The Oregon State University Honors College and the OSU Center for Humanities are pleased to announce the recipients of the summer 2022 Honors College-Center for the Humanities Research Internships. Honors College undergraduate applicants submitted proposals jointly with a faculty supervisor, and six teams were selected to participate in this year’s program. Each student will receive a $4,500 summer stipend and faculty advisors will receive $1,000 in summer salary or salary offset.
As in 2021, the 2022 program is supported by a grant from the Marie Lamfrom Charitable Foundation, which was formed in 1998 in honor of Marie Lamfrom and her legacy of support for non-profits throughout Oregon. Co-developed and managed by the Honors College and the Center for the Humanities, the internships support honors undergraduates who are interested in pursuing a career that incorporates perspectives and skills from the humanities, social sciences and the arts and furthers OSU faculty research projects in those areas.
“The generosity of the Marie Lamfrom Charitable Foundation has allowed this program to grow each year since a pilot run in 2019, and it’s with great excitement that we are able to expand the number of internships from five to seven outstanding undergraduates and their faculty mentors this year,” says Christopher McKnight Nichols, the director of the Center for the Humanities during the 2021-2022 academic year. “With projects ranging from graphic design and engineering to public policy and political science, this year’s cohort represents the scope of the research being done by honors students and OSU faculty and the breadth of the real-world issues they strive to address.”
This year’s recipients are Honors College students Ellie Anderson, Ellie Counts, Rebecca Killion, Michael Laun, Sydney Pruitt, Jax Richards and Matilda Stricherz, along with their faculty mentors.
“The opportunity presented by this kind of financial support is unique and can be invaluable to students in the Honors College, particularly for students in the humanities and social sciences,” says Susan Rodgers, associate dean of the Honors College and a professor of English and creative writing. “To see this program evolve and the pool of outstanding applicants continue to grow each year has been a joy, and we are thrilled to partner once again with the Center for the Humanities to support these students in seeing their creative and collaborative efforts come to fruition.”
2022 Research Projects:
- Ellie Anderson, a second-year biochemistry and molecular biology major, will examine the relationship between impulsive behaviors and social media use and their impact on sleep disruption and daytime dysfunction. Ellie will be working with Jessee Dietch, assistant professor in the School of Psychological Science.
- Ellie Counts, a pre-graphic design major who will begin her second year at OSU in the fall of 2022, will be working with Evan Baden, an instructor in the School of Visual, Performing and Design Arts, to design and produce small batches of photobooks geared toward collectors and public collections.
- Aspiring clinical psychologist and third-year OSU student Rebecca Killion will be working with David Kerr, professor in the School of Psychological Sciences, on a project titled, “Efficacy of state alcohol policies at preventing binge drinking and college sexual assaults,” to test whether state-level alcohol policies protect against sexual assaults on students in four-year U.S. colleges.
- Michael Laun, an electrical and computer engineering major, will be working alongside Shaozeng Zhang, assistant professor of anthropology in the School of Language, Culture, and Society; Dr. Nordica MacCarty, associate professor of mechanical engineering in the School of Engineering; OSU graduate students; and researchers at the Oregon non-profit Aprovecho Research Center to create a needs assessment survey to gather information about modifications to existing wood heating systems in tribal and other underserved communities in the Pacific Northwest.
- Sydney Pruitt, a psychology major heading into her senior year, will be working with Regan Gurung, professor of psychology and director of the general psychology program in the School of Psychological Science, to examine factors that influence recreational reading in college and beyond. In particular, Sydney and Dr. Gurung will seek to determine the impact of assigned reading throughout high school and middle school on resistance to reading later in life.
- Quintuple major in economics, political science, public policy, sustainability and speech communications, honors senior Jax Richards will examine public perceptions of family-related policy and public assistance programs and how those perceptions influence policy development. Jax will complete this research project alongside his honors thesis mentor, Catherine Bolzendahl, director of the School of Public Policy in the College of Liberal Arts.
- Working with David Bernell, associate professor of political science, political science major Matilda Stricherz will research the adverse impacts of neoliberal reforms in Argentina and Brazil and the history of and alternatives to the neoliberal approach.
In the fall, students will present their work to the public at a special showcase event.
By: Adriana Fischer, Media and Communications Representative
CATEGORIES: All Stories Courses and Faculty Features Homestories Students Uncategorized