Month: September 2017

2017 Summer Scholars: Megan Miller

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Megan Miller, a senior majoring in Psychology, was one of the thirteen students selected into the 2017 Summer Scholars program. Over the summer, she was able to work with her faculty advisor, Dr. Chris Buchholz, to complete her research project titled: “Self-driving cars as a test of the potentially harmful effects of empathy on moral decision making”.

“My research project is attempting to understand what individual differences impact the decisions made during a moral dilemma. We hypothesized that empathy levels, your ability to understand the feelings of others, would have a large impact of what types of decisions people would make. Specifically those with higher levels of empathy would lead to consequentialist decisions, such as thinking about the greater good. We used self-driving cars as the moral dilemma in our study, asking participants who they think a self-driving car should save (examples include save your mom vs. three people, save yourself vs. a scientist on the verge of curing diabetes). From completing the project, I hope to learn what factors actually influence the types of decisions people make when faced with a moral dilemma”.

Megan started to think about her project while working with her advisor, Dr. Buchholz, in a research lab during her sophomore year.

“I helped with the other projects in the lab and then Dr. Buchholz and I started doing a literature review of empathy, focusing on the negative effects empathy can have. From there, we came up with the idea to see how empathy impacts moral decision making and decided on self-driving cars, since they are still an extremely new technology. We thought they would provide an interesting moral dilemma, and would potentially provide information for companies that make self-driving cars to help them determine how to program the cars”.

Megan enjoyed working with Dr. Buchholz over the summer.

“The Summer Scholars program has allowed me to work on my project throughout the summer, giving me more time to explore the results and hypothesize the reasons for the unexpected results. Summer Scholars also gave me funding that I was able to use to pay participants for the study”.

Megan is still working on her final research paper, but hopes to complete her project soon.

“I’ve completed most of the data analyses, but I’m still working on completing my final research paper. We did determine that males are more likely to make choices that benefit the greater good (such as saving Nobel Prize winning physicist over a stranger) than females, but overall both males and females tend to save themselves and their mom. We just ran a follow up study looking more into the gender differences, but haven’t analyzed that data yet”.

To anyone considering doing a research project, Megan recommends getting involved.

“If you’re interested, but don’t have a project in mind, talk to a professor in the department you’re interested in doing research in. They might already have a project in mind they need help with that you can take in your own direction, or they can help you brainstorm ideas for your own project”.

2017 Summer Scholars: Sabrina McAllister

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Sabrina McAllister, a senior majoring in Psychology, was one of the thirteen students selected into the 2017 Summer Scholars program. Over the summer, she was able to work with her faculty advisor, Dr. David Nichols, to complete her research project titled “Time Perspective as a State-Based Measure”.

“My project is on time perspective (the way a person orients him/herself towards the past, present, or future). I am focusing specifically on the Zimbardo’s Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI), which is the most popular measure of time perspective in the psychology literature. I am examining its structure to determine ways in which it can be improved and modified to provide more valid and reliable results”.

Sabrina first got into her project through Dr. Nichols.

“My advisor had been previously doing research on time perspective when I started working with him. The first project I took on under his supervision was a literature review that combined sensation-seeking and time perspective, which was how I was introduced to the ZTPI. As I did the reading for my paper, I realized that there seemed to be a lot of uncertainty in the literature regarding Zimbardo’s questionnaire, so I made it my next project to improve on some of that”.

Sabrina decided to apply to be a summer scholar so she could work on her research project without having to worry about getting distracted by classes and campus events. She was able to work closely with her research advisor throughout the summer.

“My research advisor is very helpful. He has given me several bits of advice and taught me new things. I think the best part of working with him is the amount of independence he provides. I can ask direct questions if I’m unsure of something, but most of the time, I’m given an instruction and some resources, and I figure it out myself. It can be more work this way, but it allows me to learn a lot in a very short amount of time, which is thrilling”.

Sabrina has learned quite a bit from working on her project.

“I’ve gained an understanding of statistical concepts that are not included in the standard statistics curriculum, and I’ve gained computer skills that will be useful throughout my life, on the job and off. I am also currently working on writing a final manuscript for my project, and I expect that, as I continue it, I will learn about the nuts and bolts of scientific writing that I haven’t yet come across. It will continue to be lots of intensive work and require ample amounts of time, but it will be worth the effort because, by the end of it, I will have completed two project defenses, presented at a campus poster session, and at a national conference. I also intend to submit the manuscript for publication in the spring, which will be an exciting milestone in both my academic and professional career”.

To anyone considering doing research, Sabrina’s advice is to get started right away.

“Research is time-intensive and long-winded, but it’s very rewarding and beneficial. You’ll get the most out of it if you do it for more than just one or two semesters. I started research in my department during my very first semester, and I wouldn’t have come this far or learned this much if I hadn’t spent this much time with it. If it’s something you’re strongly interested in, contact the people in your department. Even if your first choice of advisor isn’t available, get your foot in the door and do a little bit of something with someone. It’s not a four-year commitment! See what options are available to you, and take advantage of them. Also, don’t be afraid to be original. Most of the research students I’ve talked to came up with their project on their own, pitched the idea to their advisor, and ran with it from there; so you should definitely feel free to explore your own interests”.

2017 Summer Scholars: Lynn Luckenbaugh

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The Summer Scholars program allows students serious about research to work one-on-one with a faculty mentor to design and implement a research project during the summer and present their findings in the fall. Each year students are selected from various majors across campus. Lynn Luckenbaugh was one of the thirteen summer scholars selected into the 2017 Summer Scholars program.

A senior majoring in Biochemistry and Math, Lynn’s project is entitled “Investigation of a Putative Hydroxymandelate Synthase in Streptomyces violaceusnige”. She’s been working with Dr. Sarisky to investigate the function of enzymes in Streptomyces violaceusnige and collect more data on metal, pH, and temperature preferences.

“There are two related enzymes, HMS and HPPD.  HMS catalyzes a reaction important in vancomycin synthesis, an antibiotic, and HPPD catalyzes a reaction important in tyrosine catabolism.  I am studying an enzyme from Streptomyces violaceusniger that is thought to be an HMS, but due to the similarity of the enzymes may have HPPD function instead. I chose this project because I wanted to study an enzyme that was useful for something, like antibiotic synthesis, and I thought that the idea of HMS and HPPD being so similar but having different functions was interesting”.

Lynn wanted to do the summer scholar program because she enjoyed doing research over the school year and wanted to do research full time over the summer. In completing the project she hopes to gain more biochemical laboratory techniques.

“I have not yet completed this project. I have successfully produced a sample of this enzyme but I have not yet been able to show activity.  There have been issues trying to get the starting material for this reaction into solution.  Due to the time spent investigating this issue, the batch of enzyme I had produced and purified sat in the freezer for about a month.  This could have caused activity levels to decrease.  I plan to start the fall semester by producing and purifying another batch of enzyme to see if I can detect activity in it”.

As Lynn reflects on her time spent at Roanoke, she says that research has been one of her most valuable experiences.

“While taking a lecture class or a lab allows you to learn material and gain some experience, research allows you to gain independent experience with procedures common in your discipline and it allows you to really master a skill.  It also teaches you problem solving skills, time management, and many other important transferable skills”.