Women in ScienceWomen in Science

Amazing Summer ( & Semester ) Experiences

Lauren Jane KleinLauren Jane Klein

Lauren Jane KleinLauren Jane Klein

School for Field Studies, Center for Wildlife Management Studies, Kimana, Kenya

   

The Kimana Water Project (KWP) aimed to improve water quantity and quality, and to improve the livelihoods of community members.  An end term evaluation was conducted to determine the impact of the KWP on the targeted population.  Data was collected and overall, the KWP was successful in terms of improving the socioeconomic status of the targeted population, specifically the agriculturalists. KWP was able to increase crop yields as well as improve crop diversification because of the improved water access and water quantity. A threat to the KWP is the human-wildlife conflict that endangers agriculturalist's livelihoods. Another threat is that since community members view the water from the furrows as safe, they are less likely to treat their water.

Jennifer UrbanJennifer Urban

Jennifer UrbanJennifer Urban

Mentored Undergraduate Summer Experience (MUSE) at TCNJ

Since the summer of 2009 during the MUSE program, I have been working with Dr. Abourahma of the Chemistry Department. We worked on a project dealing with the solid state stability of cocrystals. Cocrystallization can be used to alter the physical properties of its components, like stability, melting point, etc., and so has become very useful in the pharmaceutical industry.

We have continued to work on it together in Spring and Fall of 2010, as well as MUSE 2010. I also had the opportunity to present our results at the American Crystallographic Association's Annual Meeting in Chicago this past summer (the photo was taken at this conference). I am very grateful for the wonderful experiences I have had via my research here at TCNJ.

Jillian StarkJillian Stark

Jillian StarkJillian Stark

School for Field Studies Center for Rainforest Studies in Queensland,

AustraliaI am a senior biology major with a concentration in environmental studies. I spent the Spring 2010 semester in Australia. I lived in cabins with 24 other students and was immersed in the amazing wildlife of the area. The research project that I completed when I was there focused on how climate change is affecting Australia’s largest snake - the scrub python, Morelia kinghorni. With a team of colleagues, I collected pythons that had been hit by cars and analyzed their stomach contents in order to determine a few of the preferred prey species in their diet. After doing so, I used a climate modeling software program to examine how the local populations of the scrub python and its prey would change as their habitat became less available due to rising temperature, variation in humidity, and alteration in weather patterns. Completing this project, along with the other amazing experiences I had during my time at the School for Field Studies made me want to explore earth’s vast ecosystems and confirmed the fact that I want to pursue a career in the field of environmental studies.

Megan Torpey Megan Torpey

Megan Torpey Megan Torpey

Integrated Research Institutions for Seismology Undergraduate Summer Internship Program (IRIS) Harvard

University

Megan, a senior physics major and French minor, had the opportunity to work as part of IRIS the summer of 2010 under the advisement of Dr. Miaki Ishii. Working to digitize old analogue seismograms from the Harvard seismic station, different digitization programs were investigated in addition to different cleaning and imaging techniques for the seismograms. Currently, there is no widely accepted software to use for digitization so it proved to be a bit difficult. However, great progress was made on what programs were best to use and what parameters are important to consider when digitizing analogue seismograms.

Sarah SmithSarah Smith

Sarah SmithSarah Smith

Secure Information Systems Mentoring and Training (SISMAT) Program

Dartmouth College and George Mason University

 I am a junior Computer Science major here at TCNJ. My main interests in the major are cyber security and networks. After graduation I plan on continuing on to earn a PhD in Computer Science. One of my side interests is running, in which I am a member of TCNJ's cross country and track teams. I am also president of the Women in Computing Sciences (WICS) club.

 Over this past summer, I participated in the Secure Information Systems Mentoring and Training (SISMAT) program. This program consisted of two weeks of training at Dartmouth College, followed by an internship at another location, and then mentored research the following semester. My internship was at George Mason University in the Center for Secure Information Systems lab. I learned theoretical and practical applications of network security. My work consisted of creating an intrusion detection system that is currently being continued by the graduate students in the lab as part of a larger project.

 

Siobhan Loughman SabinoSiobhan Loughman Sabino

Siobhan Loughman SabinoSiobhan Loughman Sabino

CAFÉ at TCNJ (Collaboration and Facilitation Environment)

Siobhan is a computer science major, who is also interested in history and French. She has worked with Dr. Monisha Pulimood on CAFÉ from summer 2009 to the present.  The purpose of CAFE is to help facilitate a collaborative environment for students to write articles that will become their own online magazine. Teachers who use CAFE, or other programs built around CAFE, can then customize what lessons they want students to take from CAFE. If they want to teach solely about the editorial process and improve a student's writing they can. If they want to expand on that idea and let students run the whole magazine, that is also possible. If they want to teach students computer science ideas, as IJIMS did and CAFE was first used for, it's quite easy to do that as well, even if the teachers themselves aren't computer scientist. CAFE is meant to be clay that can be made into whatever tool is most needed, including encouraging students to do their best.

Kaitlyn SchielsKaitlyn Schiels

Kaitlyn SchielsKaitlyn Schiels

Investigation into Rapid Evolution of Threespine Stickleback in Cheney Lake (Alaska)

Kaitlyn traveled to Alaska with Dr. Matthew Wund of the TCNJ biology department to study the threespine stickleback fish, Gasterosteus aculeatus. This is an ideal model organism for evolutionary biologists, most notably because the ancestral, marine population that colonized thousands of freshwater environments around the world still exists. In determining if and how the new population is evolving, it is necessary to understand the source of this morphological variation. Can it be attributed solely to the different environments or has the population indeed diverged genetically? In an attempt to address these issues, fish from both the parental and newly established population are being raised side by side in each of two experimental environments. By varying the environmental conditions for both, we will be able to attribute variation to either genetics (i.e., rapid evolution has occurred), or a response to the environment.

Joselle McCrackenJoselle McCracken

Joselle McCrackenJoselle McCracken

 

ACS-IREU Scholarship to Work at Universität Freiburg, Germany

I am a senior chemistry major with a biology minor. My research experience began in 2007 as a volunteer in the American Dental Association Foundation. I returned there for a summer internship in 2008 and presented results from my work at the 2009 International Association of Dental Research Conference. In 2009 I also began research for MUSE program at The College of New Jersey under the mentorship of Dr. Donald J. Hirsh on an interdisciplinary project spanning biological, physical, and computational chemistry. I continue with this work today as part of my curriculum. In 2010, I received an ACS-IREU Scholarship to work at Universität Freiburg, Germany, under the mentorship of a PhD candidate Mr. Daniel Hautzinger. The project focused on DNA origami, a self-assembling nano-grid formed from M13 phage DNA. I presented results from my work at the 2010 Boston ACS Meeting.

Kelsey van GelderKelsey van Gelder

Kelsey van GelderKelsey van Gelder

Two Chemistry Research Projects – TCNJ and Merck

The summer after my sophomore year, I was asked to join the research group of Dr. David Hunt, working on a project entitled “Toward a Novel Synthesis of Isopestacin.” Isopestacin is an antifungal agent that has previously been synthesized, but in very low yield. When the project ran into difficulty last year, I was instrumental in finding a way around the difficult step, reevaluating and changing the synthetic scheme. The summer following my junior year, I participated in the Future Talent Program at Merck & Co., Inc. as a research intern in the Process Research Catalysis Group. I worked on a project utilizing a novel catalyst system for the hydrogenation of a trisubstituted olefin with an ethyl carboxylate directing group. My task was to fully investigate the activity of this catalyst on substrates with different substitutions on the central ring system, as well as research synthetic applications that could be improved upon by the catalyst system. Both of these experiences were instrumental in shaping my career goals and giving me the skills I need to move on to graduate school.