This week, the yearly Honors Scholars and Undergraduate Research Poster Symposium hosted a variety of upperclassmen in defending their Honors research, along with other students presenting work done for Undergraduate Research Scholarships. Honors research, a requirement for every graduating Honors student, is a capstone project within the students’ major that illuminates the academic skills they have garnered in their undergraduate years. I interviewed some defending Honors researchers as well as other undergrad researchers about their work, how they got into it, and how they enjoyed it.
Lauren Butler (senior, Spanish and biology)
What is your research?
I’m researching whether there is seasonal variation in phonotaxis in female crickets. Phonotaxis is when the female cricket moves towards the male cricket in response to a mating sound—the chirping that you commonly hear. This chirp is composed of three sound pulses, similarly to how our names have syllables, and some sound pulses are more attractive to some species of crickets. There are a lot of variables that affect phonotaxic behaviors, and I was looking at whether or not there is any kind of seasonal variation. I did a lot of data analysis of pre-existing data spanning around seven years, and wound up finding that it is not likely that there is a seasonal variation in this species of cricket.
How did you get into this research?
I thought that the neurobiology aspect of it was very interesting. I also was very interested in working with Dr. Navia, who is a great research mentor, and so I ended up working on this project.
How do you like it?
I like it okay! It’s a lot of work, but it is very rewarding.
Caryn Cruz (senior, English)
What is your research?
I’m analyzing a show called “I May Destroy You” and I’m looking into how it uses intersectional approaches when addressing rape culture and sexual assault; specifically how it depicts survivorhood through its three main characters.
Could you define intersectionality?
It’s an analytical framework that is often used to understand human experiences more holistically; through often-stacked identities like race, gender, etc.
How did you do this research?
After I had picked the text, I picked the show apart as it applied to the primary and secondary sources that framed my thesis—it was a lot of very careful detail work.
How did you get into this research?
I knew I wanted to do something related to rape culture, and I wound up picking up the show because I had heard a lot of people hailing the show as one of the best depictions of survivorhood on screen — I couldn’t resist it.
How do you like it?
Honestly, it’s hard getting into it. But I will say that there is a sense of accomplishment that you feel when you are done, like right now. My freshman year, I almost dropped out of honors because of how daunting this part of it was, coming into it and finishing all the deadlines was really not that rough.
Kara Shepard (senior, physics)
What is your research?
I’ve been doing research with the LIGO gravitational wave observatory – the instruments have to be super sensitive to detect distances in spacetime, and so because of this they are super susceptible to noise. They call these ‘glitches,’ and I have been looking at a particular glitch called the ‘helix glitch’ to try to discern where it is coming from. LIGO has a database where they keep all of their glitches, where they list when it occurred, the frequency, etc. I extracted all of the glitches, and looked at each specific time that the issue occurred and tried to see any similarities in what happened with the instruments. It seems that the biggest cause of it is an issue with a calibration for an auxiliary laser, although there are some outliers that do not seem to be caused by lasers that warrant further research.
How did you get into this research?
I started with Dr. Summerscales, who has now left, and she found this project called Gravity Spy where there were some people trying to classify the glitches, and so I got started with them that way.
How do you like it?
I do like it. I don’t know if it's my favorite thing in the world, but it has been very interesting. I particularly liked reading the log about the little things that caused the glitches—one time a scientist dropped a chair and caused a glitch. Little things like that have made it more fun.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.