James is currently assisting Dr. Ball with her project that focuses on the partners of formerly incarcerated people. There is very little research in this area, so James and Dr. Ball are conducting in-depth interviews with the partners of former prisoners in order to chronicle their experiences. They have completed almost sixty interviews with people across many different classes, cultures, and regions. At this point in his project, James has worked on compiling an annotated bibliography, responding to inquiries, conducting and transcribing interviews, and entering their data into spreadsheets.
The future of this project will consist of more interviews, more transcribing, and James will begin coding the data collected. Eventually, they hope to publish multiple articles about their findings. James hopes to present at a Criminal Justice conference in the future!
Shane Saunders spent the month of June with Dr. Collins, alongside other colleagues, conducting research on the Smooth Coneflower populations at Denhill Preserve. This research is a continuation of a research project Dr. Collins has been working on for almost a decade. Located south of Roanoke College, Denhill Preserve is home to a major population of Smooth Coneflowers. The Smooth Coneflower is an endangered variety of the Coneflower species. The decline of this variety has been due to forest fires and commercial developments threatening their habitats. With this research, Shane and his colleagues aim to seek the core issues that cause the decline of the Smooth Coneflower and promote the preservation of this beautiful and essential species. This preservation process includes counting, marking, and measuring every individual Smooth Coneflower within small plots.
Shane hopes to attend a conference by the end of the year in order to bring awareness to this important species to help it recover in its natural habitats.
This summer, Bobby Hoye has been focusing his research on the science behind solar panels. Working with Dr. Hickox-Young, he is looking at the compound, CsPbBr3, which is one in a new class of materials, called Perovskites. Perovskites, for reference, are semiconductors that transport electrical charges once the light hits them. These materials have only gained popularity within the last twenty years, due to the expansion of research on their increased energy efficiency values, which can be manufactured with relatively low costs for solar panels. Bobby is looking deeper into why CsPbBr3 has its unique properties with the hopes of better understanding its future as the absorption layer in solar panels. He performs calculations of the crystal lattice (arrangement of atoms inside a crystal) and examines structural defects (i.e. missing atoms, extra atoms, etc.) and how these affect the resulting properties with the hope of helping scientists in this field to understand why CsPbBr3 performs so well.
This project is the first part of Bobby’s Honors Distinction Project as well as the first part of his Honors in the Major project for Physics. His next steps are focusing on more calculations and diving into elimination lead (Pb) and replacing it with tin (Sn). This second part of his project will take place during the upcoming Fall and Spring semesters, which will culminate in presenting his work at the American Physical Society (APS) annual conference in Las Vegas during Spring Break.
Selma Sosic, one of our many student summer researchers, says that her favorite part about research here at Roanoke is that research advisors trust their advisees to do field research by themselves. She truly enjoys how much the research advisors value the input and thought processes the student researchers bring to the table. Selma experienced this firsthand when she traveled to Palau with Dr. Chad Morris and one of her partners in the project, Hailey. Selma and Hailey gathered qualitative data via focus groups from several Palauan women over the span of the three weeks they spent there. After each focus group session, they collaborated to pull key themes and ideas from the data they gathered. Selma was then able to write a preliminary report that addressed key motivators, barriers, and key sources of information on breast cancer screening on the island. Her report will be given to the Palauan Ministry of Health and the Non-Communicable Disease Unit to provide them with preliminary ideas regarding screening rates on the island. Once all of the interviews have been transcribed, a final report will be completed and sent to Palau in June of 2023.
This is amazing work and a very interesting project! We can’t wait to learn more!
Ivey Kline is a history major with an interest in American history and archival research. She has worked for the Roanoke College Archives and the Center for Studying Structures of Race for three years and spent the summer of 2021 carrying out extensive archival research. At the Center, she helped create and launch the Genealogy of Slavery Project, a project dedicated to uncovering information about the enslaved people in Roanoke County who built Roanoke College. Additionally, she processed collections for the Maurice Berger Memorial Archive and Library and interned at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage working on the festival curatorial team for the 2022 and 2023 Folklife Festival. She is also president of Historical Society.
This summer, Ivey is working with Dr. Jesse Bucher on the project “The Legacy of Georgianna Saunders: Race, Gender, and Black Midwifery in Southwest Virginia, 1914-1940.” Georgianna Saunders is one of the most important and yet unknown figures in Salem, Virginia history. Born in 1866, Saunders was a member of the first generation of African Americans born to previously enslaved parents after the abolition of slavery. From 1914 to 1940, Georgianna Saunders kept extensive birth records that provide insight into her work as a midwife. During this Summer Scholars project, Ivey has been analyzing the records Saunders kept in her birth records notebooks and evaluating the segregation of medicine, importance of Black lay midwives, and the demographics of the poor, Black and White women Saunders aided. This project will fill an important scholarly deficit regarding Black midwives since most scholarly work regarding birth work focuses on White midwives or male doctors inventing obstetrics.
During the weekend of June 24th, Dr. Lassiter took a couple of students to the International Zebrafish Society Conference in Montreal. Olivia Brichter and Allyson Herriges co-presented at their first international conference on the project, “Estrogen Exposure Results in Inhibited Tail Fin Regeneration in Embryonic Zebrafish (Danio rerio).” Together, they explored the effects of estrogen exposure on tail fin regeneration. Early data shows statistically significant effects, but future research will study the magnitude of effects at a genetic level. They explain their interest in this topic stems from the understanding of elevated levels of estrogen found in our water supply and they wish to explore the impact of estrogen on biodiversity. Olivia and Allyson enjoyed the experiences that the conference provided them. From networking with other developmental biologists and exploring graduate schools to learning about all the potential directions that their research could expand upon, it certainly sounds like an amazing first conference to have attended!
Both Allyson and Olivia have individual research projects that they are currently working on! Allyson is currently studying the effects of Zofran on genes correlated to autism and neural development. She explains that this project is in its preliminary stages of development and hopes to have it completed by spring. Olivia is currently studying the effects of estrogen on Pentylenetetrazol (PTZ) induced seizures in developing zebrafish.
Congratulations, ladies! We can’t wait to hear more about your research!
Megan Reynolds is a rising senior pursuing a double major in History and Music. A member of the Class of 2023, Megan dedicates her time to a variety of campus activities. On top of her regular coursework, Megan plays the bassoon in the Wind Ensemble, is the secretary of the Historical Society, is a member of the Fine Arts Committee, and has been Dr. Rosenthal’s research assistant for the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project since Fall 2019. She knew that she wanted to be a history major since the early years of middle school. At Roanoke College, she has focused her attention on the histories of Imperial Russia and U.S. LGBTQ+ and women’s history. In her spare time, she enjoys painting, reading, making bassoon reeds, and spending time with her family, including various pets. After graduating from Roanoke College, Megan plans to attend graduate school in the Boston area to receive a Master’s Degree in Gender and Women’s Studies.
This summer, Megan is continuing her work with Dr. Rosenthal on the project “The Internal Lesbian Menace: Challenges within the Lesbian Feminist Movement, 1970 to the Present.” Lesbian feminism is a strand of feminism that has been a part of the larger women’s movement since the 1970s. This cultural movement emboldened lesbians to concentrate on constructing comradery between women with a focus on rejecting heteronormativity and men. The way lesbian feminists handled race and gender differences, however, ultimately led to the exclusion of bisexual women, transgender women, and women of color within movement spaces. This project will examine lesbian feminism through the lenses of inclusion and exclusion to show how a movement meant to bring women closer together created a legacy of division within LGBTQ+ communities.
Emma Richards had the opportunity to go to Merida, Mexico in May to study at an American-based veterinary clinic called Planned Pethood. In her month there, she went through rotations of what she observed, shadowed, and helped with. The first week she was there, she shadowed the veterinary technicians, doing general care, and helping with small procedures, such as cleaning wounds/changing bandages and giving medication through IV injection. During the second and third weeks, she spent her time observing surgeries and was taught how to do pre- and post-surgical procedures. While there, Emma got to scrub into an orthopedic surgery, helped reform a femur head, and got to perform a spay on a cadaver. Her final week in Mexico was spent in appointment rooms with doctors. She had the opportunity to take pulse and breathing rates, gave intramuscular and subcutaneous injections, removed sutures, and took tons of notes. Some of the other things she got to do included helping run chemical tests and inserting IV catheters into patients.
This is such an amazing opportunity and just shows how far research can take you here at Roanoke!
