Only 200 or so undergraduate students from across the United States will present their research at next month’s National Collegiate Research Conference (NCRC), and four of them are from Bridgewater State University. No other institution other than Harvard itself has had that many students participate in a single year.
The students are psychology majors Dominic Locantore, Taylor Maynard, Rebecca (Becky) Vilk; and computer science major Amber Nieves. Amanda heads a team of researchers that is comprised of Nick Abreau, Perry Warner and Christian Brady.
Read a full description of each of their projects, as well as the names of their mentors and additional information, at the end of this article.
“It’s so exciting, I honestly was so surprised because they pick such a limited number of people. It’s such an honor,” said Amber, a Middleboro resident. She and her team are working on a system to help scientists and naturalists locate frogs via audio technology. This will help protect wetlands where sizable populations of the amphibians live.
For Taylor, who hails from Plymouth, the presentation at Harvard is special in several ways. She plans to apply there for graduate school, but it’s also the university from which her mother has earned two degrees.
Her area of research looks for ways to combat diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s; her late father suffered from the latter.
“That’s been a real catalyst for me,” she said. “I can hopefully help this elderly population that’s growing and growing.”
Dominic’s project is“Transgender ally or just transgender? Transgender ally targets experience stigma-by-association.” It stems from his theorizing that allies of the GLBTA community often face the same discrimination and stigmatization simply by association. The Harwich resident hopes his research can help educate people about the issue.
“It’s so hard to get information like this out into the public,” he said. “The idea is that I can present at this conference and share this research with others. The conference offers such a valuable opportunity to spread the word.”
Rebecca Vilk of Middleboro noticed that there were many studies looking at how jurors perceive defendants. This led her to wonder about victims.
“I was really interested in courtroom studies and realized a lot of them involved the outward appearances of defendant,” she said. “I thought it would be interesting to find out about perceptions of victims.”
Rebecca investigated how the appearance of sexual assault victims' tattoos impacted the ways in which these victims were perceived by mock jurors. The results were not what she expected: she found that the victims with the tattoos were deemed more credible and that their “assailants” faced a higher rate of conviction.
She’ll continue the research next semester to find out why, before graduating in May.
Last year, one student from BSU was selected to present at Harvard’s National Collegiate Research Conference. The jump to four this year speaks to the continued success of two key university programs.
“High-impact practices such as the honors program and undergraduate research make participating in these types of prestigious, highly competitive opportunities a possibility for BSU students,” said Dr. Jenny Shanahan, director of Undergraduate Research.
Each of the Harvard-bound presenters expressed happiness and excitement about being selected to represent BSU at next month’s conference.
“It feels a little surreal,” Rebecca said. “It feels like the highest you can achieve. “When I was little I used to dream of going there. And now that I’m going there I’m psyched.” (Story by John Winters, G’11, University News & Media)
