CONWAY, Ark. (March
18, 2021) — The Hendrix College Committee on Engaged Learning is pleased to
announce the recipients of Odyssey grants for the February 2021 cycle.
Since 2005, the
Committee on Engaged Learning has awarded $4,509,959.71 in competitive Odyssey
grants to support projects by Hendrix students and faculty. In this cycle, 13
projects received $60,282 in grants. The Odyssey Office is looking forward to
reviewing funding proposals during its April 2 funding cycle. These proposals
include summer internships, as well as projects across all categories that will
happen in the fall and winter of this year.
Addie Race and Sophie
Vogle
Archaeological Field
School in Herefordshire
Category: Global Awareness
Supervisor: Dr. Brett Hill, Sociology and Anthropology
Addie Race and
Sophie Vogle will participate in the Institute for Field Research’s (IFR) Field
School in Herefordshire, UK. This five-week archaeological field program teaches
students the process of excavating an ancient site and the steps
conservationists need to take in order to properly treat and maintain
artifacts. In the 2021 summer season, archaeologists in will focus on the
megalithic tomb of Arthur’s Stone. Race and Vogle will apply theories and
methodologies learned in their courses at Hendrix to real-world experiences
while being abroad and immersed in a foreign culture. In additional to
vocational skills, they will learn about Neolithic studies and cultural
anthropology.
Aubrey French and Naomi
Brady
Art Resistance in New
York City
Category: Special Projects
Supervisor: Dr. Anne Goldberg, Sociology/Anthropology
Aubrey French and
Naomi Brady will travel to New York City to investigate how the art scene there
has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, a growing movement for social
justice, and a volatile presidential election. Observing galleries, exhibits,
and street art, they will record their experiences and relate them to broader
concepts and trends in the art scene in general. By experiencing a diverse
grouping of locations, they hope to highlight the intersectionality between
politics, art, and culture.
Lauren Berry, Marni
Younger, and Hailey Johnston
The Mountains Are Calling
and I Must Go: Exploring Nature Writing Through Immersion in the Wilderness
Category: Special Projects
Supervisor: Dr. Peg Falls-Corbitt, Philosophy
Inspired by
nature writers like John Muir, whose stories prompted their readers’ interest
in conservation, Lauren Berry, Marni Younger,
and Hailey Johnston will explore the concept of nature writing. As they
hike the roughly 250 miles of the John Muir trail in California, they will
spend the 30-days disconnected from technology and completely self-sufficient,
carrying all the food and supplies necessary for their trek in backpacks. They
plan to write daily, capturing the unique ecological and environmental
qualities of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in their writings. This project is
co-sponsored by the Hendrix-Murphy Programs in Literature and Language.
Keane Sammon and Victoria
Horan
Central Arkansas Urban
Wildlife Project
Category: Undergraduate Research
Supervisor: Dr. Maureen McClung, Biology
Working
this summer as research
technicians for the Central Arkansas Urban Wildlife Project, Keane Sammon and Victoria Horan will set up
wildlife cameras in urban parks around Little Rock to collect data on the
animals that inhabit these areas. This project will explore the impact of
urbanization on Arkansas species, the necessity for “green” spaces to preserve
biodiversity, and the astonishing ways in which human activities overlap with
wild microcosms hidden in plain sight. Sammon and Horan will directly engage
with conservation efforts, field research, and trained professionals in the
scientific research communities of Arkansas. The Central Arkansas Urban
Wildlife Project is a collaborative project between Hendrix College, the
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC), and the Urban Wildlife Information
Network (UWIN).
Avery Kennedy
Shakespeare Summer
School: Online at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts
Category: Undergraduate Research
Supervisor: Prof.
Antonio Horne, Theatre Arts and Dance
The prestigious
Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, UK, is offering an online Shakespeare
Summer School this year. The program is a four to five-week course designed to
offer an immersive experience for its students as they investigate Shakespeare
from an actor’s point of view. Theatre major Avery Waid has studied both the
current trend toward realistic acting methods and also Shakespeare’s beautiful
artistry of language, which is foreign to modern ears. This summer school gives
Waid the chance to research how the two can be paired together.
Jayla King and Jovaun
Williams
Uganda Primate Research
Category: Undergraduate Research
Supervisor: Dr. Matthew Moran, Biology
For eight weeks
this summer, Jayla King and Jovaun Williams will work as research assistants in
the Budungo Forest, which is located in western Uganda. They will assist Dr.
Catherine Hobaiter, a world-renowned primatologist, who studies non-vocal
primate communication. Her research is expanding with interest in the great
apes (chimps), or other primates (monkeys) in the region. Much of their work
will involve the daily observation and recording of behavior of habituated
primate groups. Participating in this research will not only allow them to gain
experience in animal behavior in the field setting, but it will also elevate
their comprehension of how the professional field of research works. Dr.
Jennifer Penner will travel with the students and serve as the on-ground
facilitator, and she will assist with student training and mentoring and
explore future collaborations.
Greer Ayers
Investigation into Lung
Cancer Metastasis in the Brain
Category: Undergraduate Research
Supervisor: Dr. Jennifer Peszka, Psychology
Neuroscience
major Jessica Ayers will join Dr. David Carbone, MD, PhD in his research labs
this summer at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus,
Ohio, to do research on lung cancer metastasis in the brain. Ayers will work on
data collection using various laboratory techniques and data analysis, and she
will participate in writing projects that could yield publications. One
technique is exome sequencing on resected brain tumors and matching the exome
sequencing from the lung tumor of the same patient. She hopes to discover more
about why lung cancer metastasizes in the brain and what can be done to treat
patients who have this diagnosis.
Megan Pelley
Researching Drugs That
Target the S100A1 Protein
Category: Undergraduate Research
Supervisor: Dr. Caitlin Scott, Chemistry
The S100A1
protein modulates muscle contraction, which is important for cardiac function.
Megan Pelley will research drugs that target the S100A1 protein. The first
portion of her project will involve calculating the movement of atoms in a
given period of time to see the transition from the inactive to active, or
functional form, of the S100A1 protein. The second portion of the research will
be discovering how the protein behaves and acts with drugs through the use of
computer programs, such as MTIOpen Source and Phase. Pelley hopes to develop a
pharmacophore, a picture of how the protein and various drugs interact,
Emily Pickering
Discovering Novel
Antagonists that bind to the Kappa Opioid Receptor for Future Use in
Antidepressants
Category: Undergraduate Research
Supervisor: Dr. Caitlin Scott, Chemistry
Depression
affects 6.8% of the adult population in the United States, but the
antidepressants commonly used today are riddled with issues, such as differing
effects among patients, long incubation periods, and unpredictable side
effects. Research suggests the binding of antagonists will block the activity
of the protein kappa opioid receptor and thus cause antidepressant effects.
Emily Pickering will continue the work of previous Hendrix students using
computer software to create a reliable model of the protein kappa opioid
receptor, and she will design drugs to interact with that model and find
antagonists have the strongest affinity for binding to it. These compounds
could potentially be used in future antidepressant medications that do not have
the current drawbacks.
Alaina Ivers
Computational screening
of the mu-opioid receptor complex to identify safe pain medication
Category: Undergraduate Research
Supervisor: Dr. Caitlin Scott, Chemistry
Chronic pain
affects approximately 50 million individuals in the U.S., and high impact
chronic pain affects about 20 million adults in the U.S. Opioids, such as
morphine, are medications that are commonly used to manage pain. However, they
are not safely monitored or used as prescribed, and they are highly addictive
and cause tolerance. Opioids are agonists, or compounds that activate proteins,
and in this case, the mu-opioid receptor. Alaina Ivers will conduct research
this summer with the goal of identifying a safer alternative to opioids by
designing an agonist that stabilizes the mu-opioid receptor when it is bound to
the Gi protein and the sigma-1 receptor. This would provide pain relief while diminishing
the undesirable side effects.
Dr. Gabriel Ferrer,
Computer Science
An empirical comparison
of unsupervised learning algorithms for robot scene recognition.
Category: Undergraduate Research
Dr. Gabe Ferrer
will work with Dmitry Vyakhirev as they apply machine learning algorithms to
real-time robot vision. In this project, Vyakhirev will assist in Ferrer’s
ongoing research by measuring the effect of different alternative machine
learning algorithms deployed on a physical robot in different settings. The key
performance issue under assessment is determining how well these different
algorithms are able to represent, in a summative way, all of the places the
robot has visited, while enabling the robot to guess its location within a very
short time window.
Dr. Rod Miller, Art
Senior Art Major Trip to
NYC
Category: Special Projects
In conjunction
with their required course, ARTH 430 Practicum: Senior Studio, art students
Anna Bivens, Andy Bootz, Raven Edens, and James Trenthem will have a three-day,
three-night visit to New York City galleries and museums. This trip gives
students the chance to see works of art first-hand and grasp not only the
difference between this and seeing them reproduced but also an understanding of
how galleries work and display art in a variety of contemporary art galleries
and modern/historic art museums. What they glean from the trip will contribute
to their written research project in ARTH 430, their Senior Presentation, and
their own art making and display for the Senior Art Show.
Dr. Delphia Shanks,
Politics
Court Watch: Reducing
Criminal Justice Debt through Ability to Pay Legislation
Category: Undergraduate Research
The United States
leads the world in incarcerating its citizens, leading to declines in political
participation, disproportionate representation of rural areas in legislative
bodies, disproportionate effects on communities of color and low-income
neighborhoods, and other distortions in social, economic, and democratic
outcomes. Not only are fees and fines levied for the crime committed, they
quickly balloon as a result of defendants’ inability to pay them. This leads to
significant debt burdens that can cripple an individual’s financial security
long beyond any prison sentence. Dr. Delphia Shanks is working with a local
nonprofit, decARcerate, to evaluate and address the inequitable application of
financial penalties in the criminal justice system. She will work with two
students to complete a research plan that includes a literature review, data
collection and analysis, and drafting a formal academic research paper for
presentation. In addition, they will work together to make the results
accessible to the public through a written policy brief and public presentation
to policy advocates, stakeholders, and local nonprofits at the end of the
summer.