CONWAY, Ark. (April 11, 2018)
– With the February 2018 funding cycle complete, the Hendrix College Committee
on Engaged Learning has now awarded $3,940,921.88 in Odyssey grants to Hendrix
students and faculty since the Odyssey Program’s inception in 2005. In this
cycle, 40 projects received a total of $156,327 in grants to help Hendrix students
conduct research, learn new skills, and explore their interests around the
world. Also, see below for this year’s recipient of the Robert F. Baker Prize
in Economics.
Read the full
project descriptions here.
Students
Receiving Odyssey Grants
- Elijah Ballard
’19 – Characterization of Bearded Seal Locomotor Muscle (Undergraduate Research)
- Lindsey Barrett ’19 – Fiber-type
Composition of Bearded Seal (Erignathus barbatus) Locomotor Muscle (Undergraduate
Research)
- Megan Bellfield ‘20 – Shepherd
Higher Education Consortium on Poverty (Professional and Leadership Development)
- Gwen Boone ’21 – Ozark
Mission Project College Staff (Professional and Leadership Development)
- Aleck Bratt ’20 – Icelandic
Populist Environmentalism (Special Projects)
- Jackson Bridges ’19 and
Kirstyn Baker ’21 – Development of a Kinetic Model for the Formation of
Supported Lipid Bilayers (SLBs) (Undergraduate Research)
- Rachel Chenault ’21 – My
Farewell to Arms: Bringing the Works of Ernest Hemingway to Life (Special Projects)
- Savannah Draud ’19 – Characterization
of the Muscle Tissue in Atlantic Spotted Dolphin Diaphragms (Undergraduate Research)
- Olivia Eddings ’21 – The
Green Program-Iceland Renewable Energy and Sustainability (Special Projects)
- Connor Griffin ’19, David
Jiang ’20 and Journey Eubank ’19 – An Investigation of the Chinese Health Care
System with Regards to Modern and Traditional Chinese Medical Treatment (Global
Awareness)
- Chloe Harris ’20 – Behind a
Surgical Mask (Special Projects)
- Sara Hoopchuk ’20 and Portia
Renee ’21 – From Molecular to Behavioral: A Study of C. elegans (Undergraduate Research)
- Kathryn King ’19 – My
History, Arkansas History (Special Projects)
- Robbie Kiss ’20 – “There is
no higher standard than the assent of the relevant community”: A Lab-based Case
Study on the Development of Scientific Paradigms (Undergraduate Research)
- Allison Long ’21 – Optimization
of the Expression, Growth and Purification of Toxoflavin Lyase (Undergraduate Research)
- Mallory Magruder ’21 – Cameroon
Mission Initiative (Service to the World)
- Brendan Midkiff ’19 – Oxidative
Potential of Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) Vocal Muscles (Undergraduate
Research)
- Inaya Molina ’20 – Development
of a Novel, Fluorescence-Based Method for Detecting Phase Changes in DNA (Undergraduate
Research)
- Mary Nail ’20 – Bringing
Learning to Life (Professional and Leadership Development)
- Rebecca Parham ’21 – Interactions
Between Water and Aerosols: Unveiling the Mysteries of Climate Change (Undergraduate
Research)
- Eliot Peterson ’20 – Single
Pitch Guiding Course and Certification (Special Projects)
- Emma Reynolds ’20 – Thyroid
Cancer Research (Undergraduate Research)
- Kennedy Reynolds ’20 – Rewriting
Gerda Taro: Glamorization of Life and Erasure of Legacy (Undergraduate Research)
- Grace Rogers ’21 – Ozark
Mission Project College Staff (Service to the World)
- Maddie Rowe ’19 – Physical
Therapy Internship at Conway Regional (Professional and Leadership Development)
- Kyle Rutherford ’21 – Summer
Internship with the Democratic Party of Arkansas (Professional and Leadership
Development)
- David Samuel ’20 – Homecoming:
An Ethnographic Study of the Parsee Community (Special Projects)
- Rachel Stacks ’20 – An
Engineered Law Internship (Professional and Leadership Development)
- Daniel Sweeney ’19 – Applied
AI: Realistic Game Simulation (Undergraduate Research)
- John Tran ’19 and Christy
Tran ’21 – Immersion in the Culture of Immigrants (Global Awareness)
- Haley Whitson ’19 – Isla
Mujeres Field Experience (Professional and Leadership Development)
- Adam Williams ’19 – Learning
from Earle: Best Practices for Rural Education Policy (Special Projects)
- Eberle Yarborough ’19 – Cheetah
Outreach: A South African Conservation Initiative (Special Projects)
- Alec Zills ’19 – Law in
Little Rock (Professional and Leadership Development)
Faculty
Receiving Odyssey Grants
- Dr. Andres Caro – Chronic
Ethanol Consumption and Oxidative Stress in the Liver (Undergraduate Research);
will work with students Grishma Patel ’19 and Diego Valdivieso ’19
- Dr. Heidi Dahlmann – Chemistry
Inspired by Nature: Organo Catalysts and Nucleoside Analogs (Undergraduate Research);
will work with students Hayden Criswell ’20, Evan Glassford ’20, and Shawqi
Musallam ’19
- Dr. David Hales – Exploring
the Role of Proline in Peptide Folding Through Ion Mobility Spectrometry and
Mass Spectrometry (Undergraduate Research); will work with students Kameron
Molloy ’21 and Connie Zhang ’21
- Dr. Rod Miller – Week in
Florence 2018 (Undergraduate Research); will work with students Emilia Dennis ’20,
Nick Hancock ’19, and Myca Treat ’21
- Dr. Andrew Schurko – Using
CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing to Study DNA Repair in Bdelloid Rotifers (Undergraduate
Research); will work with students Chelbi Gilmore ’20 and Connor Onitsuka ’20
- Dr. Damon Spayde – MOLLER at
Hendrix (Undergraduate Research); a Hendrix student will
perform computer simulations and data analysis in experimental nuclear physics
for the MOLLER collaboration at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator
Facility in Newport News, Va., with Dr. Damon Spayde.
Economics
Prize Yields Odyssey Credit
Melissa Pizza ’19 is the
recipient of this year’s Baker Prize in Economics for her project “Evaluating
the Ecological Services of Bats using Economic Models”; the completed project will
earn her an Odyssey credit in Undergraduate Research. Pizza will examine the
economic benefits of insecteating bats by looking at the market benefits in the
agricultural sector. Her goal is to is to give a monetary value to the services
bats provide, and in doing so, generate evidence of the importance of bat
conservation. Prof. Haden Chomposy will supervise Pizza’s work on the project,
which will include disseminating the results in a manner accessible to the
public.
About
Hendrix College
A private liberal arts
college in Conway, Arkansas, Hendrix College consistently earns recognition as
one of the country’s leading liberal arts institutions, and is featured in Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That
Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges. Its academic quality and
rigor, innovation, and value have established Hendrix as a fixture in numerous
college guides, lists, and rankings. Founded in 1876, Hendrix has been
affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. To learn more, visit www.hendrix.edu.