Stirring up Science

GAMBIER, Ohio (June 11, 2007) Malnourished children at Knox County Head Start are overweight and underfed.

Discovering why some Head Start classmates suffer childhood obesity and others can't get enough to eat is the goal of related student anthropology projects coordinated through the 2007 Summer Science Scholars Program.

The program provides a fellowship award of $3,000 this summer to each of 37 students in the fields of anthropology, biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics, and psychology. Students work on campus or in the field under the close mentorship of a faculty member on academic queries that often lead to presentations at national conferences and evolve into honors projects. Presentations at national conferences by Kenyon undergraduates may capture the fancy of graduate schools.

Bruce Hardy, assistant professor of anthropology, is shepherding the work of Allegra Fety, Class of 2009, of Rogue River, Oregon, as she tackles a nutritional assessment of preschool-age children in Knox County. In a related anthropology project, Katharine Sanders, Class of 2008, of Bethesda, Maryland, is focusing on infant feeding trends and nutritional repercussions in Knox County, under the direction of Kimmarie Murphy, assistant professor of anthropology.

"This program gives the student the chance to do actual, direct research work with a faculty mentor," Hardy said. "Students have the impetus to come forward and write a proposal. It's great."

The eight-week summer program bears fruit in October with public presentation of the work.

Here is a list of other Summer Science Scholars, fields of study, and project titles:

Joel Beckett, Class of 2008; chemistry; exploration of novel pyridine synthesis.

David Black, Class of 2009; chemistry; direct nanoscale investigation of metal oxide surfaces during crystal growth.

James Boston, Class of 2009; mathematics; modeling the Manduca sexta.

Sara Brinda, Class of 2008; biology; telomeres, survival, and individual quality in a wild population of Savannah sparrows.

Elizabeth Carlton, Class of 2009; biology; foot color as an honest signal of quality in black guillemots.

Sarah Cleeton, Class of 2009; biology; pH dependent gene expression in Bacillus subtilis.

Laura Czarnecki, Class of 2008; mathematics; exploring the abundancy of o(p).

Pushkar Dahal, Class of 2008; physics; phase separation on the surface of a sphere.

Ann Downer, Class of 2008; biology; expression and characterization of the Na-K-Cl cotransporter protein, masBSC, in Sf9 cells.

Stuart Fety, Class of 2009; biology; incubation and immune function in the long-lived seabird Leach's storm-petrel (Oceanodroma leucorhoa).

Hilary Frank, Class of 2009; biology; parental factors influencing facultative adjustment of offspring sex-ratios in eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis).

Anna Frutiger, Class of 2009; biology; morphological growth of the midgut of the tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta) in relation to body surface area.

Elisa Garcia, Class of 2008; psychology; meta-analytic review of second language learning and socioeconomically disadvantaged children.

Tom Geiger, Class of 2009; psychology; meta-analytic study comparing self-esteem in athletes vs. non-athletes.

Allison Goldsmith, Class of 2009; chemistry; characterization of PBPLma, a pheromone-binding protein in Leucophaca maderae.

Thomas Gonyea, Class of 2008; anthropology; use of residential architecture in political strategies through a case study from the Classic Period (AD 200-900) Center of El Cafetal, El Paraíso Valley, Department of Copan, Honduras.

Ellie Hansen, Class of 2010; chemistry; computational analysis of neuron and astrocyte communication.

Stephanie Hemmingson, Class of 2008; chemistry; synthesis and analysis of indolyl ligands to create cyclic initiators for ring-opening polymerization.

Christian Hinderer, Class of 2010; psychology; sex differences in defensive behavior in response to 22-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations.

Sarah Holzman, Class of 2008; biology; sequence determinants of ligand binding affinity by the Xenopus laevis aryl hydrocarbon receptor.

Amy Kessler, Class of 2009; biology; effect of alliaria on species-specific distribution of trees in the BBF and its relation to the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

Kaleb Keyserling, Class of 2009; biology; effect of fertilization on mycorrhizal disruption in the forest community by the invasive Alliaria petiolata.

Joey Konieczny, Class of 2008; physics; benchmarking the new Miller Observatory site.

Leo Laub, Class of 2009; biology; functional differences in aryl hydrocarbon receptor paralogs from the frog Xenopus laevis.

Thomas Linz, Class of 2009; physics; computer modeling of colloids between two plates.

Nirajan Mandal, Class of 2010; physics; electron and phonon energy levels in ZnMgTe alloys.

Michael Northcutt, Class of 2008; biology; expressing SCP and PMCA3 of Procambarus clarkii in a cell line to study protein coordination and regulation in Ca2+ transport.

Andrew Pohlman, Class of 2010; chemistry; chemical bonds between ZnO crystal surfaces and organic molecules.

Rex Rodriguez, Class of 2009; biology; biological analyses of metabolic scaling relationships in lab-bred and wild-type Manduca sexta.

Michael Schnapp, Class of 2008; psychology; depression and perceptual speed.

Carlin Shoemaker, Class of 2008; psychology; media influence on adolescents and emerging adults.

Shaina Stewart, Class of 2009; biology; sex-specific honest signals in black guillemots.

Ellen Thompson, Class of 2009; biology; how garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) affects seedling establishment and herbivory in natural and experimental communities.

Alexandra White, Class of 2009; biology; effects of cold acclimation and the molt cycle on the plasma membrane Ca2+ ATPase binding protein calmodulin.