating The Effects of Tailwater Irrigation on Soil Salinity and Discharge Water Quality”
Lester Laddaran ’06, Glendale, biology; “Positional Cloning of a C. Elegans Supressor Mutation of a Neuronal alpha-Tubulin Defect”
David Lawrence ’06, Glendale, English and comparative literary studies; “Women In Hate: Making D.H. Lawrence's Mindless Sensuality Mental”
Kristin Mattox ’06, Los Angeles, biology; “Electrophysiological Properties of the Girk2a And Girk2c Ion Channel”
Erin Richey ’06, Medford, Ore., cognitive science; “Visual Word Recognition in Italian-English Bilinguals: Effects of Frequency, Neighborhood Size, and Word Legality”
Rebecca Shellock ’06, Whitehall, Penn., religious studies; “Desire And The Divine: Hildegarde of Bingen’s Neologism Viriditas and its Implications Concerning Sexuality and the Medieval Church”
Anil Sindhurakar ’06, Kathmandu, Nepal, biochemistry; “Transportation of Magnetosomes from Magnetospirillum Magnetotacticum (Ms-1) using Bdellovibrio Bacteriovorus (109j)”
Rachel Tusler ’06, Eugene, Ore., English and comparative literary studies; “The Function of Depravity in the Evolutionary Past in Nightwood”