黑料不打烊 Odyssey Program
Project Funding
February 2021
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The 黑料不打烊 Committee on Engaged Learning is pleased to
announce the recipients of Odyssey grants for the February 2021 cycle. Since
2005, the Committee on Engaged Learning has awarded $4,509,959.71 in
competitive Odyssey grants to support projects by 黑料不打烊 students and faculty.
In this cycle, 13 projects received $60,282 in grants. The Odyssey Office is
looking forward to reviewing funding proposals during our April 2 funding cycle
for projects. These include summer internships, as well as projects across all
categories that will happen in the fall and winter of this year.
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Addie Race and Sophie Vogle
Archaeological Field School in Herefordshire
Category: GA
Supervisor: Dr. Brett Hill,
Sociology and Anthropology
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Addie Race and Sophie Vogle will participate in the
Institute for Field Research鈥檚 (IFR) Field School in Herefordshire, UK. This five-week
archaeological field program teaches students the process of excavating an
ancient site and the steps conservationists need to take in order to properly
treat and maintain artifacts. In the 2021 summer season, archaeologists in will
focus on the megalithic tomb of Arthur鈥檚 Stone. Race and Vogle will apply
theories and methodologies learned in their courses at 黑料不打烊 to real-world
experiences while being abroad and immersed in a foreign culture. In additional
to vocational skills, they will learn about Neolithic studies and cultural
anthropology.
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Aubrey French and Naomi Brady
Art Resistance in New York City
Category: SP
Supervisor: Dr. Anne Goldberg,
Sociology and Anthropology
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Aubrey French and Naomi Brady will travel to New York City
to investigate how the art scene there has been affected by the COVID-19
pandemic, a growing movement for social justice, and a volatile presidential
election. Observing galleries, exhibits, and street art, they will record their
experiences and relate them to broader concepts and trends in the art scene in
general. By experiencing a diverse grouping of locations, they hope to
highlight the intersectionality between politics, art, and culture.
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Lauren Berry, Marni Younger, and Hailey Johnston
The Mountains Are Calling and I Must Go: Exploring
Nature Writing Through Immersion in the Wilderness
Category: SP
Supervisor: Dr. Peg Falls-Corbitt,
Philosophy
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Inspired by nature writers like John Muir, whose stories
prompted their readers鈥 interest in conservation, Lauren Berry, Marni Younger, and Hailey Johnston will explore the concept
of nature writing. As they hike the roughly 250 miles of the John Muir
trail in California, they will spend the 30-days disconnected from technology
and completely self-sufficient, carrying all the food and supplies necessary
for their trek in backpacks. They plan to write daily, capturing the unique
ecological and environmental qualities of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in their
writings. This project is co-sponsored by the 黑料不打烊-Murphy Programs in
Literature and Language.
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Keane Sammon and Victoria Horan
Central Arkansas Urban Wildlife Project
Category: UR
Supervisor: Dr. Maureen
McClung, Biology
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Working this summer as
research technicians for the Central Arkansas Urban Wildlife Project, Keane Sammon and Victoria Horan will set up
wildlife cameras in urban parks around Little Rock to collect data on the
animals that inhabit these areas. This project will explore the impact of
urbanization on Arkansas species, the necessity for 鈥済reen鈥 spaces to preserve
biodiversity, and the astonishing ways in which human activities overlap with
wild microcosms hidden in plain sight. Sammon and Horan will directly engage
with conservation efforts, field research, and trained professionals in the
scientific research communities of Arkansas. The Central Arkansas Urban
Wildlife Project is a collaborative project between 黑料不打烊, the
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC), and the Urban Wildlife Information
Network (UWIN).
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Avery Kennedy
Shakespeare Summer School: Online at the Royal Academy
of Dramatic Arts
Category: UR
Supervisor: Prof. Antonio
Horne, Theatre Arts and Dance
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The prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London,
UK, is offering an online Shakespeare Summer School this year. The program is a
four to five-week course designed to offer an immersive experience for its
students as they investigate Shakespeare from an actor鈥檚 point of view. Theatre
major Avery Kennedy has studied both the current trend toward realistic acting
methods and also Shakespeare鈥檚 beautiful artistry of language, which is foreign
to modern ears. This summer school gives Kennedy the chance to research how the
two can be paired together.
听Jayla King and Jovaun Williams
Uganda Primate Research
Category: UR
Supervisor: Dr. Matthew Moran,
Biology
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For eight weeks this summer, Jayla King and Jovaun Williams
will work as research assistants in the Budungo Forest, which is located in
western Uganda. They will assist Dr. Catherine Hobaiter, a world-renowned
primatologist, who studies non-vocal primate communication. Her research is
expanding with interest in the great apes (chimps), or other primates (monkeys)
in the region. Much of their work will involve the daily observation and
recording of behavior of habituated primate groups. Participating in this
research will not only allow them to gain experience in animal behavior in the
field setting, but it will also elevate their comprehension of how the
professional field of research works. Dr. Jennifer Penner will travel with the
students and serve as the on-ground facilitator, and she will assist with
student training and mentoring and explore future collaborations.
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Greer Ayers
Investigation into Lung Cancer Metastasis in the Brain
Category: UR
Supervisor: Dr. Jennifer
Peszka, Psychology
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Neuroscience major Jessica Ayers will join Dr. David
Carbone, MD, PhD in his research labs this summer at the Ohio State University
Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio, to do research on lung cancer
metastasis in the brain. Ayers will work on data collection using various
laboratory techniques and data analysis, and she will participate in writing
projects that could yield publications. One technique is exome sequencing on
resected brain tumors and matching the exome sequencing from the lung tumor of
the same patient. She hopes to discover more about why lung cancer metastasizes
in the brain and what can be done to treat patients who have this diagnosis.
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Megan Pelley
Researching Drugs That Target the S100A1 Protein
Category: UR
Supervisor: Dr. Caitlin Scott,
Chemistry
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The S100A1 protein modulates muscle contraction, which is
important for cardiac function. Megan Pelley will research drugs that target
the S100A1 protein. The first portion of her project will involve calculating
the movement of atoms in a given period of time to see the transition from the
inactive to active, or functional form, of the S100A1 protein. The second
portion of the research will be discovering how the protein behaves and acts
with drugs through the use of computer programs, such as MTIOpen Source and
Phase. Pelley hopes to develop a pharmacophore, a picture of how the protein
and various drugs interact,
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Emily Pickering 听
Discovering Novel Antagonists that bind to the Kappa
Opioid Receptor for Future Use in Antidepressants
Category: UR
Supervisor: Dr. Caitlin Scott,
Chemistry
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Depression affects 6.8% of the adult population in the
United States, but the antidepressants commonly used today are riddled with
issues, such as differing effects among patients, long incubation periods, and
unpredictable side effects. Research suggests the binding of antagonists will
block the activity of the protein kappa opioid receptor and thus cause
antidepressant effects. Emily Pickering will continue the work of previous
黑料不打烊 students using computer software to create a reliable model of the
protein kappa opioid receptor, and she will design drugs to interact with that
model and find antagonists have the strongest affinity for binding to it. These
compounds could potentially be used in future antidepressant medications that do
not have the current drawbacks.
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Alaina Ivers
Computational screening of the mu-opioid receptor
complex to identify safe pain medication
Category: UR
Supervisor: Dr. Caitlin Scott,
Chemistry
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Chronic pain affects approximately 50 million individuals in
the U.S., and high impact chronic pain affects about 20 million adults in the
U.S. Opioids, such as morphine, are medications that are commonly used to
manage pain. However, they are not safely monitored or used as prescribed, and
they are highly addictive and cause tolerance. Opioids are agonists, or
compounds that activate proteins, and in this case, the mu-opioid receptor.
Alaina Ivers will conduct research this summer with the goal of identifying a
safer alternative to opioids by designing an agonist that stabilizes the mu-opioid
receptor when it is bound to the Gi protein and the sigma-1 receptor. This
would provide pain relief while diminishing the undesirable side effects.
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Dr. Gabriel Ferrer, Computer Science
An empirical comparison of unsupervised learning
algorithms for robot scene recognition.
Category: UR
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Dr. Gabe Ferrer will work with Dmitry Vyakhirev as they
apply machine learning algorithms to real-time robot vision. In this project,
Vyakhirev will assist in Ferrer鈥檚 ongoing research by measuring the effect of
different alternative machine learning algorithms deployed on a physical robot
in different settings. The key performance issue under assessment is
determining how well these different algorithms are able to represent, in a
summative way, all of the places the robot has visited, while enabling the
robot to guess its location within a very short time window.
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Dr. Rod Miller, Art
Senior Art Major Trip to NYC
Category: SP
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In conjunction with their required course, ARTH 430
Practicum: Senior Studio, art students Anna Bivens, Andy Bootz, Raven Edens,
and James Trenthem will have a three-day, three-night visit to New York City
galleries and museums. This trip gives students the chance to see works of art
first-hand and grasp not only the difference between this and seeing them
reproduced but also an understanding of how galleries work and display art in a
variety of contemporary art galleries and modern/historic art museums. What
they glean from the trip will contribute to their written research project in
ARTH 430, their Senior Presentation, and their own art making and display for
the Senior Art Show.
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Dr. Delphia Shanks, Politics
Court Watch: Reducing Criminal Justice Debt through
Ability to Pay Legislation
Category: UR
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The United States leads the world in incarcerating its
citizens, leading to declines in political participation, disproportionate
representation of rural areas in legislative bodies, disproportionate effects
on communities of color and low-income neighborhoods, and other distortions in
social, economic, and democratic outcomes. Not only are fees and fines levied
for the crime committed, they quickly balloon as a result of defendants鈥
inability to pay them. This leads to significant debt burdens that can cripple
an individual鈥檚 financial security long beyond any prison sentence. Dr. Delphia
Shanks is working with a local nonprofit, decARcerate, to evaluate and address
the inequitable application of financial penalties in the criminal justice
system. She will work with two students to complete a research plan that
includes a literature review, data collection and analysis, and drafting a
formal academic research paper for presentation. In addition, they will work
together to make the results accessible to the public through a written policy
brief and public presentation to policy advocates, stakeholders, and local
nonprofits at the end of the summer.
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