Women in Science
Amazing Summer
( & Semester )
Experiences
Lauren 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.
Lauren Jane Klein
Jennifer 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.
Jennifer Urban
Jillian Stark
School for Field Studies Center for
Rainforest Studies in Queensland,
Australia
I 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.
Jillian Stark
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.
Megan Torpey
Sarah 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.
Sarah Smith
Siobhan 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.
Siobhan Loughman Sabino
Kaitlyn 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.
Kaitlyn Schiels
Joselle 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.
Joselle McCracken
Kelsey 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.
Kelsey van Gelder