Author Archives: Mackenzie Smith

“Willed Women”: Studying Medieval Literature at OSU

An image of the second nun from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

When asked to trace her love of literature to its origins, Emily McLemore returns to her babyhood. “My dad started reading to me from the day I was born, so my love of reading started early,” she says. Last month, Emily defended her Master of Arts thesis, “Willed Women: Female Bodies & Subversive Being in the Knight’s and Second Nun’s Tales.”

Her path to studying medieval literature began as an undergraduate at Western State Colorado University. Before attending WSCU, she worked a series of jobs but always knew that she wanted to return to college and become a teacher. Emily studied English, with an added emphasis in Secondary Education, but when she began student teaching in an eighth grade classroom, she quickly realized it wasn’t for her. She had read Beowulf in one of her undergraduate courses, and that experience helped her recall what she loves about literature and textual analysis: learning to illuminate the complexities of a narrative to understand its meanings and cultural connections.

Emily McLemore

She applied to one graduate school program—the MA in Literature and Culture at Oregon State—and was admitted with a position as a Graduate Teaching Associate. Once at Oregon State, she met with Professor Tara Williams, who recommended that she read the Second Nun’s Tale, one of the lesser-known Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Emily began to consider how women, gender, and sexuality studies might be a lens through which to read this tale. Along with another Canterbury Tale, the Knight’s Tale, she formed an argument around how the women in these texts employ their bodies and their sexuality to confront and subvert patriarchal power structures. Her thesis tackles these two tales and their “willful women,” a subject that she presented on last month at the International Congress on Medieval Studies. Emily will continue to study these works and other medieval texts this fall as she begins a PhD in English at the University of Notre Dame.

The Ellesmere Chaucer, a 15th century manuscript of the Canterbury Tales.

To learn more about Emily’s research and her path to graduate school, tune in to hear our conversation on Sunday, June 11th at 7:00 pm on 88.7 FM KBVR Corvallis or listen live online.

Motor proteins—and people—can change directionality

It took three years of adventures after college—including stints as a ski instructor, barista and a commercial chemist—before Andrew Popchock knew that he wanted to return to the lab to pursue a PhD at OSU’s Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics.

Two microtubules slide across each other by the walking of motor proteins sandwiched between them

Andrew’s research takes place at Dr. Weihong Qiu’s Single-Molecule Biophysics Laboratory and focuses on kinesin-14s—motor proteins found in eukaryotic cells. These motor proteins in cells travel along microtubules to create and maintain the mitotic spindle, which are macromolecular structures that are responsible for chromosome segregation during cell division.

By using an imaging technique called TIRF microscopy, a team of researchers from Dr. Qiu’s lab discovered that a kinesin-14 found in fungus cells called KlpA can change direction along its cytoskeleton tracks. KlpA is the first motor protein of its kind that researchers have discovered that demonstrates this type of bidirectional movement. The results of their study were recently published in Nature Communications.

Total Internal Reflection Fluorscence (TIRF) microscopy image of two microtubules sliding across each other

The motor protein that Andrew studies could be important in helping researchers understand cancer growth. This could have implications for drug treatment therapy, potentially guiding the creation of motor protein-based molecular devices for more controlled drug delivery in cancer treatments.

 

Andrew on the Oregon Coast

Growing up, Andrew was interested in physics and biology, but it wasn’t until he worked in a lab under the direction of a graduate student at Washington State University that he began to consider graduate studies. While working as a chemist in Idaho, he realized that he quickly reached the limit of his creative capacity and that returning to a laboratory as a graduate student at OSU would help him continue to develop his skills as a researcher.

To learn more about Andrew’s research and his path to graduate school, tune in to hear our conversation on Sunday, May 14th at 7:00 pm on 88.7 FM KBVR Corvallis or listen live online.

Diving for Discovery

Jon and others looking at the way that light passes through an obsidian artifact

Jon Krier was six-years-old when he found his first skull. He was on a walk with his mother in Wales, Alaska where his father worked as a surveyor. “She immediately told me to put it down,” he said. But he couldn’t shake his fascination: Where did the skull come from? Why did it have so many holes? Years later, after interviewing an elder, he learned that the area was the site of an ancient battle between the Siberian Yupik and Iñupiat tribes. Jon’s curiosity into humanity’s past grew throughout his childhood as he wandered the plains of Alaska, conducted experiments with the science kit that he toted around, and dissected animals he found.

 
After a detour in the security field in his twenties, Jon returned to college to study his passion, archaeology. He’s currently a Master of Arts candidate in Applied Anthropology; his primary research focus lies in helping locate former settlements along the Oregon coast and the Bering Sea. Under the direction of his advisor, ecological anthropologist Drew Gerkey and archaeologist Loren Davis, Jon uses geographic information systems to recreate ice age landscapes as far back as 20,000 years. The goal of this project is to predict the location of underwater archaeological sites off of the Oregon coast, as well as his childhood home along the Bering Sea.

Jon volunteering at the 2014 Connley Caves Field School, where he’s been volunteering for the last three years.

These predictive models are a potentially important key in locating possible underwater sites. Coastlines have shifted over the last 20,000 years, making it difficult to find and excavate former coastal settlements. If located, these sites can preserve important artifacts of the lives of our coastal predecessors.

Jon is also invested in employing native historical and cultural knowledge in his research. For a recent project, “20,000 Year of Isostatically Adjusted Paleoshorelines for Northern Oregon: the Tillamook Peninsula,” Jon worked with Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde to incorporate traditional knowledge into his research. The Tribes’ input included identifying place names and culturally important locations into the models. This helped researchers understand the cultural, geographic and natural resources of the area.

Jon inspects an artifact he found on a survey.

To learn more about Jon’s research and his journey to graduate school, tune in to hear our conversation on Sunday, January 29th at 7:00 pm on 88.7 FM KBVR Corvallis or listen live online.

Horse Farms to Tree Farms: Studying the Relationship Between Land Management and Biodiversity

If you wander forests of the Oregon Coast Range you might encounter a strange sight: exclosures made of timber and steel-braided wire, standing in a clear-cut forest. These exclosures, which stand 100-feet long, 50-feet wide and 8-feet high, are the research and work of Thomas Stokely, a PhD candidate in the department of Forest Ecosystems & Society in the College of Forestry. The exclosures were constructed to study the impact of deer and elk grazing on tree growth, and to address a larger research question in forestry management: What does intensive forest management mean for biodiversity?

Completion of exclosure construction in the Oregon Coast Range

Completion of exclosure construction in Oregon Coast Range

To study the impact of deer and elk on commercial tree growth, Thomas constructed constructed 28 stands in which a team of researchers manipulated the intensity of herbicide spray treatments in each area (non-sprayed, light, moderate and intensive herbicide treatments). For six years, under the direction of his adviser Matthew Betts, Thomas and has measured plant communities, arthropods, herbivory and plantation development inside these exclosures and in open plots where wildlife is allowed free access.

Thomas Stokely cutting fence rows through logging slash and large stumps to construct wildlife exclosures

PhD student, Thomas Stokely cutting fence rows through logging slash and large stumps to construct wildlife exclosures

The exclosure research in the Oregon Coast Range relates to Thomas’s goals as a scientist who’s invested in understanding how industry impacts biodiversity. “As the world population grows, we need more resources,” he said. “We want to value the product, but we also value biodiversity and wildlife habitat. Is there a way we can manage for both timber production and wildlife habitat? If so, what role do biodiversity and wildlife play in the management of natural resources? If management alters biodiversity or excludes wildlife, what are the implications for ecosystem functioning?” These are questions that continue to drive his research and his career path.

Mature Roosevelt elk bulls browsing through a plantation with exclosure in the background

Mature Roosevelt elk bulls browsing through a plantation with exclosure in the background

Thomas has been interested in plant-animal interactions and the environment since he was a child. Growing up on a horse farm in southwest Missouri, he watched horses grazing and wondered about their relationship with the habitat in and around the farm. He first considered studying the policy side of humanity’s relationship with the natural world, but political science wasn’t a good fit—he wanted to pursue a more hands-on approach to studying biodiversity. After reading about the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone, he knew he wanted to work directly with land and habitat management. He earned a BS in environmental science at University of Missouri before coming to Oregon State. Upon completing his PhD, Thomas plans to work in applied ecology where he hopes to use science to guide land management and conservancy practices.

Tune in to hear our conversation with Thomas Stokely on Sunday, November 13th at 7:00 pm on 88.7 FM KBVR Corvallis or listen live online.