2020-2021 Cohort

EWU McNair Scholar Christina Hudson Completes Summer Research Internship

11/23/2021 by Liina Koivula Leave a Comment

EWU McNair Scholar Christina Hudson worked with Dr. Okera Nsombi on her Summer Research Internship project The Characterization of African Religions. Christina’s aim was to investigate how Western academia’s proximity to Eurocentric hegemonies influences religious studies. Her literature review went on to survey the work of scholars who have engaged in the examination of Eurocentrism as it pertains to the study of African religions.

Christina analyzed 129 articles taken from 10 of the top 20 peer reviewed religious studies journals from 2020. She first inspected the articles for instances of the terms Africa, African, African-American, Hoodoo, and Conjure. She found that Indigenous African and African diaspora religious traditions, such as Hoodoo and Conjure, were not mentioned in any of the 129 articles.

Before beginning the study, Christina proposed:

Observing these gaps [in inclusion of Indigenous African and African diaspora religious traditions in peer reviewed religious studies journals] would highlight the ways in which the current survey of world religions within higher education can be expanded. Doing so may allow for a more accurate depiction of the contributions of African cultures to world religions. This will also help to reshape education in such a way that better tells the story of human development, cultural exchange, and interconnectedness.

Christina is interested in decolonizing religious studies with a focus on ancient African religious texts, with the intention of shifting the way we view the contributions of people of color to the development of civilization throughout history.

Christina will be presenting at the 43rd Annual Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in February 2022. She is a regular contributor to BlackPast.org and the recipient of the Robert and Joan Morgan Nelson Scholarship, which benefits a History or Humanities Major at EWU. Christina is currently applying to graduate programs at several schools. We have no doubts that Christina will succeed in graduate school and generate essential academic work that expands the field of religious studies.

EWU McNair Scholar Darlynne Khayesi Completes Summer Research Internship

11/23/2021 by Liina Koivula Leave a Comment

EWU McNair Scholar Darlynne Khayesi worked with Dr. Jillene Seiver in her Summer Research Internship on Mental Health Challenges in College Students which focused on the experiences of immigrant students.

Darlynne’s study aimed to test the hypothesis that there is a higher prevalence of mental health issues among immigrant college-attending students compared to their native counterparts. In a multicultural context, all immigrants, regardless of their paperwork status, face psychological stress—or acculturative stress—when confronted with both risks and opportunities with regards to their cultural and individual identities upon arrival in a new nation.

She recruited survey participants through a random selection of college students who volunteered to participate in the online survey. The human volunteers’ identities could not be traced back to them.

The survey used questions based on The Perceived Stress Scale, Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, and the Trauma History Questionnaire, in randomized order. These were followed by demographic questions, such as age, sex, marital status, family or household income level, parents’ highest level of education, participant highest level of education, employment status, and immigrant status. For immigrants, further questions involve family situation (e.g. whether moved to US with family) and living situation (e.g. with family, roommates, etc.). Following data collection, groups will be investigated and compared based if they are immigrants or native born, with data reflecting the sample population.

Darlynne is a senior at EWU majoring in Applied Developmental Psychology and minoring in Communications Studies as well as Gender and Women’s Studies. She is currently finalizing the analysis and related research paper for this research project while applying to graduate programs at several schools. We look forward to seeing what Darlynne does next!

EWU McNair Scholar Ian Campuzano Completes Summer Research Internship

11/22/2021 by Liina Koivula Leave a Comment

EWU McNair Scholar Ian Campuzano worked with Dr. Jillene Seiver in his Summer Research Internship on Returning Back to Campus After COVID-19: Neuroticism and it’s Correlated Attitudes.

Ian first reviewed literature with an annotated bibliography of academic articles related to his research study. He created a survey and gathered data via SurveyMonkey. The online survey had a total of 62 questions with 3 parts. The first part included pictures with masked, unmasked, social distanced and crowded scenarios. The second part was a questionnaire about views on the COVID vaccine. The third part inventoried the Big Five personality traits to discover whether patterns of neuroticism were generated by the answers to the first two sections.

Ian’s goal was to find correlations between these data points with regard to personality traits and attitudes towards mask and vaccine mandates on university campuses as in-person classes resumed.

Data collection for Ian’s project continued into the fall, and he is currently finalizing the analysis and related research paper while applying to graduate programs at several schools. We look forward to seeing what Ian does next!

EWU McNair Scholar Seth McCullough Completes Summer Research Internship

11/18/2021 by Liina Koivula Leave a Comment

EWU McNair Scholar Seth McCullough worked with Dr. Justin Bastow in his Summer Research Internship focused on The Effect of Biochar Soil Amendments on Soil Food Webs in Palouse Prairie Restoration. The internship prepared him for graduate school by providing field researcher experience, wet lab skills, and communication skills, all of which are necessary for success at the graduate level. He learned how to develop his own research project, generating and addressing specific questions and hypotheses. Seth hopes that the results from his research will help with future decision-making surrounding EWU’s prairie restoration project. His results can also be used as baseline data to track the efficacy and progress of EWU’s restoration project in the long-term.

Seth experienced a unique challenge due to COVID-19 protocols: all of the doors were locked to the science buildings, with no professors on campus. To navigate these challenges, Seth learned to pre-plan extensively before sampling events, making sure he had access to all of the equipment he would need. In doing so, he developed strong communication and networking skills by contacting the many people required to gain access to the proper rooms in the science building.

Putting his research experience and findings in his own words, Seth says:

I learned the importance of understanding community composition when working on restoration projects. I learned about how below ground food-web composition can influence above ground productivity. Regarding my specific research, I found that biochar soil amendments significantly increased nematode abundance, soil moisture retention, and pH within the soil at EWU’s prairie restoration project. Soil moisture retention and pH levels increased to conditions similar to what is found at local prairie remnants. Nematode functional group composition did not shift to being similar to the functional group composition that is found at local prairie remnants, suggesting that community structure changes on a large time scale compared to soil abiotic properties.

His next step is completing the manuscript for his research to submit for publication. Since working on soil food-webs he has become more concerned with how below ground and above ground food-webs influence one another and how they are connected. This research also sparked his interest in studying how top-down control can influence the community composition within an ecosystem.

To undergraduate researchers in similar fields, Seth recommends taking advantage of all the opportunities that come your way. He offers a reminder to stay passionate about your research, and apply for any research positions or internships that you can. They are invaluable learning opportunities that give you a competitive edge in the graduate school market.

EWU McNair Scholar Lucia Roussa Completes Summer Research Internship

11/18/2021 by Liina Koivula Leave a Comment

EWU McNair Scholar Lucia Roussa worked with Dr. Julie Keister of the University of Washington School of Oceanography on her Summer Research Internship project, Measuring from the Sky: Methods to Quantify Moon Jellyfish (Aurelia labiata) Using Aerial Photographs, in collaboration with CICOES. She contributed to research on the effect that climate change is having on jellyfish populations in the Puget Sound ecosystem. Specifically, she worked on the development of a protocol that can be followed by any researcher using image processing to collect data.

The first week of her internship, which began with remote work, included a coding bootcamp. While initially concerned about her ability to master this new skill, Lucy ultimately learned not to be afraid of something new and challenging. She came away confident that she can learn anything – a great lesson to take with her to grad school.

The last week of Lucy’s internship was in person, aboard the research vessel Rachel Carson in Seattle, which required a quarantine before sailing. For six days, Lucy and the research team conducted laboratory and field work involving Moon Jellyfish sampling.

Lucy was one of only 13 interns selected for this project. She credits her participation in the EWU McNair Scholars program for encouraging her to apply for this opportunity, and for assistance along the way with application feedback and time management support.

Lucy hopes her research and leadership in her field will come to have a global impact.

Any biological research expands our database of knowledge we have about how the world works.

Lucy encourages undergraduates interested in STEM research to remember that they are probably more qualified and competitive than they may think, and reminds them not to disqualify themselves before they have applied for an opportunity! She says that getting involved with research was a game-changer that shaped her pursuit of science. Experience in the field and in the lab helped her develop a clearer sense of what kind of work she wants to pursue as a future graduate student and beyond.

EWU McNair Scholar Ashley Destin Completes Summer Research Internship

11/05/2021 by Liina Koivula Leave a Comment

EWU McNair Scholar Ashley Destin has had the opportunity to participate in two research projects during her time with McNair, both with Dr. Judd Case. While each research project was very different from the other, both align with Ashley’s passion for improving targeted care for cats. She notes that much of what we know about cats now comes from research done with other animals. Ashley’s mission is to shift the focus to the cats themselves, contributing to our understanding of cats and improving the ways we care for them.

For Ashley’s first research project Size Scaling in the Skull of North American Felids as Adaptations for Prey Acquisition, she and Dr. Case measured close to 50 felid skulls. Ashley worked with a local large cat rescue, Cat Tales Wildlife Center, and was able to include data on a mountain lion and an African lion. Despite some limitations on the project due to COVID-19, Ashley was proud to present research at multiple virtual conferences.

Ashley’s second research project with Dr. Case, Feline Red Blood Cell Shape and the Impacts of Cytauxzoonosis, was even more influenced by COVID-19. Initially, the plan was to research feline anemia, comparing humans and healthy cats. Unable to acquire the blood samples that they had lined up, the project changed significantly. What they did notice while looking into anemia was a variation in the blood cell shape within the felid family, which led them down an entirely different research path. While well-noted, the shape variation hasn’t been studied extensively. The rest of the project was spent looking at a parasite that uses these blood cells to proliferate and cause severe infection in domestic cats. COVID-19 protocols didn’t directly affect this phase of research, yet it’s the reason they ended up focused on this specific issue.

This research is ongoing, as Ashley and Dr. Case continue to look at other blood parasites to see if a trend appears. There is currently very little research into the blood cell shape variation and the possible impacts to cat care. Ashley is looking at taking this project to graduate school. Understanding the variation and its impacts has the potential to improve how we care for our cats.

Ashley has this advice for undergraduate researchers in her field:

Be flexible, but don’t give up on what you really want. Science is a big enough field that it’s possible to study what you want, it might just take some weaving to find your way there.