The Honors College at Eastern Michigan University

Honors QuarterlyVolume 5: Issue 3, June 2018

• Madison Trace Presents Sociology Research at Conference

• Jacob Rickerd Develops Customized Hacker Protection

• Kangkana Koli Pursues Two Undergraduate Research Projects

• Yeliani Valdez Studies Violence Against Women

• Fall 2017 Graduates• Jesse Smith Conducts Research Through

the Chemistry Department• Rebecca McSorley Conducts Research with

Dr. Thomas Mast

As a reader, writer, and editor of multiple academic newsletters, I’ve always been amused by the propen-sity of writers, including myself, to situate our messages within a season by describing the weather outside of our offices. This impulse makes sense as academic years are cyclical and the clichés linking education to gardening and harvesting carry ker-nels of truth. Writing this message while sunlight streams through the

A Message from Dr. Ramona Caponegro, Associate Director of The Honors College

Dr. Ramona Caponegro

window and the temperature inches upward, I’m amazed to realize that my first academic year at The Hon-ors College is over and that we are now entering the season of planning and making preparations for the up-coming fall and winter.

I joined the college in mid-August, 2017, after six years as a facul-ty member in the Department of English Language and Literature, during which time I was already very active in The Honors College. As an undergraduate, I was a Presi-dential Scholar and Honors student at Saint Louis University, where my first Honors class captivated me completely. I fell in love with inter-disciplinary research, with asking and discussing complicated ques-tions that lack easy answers, and with considering the ethical, intel-lectual, and practical implications of creating art and conducting re-search.

My Honors senior thesis about teaching social justice through chil-dren’s books led me to earn a mas-ter’s degree and a doctorate in chil-dren’s literature and culture at the University of Florida, and upon

joining the faculty at EMU, I was delighted to find a vibrant and wel-coming Honors community.

Now in a new role within this com-munity, I’m excited to be making plans for the 2018-2019 academic year with Dr. Mary K. Ramsey, the interim Assistant Vice President for The Honors College. We look for-ward to continuing Honors tradi-tions, such as the Star Lecture series and the excursion to the Stratford Festival. We’re also undertaking dif-ferent initiatives, such as developing guidelines to deepen the reflective components of the Honors Expe-riences for University Honors and encouraging and promoting more creative and community-based proj-ects, alongside traditional analyt-ical theses, for Departmental and Highest Honors. My fundamental aim is to provide Honors students with multiple opportunities to grow intellectually, creatively, and empa-thetically each season, and I’m ea-ger to work with faculty, staff, and students to develop these opportu-nities.

Madison Trace Presents Sociology Research at Conferenceby Madison Trace

This past August, I had the in-valuable opportunity to attend the Society for the Study of So-cial Problems’ annual conference and present my research. For the past two years, I had been observing the quantitative rela-tionship between past trauma, self-control, and teen dating vio-lence perpetration.

With the guidance of my facul-ty mentor, Dr. Roger Kernsmith from the Sociology Department, I was able write a paper on my findings and present it.

While I was there, I was able to

learn much more about social problems I had not been previ-ously familiar with by attending different sessions of the confer-ence. It was great to hear from other researchers and talk to them about topics they were pas-sionate about. It was extremely rewarding to see and share the end product of the hard work I put in throughout my under-graduate career.

Ultimately, I do not think that I would have had this opportunity without The Honors College. Not only did their funding help, but I most likely would not have had

Jacob Rickerd Develops Customized Hacker Protectionby Jacob Rickerd

My name is Jacob Rickerd, and I am a senior studying information assurance. I am developing a cus-tom network security appliance that will implement my custom framework to profile attackers.

This project will be the culmi-nation of three semesters of research. My current research project, phase three, is to create a custom network security appli-ance that will incorporate what I have learned from the com-parison analysis and my custom framework. This security appli-ance will use the profiles I creat-ed during phase two to more effi-ciently block malicious attackers in comparison to other security appliances, which I studied as part of phase one. To make the appliance easier to manage, I will also be creating a web-based front end for administrators.

Doing this research has been in-credibly influential to my aca-demic success here at EMU. The ability to come up with an idea

the motivation and support to do my own research otherwise.

and work to contribute to my field of study is something I val-ue deeply.

Another opportunity that pur-suing research has allowed me is to work closely with my faculty mentor, Dr. James Banfield, to brainstorm, problem solve, and innovate. This collaboration has opened up my mind to new ways of thinking and provided me with a learning experience that I could not have gained in the classroom. Finally, pursuing re-search has assisted me in landing job offers and internships from big name companies in my field of study, such as Amazon and Duo Security.

Kangkana Koli Pursues Two Undergraduate Research Projects

by Kangkana Koli

Project OneThe racial category of Asian has been designated to refer to a group of people from a certain part of the world who, dependent on region, actual-ly have completely different cultures, languages, and even physical features. This rais-es the question of whether Americans even recognize the specific ethnicities within this pan-ethnic identity of Asian.

This project will seek the answers to several different questions regarding political attitudes toward Asian Amer-icans.

First, do Americans think Asians are even capable of holding important political positions? How does the dif-

ference in ethnicity affect how Asian Americans are perceived when running for political office; i.e., do Americans regard one Asian identity as being better suited for political office than an-other? Do Americans recognize Asians as having their own sep-arate ethnic identities or iden-tify them all with the greater pan-ethnic identity of Asian?

For a long time the racial identity of Asian has forced people into a category that is unrepresentative of them. This can no longer con-tinue; by bringing light to such questions, I hope to contribute to the beginnings of more conversa-tions surrounding the political attitudes directed toward Asian Americans.

This project speaks directly to my experience as a South Asian immigrant in the United States, and I can think of no better way than to end my academic career than writing this senior thesis.

Project Two

The phenomenon of religious ex-tremism has always been studied in a historical setting. Scholars are interested in what the caus-es of such extremism are or what leads people to identify with such movements.

This project looks at the effect of religious extremism on levels

of development. Most re-searchers have looked at the relationship between secular attitudes and development, or between religious extrem-ism and terrorism, but there is a lack of literature making the connection between ex-tremism and development. Using data collected from various cross-national reli-gious study centers updated through 2011, this project examines whether religious extremism limits a country’s capacity for development.

The results show that reli-gious extremism is a difficult variable to measure, and suggests a stronger relation-ship between secular state policies and development.

I first began studying this question my freshman year of college and have been collecting data for almost 4 years now. The development of this initial project into a completed research project is an academic accomplish-ment I will always be proud of.

Yeliani Valdez Studies Violence Against Women

by Yeliani Valdez

As a woman, it can be ex-hausting to continue to ac-commodate men’s violence. We teach girls how to dress, talk, be polite, and stay safe in order to prevent men’s vi-olence from occurring. But what are we doing to prevent men from being violent and harming women?

Violence is now being treated as a public health issue, where we are seeking prevention. In order to prevent men from becoming abusers, we must re-educate them and their be-haviors.

My research question will be looking at which programs are available for batterers and

which ones are currently work-ing. Do these programs hold men accountable for their actions? Do these programs talk about gen-der norms, masculinity, and priv-ilege?

According to the World Health Organization, violence inflicted on women has long been socially accepted in our society; this idea is passed through social and cul-tural norms. The normalization of abuse against women has been structurally supported and re-mains extremely harmful.

My research focuses on batterer intervention programs, which fo-cus on holding men accountable for their actions through a re-ed-ucation model.

I am interested in learning more about this topic be-cause in order to help wom-en, we need to help men too. It sounds bizarre: wanting to help the perpetrator in-stead of the victim but in this case, helping the perpetrator will help the victim. There are controversies in this ap-proach. However, I feel like by focusing on men’s violence against women, we can at-tempt to raise a generation of men who see women as equals: men who will not be victims of their own masculinity but rather advocates for women, not because they are “sisters” or “moms,” but because they are simply human.

This research project has al-tered my path into pursuing a graduate career in research. After graduation, I plan to pursue a Ph.D. in social work so I can continue to research solutions to major social is-sues.

Fall 2017 GraduatesThanu Abraham

Clara AldrichAbigail Anderson

Neha BakshiJoshua BauerleKelsey Bercher

Anna BowerTasnia ChowdhuryAshley Compton

Laura DarnellJohn Davis

Samantha DeRosiaKyana Dixie

Brent DuddlesSara Dudzik

Alexandra GebhardtLula Geyre

Alysia GreigMegan Halstead

Taylor HanesMelissa Kalfayan

Jaclyn KuceraSarah Lally

Mary LaPierreChelsea LobbMegan Loose

Emily LundhJoseph Magnuson

Jennifer McCafferyErin McGuireNicole Minor

Christopher Mitropoulos-RundusDeborah Munganga

Haley QuinnNicole RobinsonSamantha RyanAmber Schmitt

Prima ShahSanduni Silva

Mason StewartSenja StinsonJessica SwartzMadison Trace

Leah UnderwoodKatherine Valek

Allison WeberAmanda Weise

Melody WesselingBrianne Wheeler

Megan WurtzTorry Yu

Jesse Smith Conducts Research Through the Chemistry Department

by Jesse Smith

I have been doing research with Dr. Steven Backues for two years and am currently writing my senior thesis. In research, I examine autophagy, an intra-cellular process used for degra-dation of material.

In autophagy, intracellular material may be selectively or non-selectively wrapped in a double membrane phospholipid bilayer, and then transported to the vacuole for degradation.

My research in Dr. Backues’s laboratory focused on Auto-phagy Related Proteins (Atg), specifically Atg11, a coiled-coil scaffolding protein that is re-quired for selective autophagy. Atg11 is significant to us due to its human homolog, Hunting-ton’s protein, which may play a role in the, pathogenesis of Huntingtons disease.

Specific techniques used have included a Yeast Two Hybrid system, along with standard protein purification techniques.

My research has been incred-ibly helpful in furthering my academic journey. Having wrapped up my last semester at EMU, I graduate a two-time Undergraduate Symposium presenter, participant as a sum-mer intern at the University of Pennsylvania, an intern chem-ist at Cayman Chemical, and

a recipient of many funds and awards through the university and The Honors College.

I plan on pursuing a PhD in chemistry at Texas A&M Univer-sity. When reflecting on my un-dergraduate years, I credit all of my success to my experience in Dr. Backues’s lab.

Learning about research has ex-panded my understanding of sci-ence greatly. Recognizing it not only as a discipline, but as a pro-cess of trial and error, is some-thing most undergraduates never get exposed to.

I am lucky to have made the de-cision to participate in research during my Honors career at East-ern, and I believe it will continue

to open many doors for me in the years to come.

Editor’s Note:Jesse worked as a member of The Honors College’s student fellow program and the Black Honors Student Organiza-tion. He contributed to the re-cruiting team by, among other things, sharing his experience as a transfer student. Jesse continues to be involved with The Honors College through research and volunteering his time to sit on panels.

Jesse Smith, right

Rebecca McSorley Conducts Research with Dr. Thomas Mast

by Rebecca McSorley

I am a junior majoring in neu-roscience with the intentions of attending medical school. My research in Dr. Mast’s lab pertains to olfaction (the sense of smell), which I study at the molecular level.

Particularly, I study a portion of the brain dedicated to olfac-tion called the olfactory bulb. The olfactory bulb consists of neural circuits that help trans-duce odorants from the outside world into meaningful infor-mation by sending them to the proper brain regions.

Within the olfactory bulb cir-cuitry is a glomeruli layer, where sensory neurons from the nasal epithelium synapse with neurons and interneurons from the central nervous sys-tem.

The goal of my research is to locate what cell type a specific receptor called the pan-neuro-trophin receptor 75 (p75NTR) is expressed on within the glomeruli layer. I will use im-munohistochemistry on olfac-tory bulb tissue to label our receptor of interest with a flu-orescent tag so that it may be seen under a microscope.

Once we label our receptor (p75NTR), we must also label for another cell type that may express this receptor, such as neurons, interneurons, or glia.

If a certain cell type does express this receptor, then the co-la-beled olfactory bulb tissue will show the two fluorescent mark-ers overlapping. Image analysis software is used to quantify the amount of fluorescent pixels. We can then determine if p75NTR is expressed on the particular cell type we co-labeled for, based on the amount of overlap quanti-fied.

This information is valuable be-cause studying the location of p75NTR within the mouse olfac-tory bulb can help us better un-derstand certain neuro degenera-tive diseases such as Alzheimer’s. I consider myself lucky that the research I conduct directly re-lates to my neuroscience major and future in medicine.

Not only does my research cor-relate to my studies, I also love what I do in the lab. I think the

best way to learn and retain knowledge is by continuing to put your skills to work.

Research has encouraged me to pay attention to details, use critical thinking skills, and problem solve. I believe that learning about multiple as-pects of the brain through my studies and research here at EMU will give me a competi-tive edge as I continue to fur-ther my education.

My long term goal is to go to medical school and eventually pursue a career in neurology or pathology. I am extreme-ly grateful that The Honors College has provided me with the opportunity to focus on my research as I begin to put together my senior thesis to fulfill the Highest Honors Re-quirements.

The Honors College MissionThe Honors College at Eastern Michigan University serves the university community by empower-ing academically talented and motivated students to reach their full personal, scholastic, service and leadership potential through challenging coursework with engaged peers and faculty and through extra-curricular activities that foster international and diversity awareness and a commitment to civic engagement.

Support The Honors CollegeAlumni and community supporters are invited to contribute their time or make a financial contribu-tion to support The Honors College. To learn about opportunities to give to The Honors College, visit: www.emich.edu/honors/giving.

Honors Quarterly MissionThe mission of The Honors Quarterly is to develop active relationships with individuals both inside and outside of the university and to promote students’ academic success through recognition of their achievements. Please send us news updates for upcoming editions at emuhonors_alumni@emich.edu. We welcome your ideas and input.

Stay in touch with The Honors College.511 W. Forest Ave., Ypsilanti, MI 48197Phone: 734.487.0341emuhonors@emich.edu

We’re connected!@EMUHonors