50 students present projects spanning a variety of academic areas

As the students from the 15th annual undergraduate research forum presented their work yesterday, a variety of investigations on some very detailed subjects got their long-awaited time in the spotlight.

About 50 students participated in the event, which showcased work from a wide range of academic disciplines, from biology to geography.

A map can show just about anything, said regional development senior Johann Chacko. "But can a map show violence?" Trying to find an answer to this question, he began searching two daily newspapers of Sri Lanka for their coverage of violent events relating to the civil war there.

"I used the media to find the important indicators to the level of violence," he said. Then, Chacko counted the indicators and compared them to see if mapping the violent events geographically is feasible.

"I found that it was possible to map violence, but there are some problems. I could go deeper into the data, and I'd like to take this further," he said.

Anthropology senior A. Ashley Stinnett took to the streets herself to collect data for her project, "A Day in the Life of a Congressman."

Stinnett followed Arizona Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe for more than a year and took almost 100 hours of videotape of him speaking in order to learn about the coverage of local issues on a national level.

From local town meetings to Capitol Hill, Stinnett followed Kolbe's speeches to "find out how people were heard, and what Kolbe did to push the issues" of his constituents.

"I found that if your interests are on the same lines as the elected official it's easier to get represented nationally," she said.

Psychology senior Ilanit Tal's research took her to Mexico and Costa Rica, where she studied the "culture of honor" in different societies.

Previous studies on that culture in farming and herding communities show herders tend to develop the culture, which involves responses to insults and defending of reputation, as a means of self-protection.

The researchers "said this culture of honor wouldn't exist in hunter-gatherer societies, and I decided I was going to prove them wrong," Tal said.

In two small fishing villages of Mexico and Costa Rica, Tal gave questionnaires to locals to determine the level of the culture of honor in these societies, the most basic type of hunter-gatherer society.

On the culture of honor scale, the fishermen scored differently in Mexico and Costa Rica, but their levels were comparable to that of herders.

"I was surprised with the results, but they still show that the ecology of a region will affect the level of culture of honor of the people that live there," she said.

Molecular and cellular biology senior Thomas Rogers applied his background in biology to the study of soil, water and environmental sciences with his project on a disease-causing bacteria.

For the past three years, Rogers has been working on ways to get a particularly resistant bacteria to respond to antibiotics with a substance previously used as an environmental cleaning agent. He found that the bacterial walls did indeed break down with the introduction of the new substance, making them easier to kill.

"This is the first time someone has used this in a medical application. It's innovative," he said. "Nobody knows about it yet. Of course, there will have to be more tests before it can be used on humans."

Applications for next year's research grant spots, which are open to any undergraduate student, can be picked up at the Honors College and are due March 6.