UAS Announces Awards for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities
Student projects will be highlighted during the URECA Symposium, which occurs during National Undergraduate Research Week.
Juneau, Alaska
Date of Press Release: April 8, 2019
The Undergraduate REsearch & Creative Activities (URECA) program at the University of Alaska Southeast provides opportunities for students to engage in extra-curricular research and creative activities that complement and expand upon traditional classroom learning. Eligible projects are awarded up to $2500, and three students received awards for 2019.
Kit Burroughs was awarded $2,475 in support of her project, Health science body scan meditations. Burroughs states, “This project is designed to provide health science students with study aids in the form of guided body scan meditations written with precise medical terminology. The goal is to bring a calm focus to learning anatomy and physiology; building foundational knowledge about how the human body operates while introducing the practice of meditation. With audio tracks, each focused on a different functional system, we hope to optimize the learning experience by embedding it in the practice of mindfulness.” Burroughs’ faculty mentor is Susan Kendig, M.S.
Etalia Greenstreet was awarded $2,500 in support of her project, Haida subsistence & seasonality: a century of climate change. Greenstreet notes, “The objective of this research is to collate the seasonal practices and ecological observations of the Alaskan Haida over the past century, as collected by Swanton and others, to compare and cross-reference with modern practices and observations of Haida descendants gathered through interviews. This will make valuable cultural and environmental data more accessible to Haida descendants, while providing insights into the ramifications and rate of climate change for researchers.” Greenstreet’s faculty mentor is Dr. Brandon Chapman.
Tonia Osborne was awarded $2,480 in support of her project, Health assessments of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in Southeast Alaska. Osborne reports, “My project will assess key aspects of health in Alaska humpback whales. I will do this by measuring reproductive, stress, and thyroid hormones in humpback blow spray. At the end of my research mentorship I will know how to safely and efficiently collect blow samples in the field, how to organize and enter data collected in the field and how hormone validations, extractions, and concentration determination are done, with specific knowledge of how to conduct an EIA and interpret the results.” Osborne’s faculty mentors are Dr. David Tallmon and Kelly Cates.
Projects will be highlighted during the URECA Symposium, which occurs during National Undergraduate Research Week. On Wednesday, April 10 beginning at 2:00, URECA-funded students, as well as several other undergraduate scholars, will deliver presentations at the UAS URECA Student Symposium on the Juneau campus, in the Glacier View Room in the Egan Classroom Wing. All are welcome and a schedule will be posted at the door.
For more information about URECA and other research activities at the University of Alaska Southeast, visit the URECA student projects website.