Through Mount Saint Mary College’s annual Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE), more than two dozen enthusiastic student scholars conducted their own diverse research projects this year.
Due to the need for social distancing, students enjoyed performing research over a single virtual session, instead of the usual two summer sessions.
As in years past, Mount professors from across disciplines acted as mentors to the students as they explored a plethora of subjects. This season, students and faculty created nearly two dozen research projects. The effort is coordinated by Evan Merkhofer, assistant professor of Biology.
Emily Mazzurco of Middletown, N.Y. researched how Mount professors shifted courses online last semester in her project, “COVID Teaching: Thrown into the Deep Water of Online Teaching – Did We Learn to Swim?” Mazzurco worked with her mentor, Yasmine Kalkstein, associate professor of Psychology. Mazzurco and Kalkstein administered a questionnaire to Mount professors in March – as the college transitioned to online learning in the face of the pandemic – and another one in May, after the end of the Spring 2020 semester.
The data showed that after an adjustment period, most of the professors said the switch to online instruction had a positive effect on their overall teaching abilities, introducing them to new teaching tools that they planned to use in their face-to-face classes.
“The pandemic provided us with a deeper understanding of faculty development…you must experience a storm to know how to weather it,” - Emily Mazzurco.
Two of this year’s SURE projects collaborated in an effort to benefit Bishop Dunn Memorial School, a Pre-K to eighth grade school in the Catholic tradition that is located on the campus of Mount Saint Mary College. The first is “Using Math Trails to Bring Math to Life” by Charles Benfer of Milton, N.Y., a Mount Mathematics major on the Education track, and faculty mentors Mike Daven and Lee Fothergill, professors of Mathematics.
For the third year in a row, the team worked on their Math Trails project. A Math Trail is a set of activities in which participants explore mathematics in a real-life setting, explained Benfer. Each activity on the trail is designed to be connected to a specific feature of a location, such as finding the radius of a carousel on a playground.
“An easy way for us to get students to start thinking like mathematicians is to ask them to look at the world around them,” Benfer explained. “We don’t want students to look at a page in a textbook, we want them to go outside and see it’s a rectangular prism that’s filled up with a certain amount of dirt – and that’s volume. It’s not a picture on a page, it’s real volume.”
Last year as part of the Math Trails project, Benfer and several other students helped to create a sensory garden – an outdoor learning space intended for use by students in Pre-K through college – and Bishop Dunn.
But this year, Benfer and his mentors, Daven and Fothergill, took the Math Trails concept one step further through a collaboration with another SURE project, “Live Life Cleaner, Make it Greener” by Lindsay Byer of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. and Kathleen Murray of Highland Mills, N.Y. with mentor Sonya Abbye-Taylor, associate professor of Education.
The two SURE groups decided to team up to help the children of Bishop Dunn learn about the sustainability of our planet, including concepts like recycling, conserving water, and composting.
“We joined forces with the common goal of working to make the Bishop Dunn Memorial School community, already known for its initiative of teaching kindness to others, to be kind to the Earth as well,” explained Taylor. “We have had the privilege of working with three remarkable students to bring the project to life.”
Together, Benfer, Byer, Murray, and their mentors created a Summer Math Club at Bishop Dunn, developed Math Trails that related to the benefits of sustainability practices, and more. The summer Math Club consisted of 25 students and focused on graphing, plotting, and environmental concepts. In addition, a composting area at Bishop Dunn is slated for completion during next year’s SURE sessions.
Other SURE projects included “Annotation of Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic Genomes” by Eleanora Robinson of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. and Sabina Zarod of Poughquag, N.Y. with mentors Evan Merkhofer, assistant professor of Biology, and Suparna Bhalla, associate professor of Biology; “Best Practices for Hybrid Teaching During the COVID-19 Spring Semester and Implementations It Gives Flipped Teaching” by Serena Lucarelli of Watertown, Conn. with mentor Jodie Fahey, associate professor of Chemistry; “Knight Lights: Paving the Way for Newburgh Community Literacy Experiences” by Leila Saleh of Ansonia, Conn. and Toriana Tabasco of Hillsdale, N.J. with mentors Janine Bixler, professor of Education, and Becky Norman, associate professor of Education; “Potential of Using Licorice Derived Compounds Liquiritigenin and Isoliquiritigenin to Treat Cancer in Aspects of Inhibiting Tumor Cell Proliferation and Metastasis” by Linjun Xu of Brooklyn, N.Y. and mentor Bhalla; “Annotation of Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic Genomes” by Jayda Cavanaugh of Wolcott, Conn. and James Desrochers of Watertown, Conn. with mentors Merkhofer and Bhalla; “User Interface Redesign and Rebuild of CoLab” by Julia Loda of North Haven, Conn. with mentor Micah Modell, assistant professor of Information Technology; “Who’s on What?: Identifying Patterns in Work Related to Cultural Property Crime” by Angelina Dragonetti of Poughquag, N.Y. and Anthony Caminitti of Mahopac, N.Y. with mentor Kate Burmon, assistant professor of Criminology; “Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of Snake Hill Report” by Alexandra Steinberg of Chester, N.Y. and mentor Tom Sarro, professor of Biology; “Mathematical Modeling of the Coronavirus” by Sarah Canzone of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. with mentor Christina Alvey, assistant professor of Mathematics; “Annotation of Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic Genomes” by Erica Eack of Middletown, N.Y., Mateo Antonio-Lopez of Poughkeepsie, N.Y, and Ishaan Brissette of Highland, N.Y. with mentors Merkhofer and Bhalla; “The Design Process and Accessibility in Web Design” by Justin Parker of Mineola, N.Y. and mentor Modell; an untitled project by Ricardo Ramirez of Middletown, N.Y. and mentor Modell; “How Low Can We Go: Methods For Testing the Effects of Exercise Intensity on the Body” by Chandlir Radcliffe of Elka Park, N.Y. with mentor Elizabeth Harper, assistant professor of Biology; “Exploring the Impact of the Poverty Simulation During the Time of the Coronavirus” by Lauren Desrats of Warwick, N.Y. and Jessica Wall of Middletown, N.Y. with mentor Taylor; “A Comparative Analysis Between the North American Free Trade Agreement and the United States Canada Mexico Agreement” by Alexander Perlak of West Hempstead, N.Y. and mentor A. Reza Hossain, associate professor of Economics; an untitled project by Cindy Vaquero of Newburgh, N.Y. and mentor Modell; and “The Effects of Thyroxine on Tree Frog Metamorphosis” by Sharifa Kelly of Monroe, N.Y. and mentor Carl Hoegler, professor of Biology.