On Friday, April 22, sixteen students presented their research at the 17th Annual Massachusetts Statewide Undergraduate Research Conference at UMass Amherst. Seven students gave papers and nine gave poster presentations, sponsored by eight WSU faculty members from five different departments.
Maureen Carroll (faculty sponsor: Stephen Healy, Geography), presented a paper titled, “Empowering Development: Strategies for building functional group spaces in worker cooperatives.” Professor Douglas Frink, also of the Geography Department, attended the conference in her support.
Sociology student Gary A. Marinin (faculty sponsor: Matthew Johnsen) gave a presentation titled, “Poverty and Inequality.”
Jessica L. LaVoice and Christina M. Foley presented a paper on “The Financial Literacy of College Students.” They were sponsored by Elizabeth Wark and Janice Yee of the Business Administration and Economics Department. Also in Economics, Brendan Hannen (faculty sponsor, William O’Brien) gave a presentation titled, “The Predictive Power of the U.S. Auto Market.”
In Chemistry, Jonathan M. Gorky (faculty sponsor: Eihab Jaber) presented on “Thermodynamics of the Bifurcated Hydrogen Bonding Formations of Guanine Tetrameres” and in the same session, Mitchell J. Sumner, a Holy Cross student studying with Professor Meghna Dilip, presented “Partitioning Heavy Metals Using Aqueous Biphasic Systems.”
Several Chemistry students also gave poster presentations of their research. Professor Eihab Jaber sponsored the following students:
Kweku Acquah, “Stabilization Studies of Metal-Chelating Complexes via Computational Method”
Nicole M. Hanna, “Metal Chelating Molecular Modeling of N,N’-di-2-picolyl-1,3-Propanediamine Structures”
Kyle C. O’Donnell, “A Computational Study on the Formation of Carbon Monoxide Polymeric Chains”
Nitya L. Durvasula (Holy Cross), “Molecular Modeling of Catalytic Ozone Destruction by the Hydroxyl Radical”
Elias D. Morroe, “Computational Analysis of the Confirmation of Heme iHemoglobin”
Also in Chemistry, Professor Meghna Dilip sponsored:
Bradford Spencer, “Partitioning of metals using ionic liquid based aqueous biphasic systems”
Jonathan M. Parrella, “Caffeine Extraction Using Supercritical CO2”
Keith Dusoe, “Solvatochromic Studies of Salt-salt Aqueous Biphasic Systems”
Psychology student Leah M. Ritacco, sponsored by Professor Seth Surgan, gave a poster presentation of her research titled, “Gendered Patterns of Facebook Usage: An Analysis of Social Capital.”
Congratulations to all the energetic and articulate student participants and to their faculty sponsors.
Submitted by Josna Rege, Associate Professor of English; WSU Campus Contact, Massachusetts Statewide Undergraduate Research Conference