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Category: Undergraduate Research
Before Lee Sullivan ’24 even enrolled at Stetson, she knew she wanted to study abroad in Russia.
Her chance came Feb. 2, when she flew 40 hours to the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, a Russian port city on the Pacific Ocean near China and North Korea.
She knew Russia was amassing troops near the border of Ukraine at the time. But she never thought Russian President Vladimir Putin would invade the neighboring country Feb. 24.
Within days, her study abroad company was preparing to evacuate its students from Russia, giving them the option to return home or relocate to a language school in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Sullivan chose Kyrgyzstan, where she was pleased to discover breathtaking scenery, a slower-paced lifestyle and hospitable people.
While there, Sullivan learned that she received a prestigious Boren Award that will provide up to a $25,000 scholarship to cover the expenses of studying abroad. She plans to return to Bishkek for eight months next year and continue her Russian language studies during the Spring and Summer 2023 semesters.
She was one of two students of Russian at Stetson to receive Boren Awards in April. Alexis Laszlo, a student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, received the award after taking Russian classes online through a partnership between Stetson and ERAU.
Under the Stetson-ERAU consortium, Stetson students can take Arabic classes via video conferencing through ERAU while ERAU students can take Russian classes using that technology through Stetson.
“We had two students receive this prestigious award,” said Snezhana Zheltoukhova, PhD, Stetson visiting assistant professor of Russian, World Languages & Cultures, who has taught Russian to the two students. “Both of them are star students.”
Studying Russian And Cybersecurity
Sullivan, who is majoring in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at Stetson, applied for the Boren Award in hopes of studying abroad again and continuing her Russian studies.
“I decided that I could do another semester abroad and then add the summer on to it, studying Russian so that way I could hopefully be fluent in Russian by the time I graduated,” she said on a Microsoft Teams call from the London School of Languages and Culture at Bishkek.
In exchange for the scholarship, recipients of the Boren Award must agree to work for the U.S. government for one year. Sullivan hopes to work in Russian translation for a governmental agency.
She also hopes to attend graduate school and continue taking classes in cybersecurity. “I would love to work in cybersecurity policy, possibly cybersecurity international law,” she said.
“I’ve taken multiple cybersecurity classes at Stetson, and hopefully I’ll be able to continue my education after Stetson and get a higher degree in one of those topics,” she added. “I decided that the Russian language would be a great asset for the field of cybersecurity.”
Sullivan plans to travel to Armenia, Georgia and Latvia this summer and then return to Stetson for the Fall 2022 semester. She will live in a new Russian Community Catalyst House, designed for students who want to speak Russian inside the home.
“It’s the first time we’re opening [this Russian House],” Professor Zheltoukhova said. “She [Sullivan] will be there for one semester and then she goes back to Kyrgyzstan. I’m sure she’ll reach the superior level of Russian, which is an important achievement in this career.”
-Cory Lancaster
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Congratulations to our 2017 SURE Grant winners, we commend your effort!
Amber L. Clark, mentored by Dr. Terence M. Farrell, Mapping range and impacts of abiotic factors on pigmy rattlesnakes (Sistrurus miliarius) with snake fungal disease
Sarah Coffey, mentored by Dr. Wendy Anderson, Fire History on Lopez Island, Washington
Elena Finver, mentored by Dr. Dejan Magoc, Health-related attitudes and behaviors among college students in the U.S. and Europe: A cross-cultural perspective.
Marissa Hanley, mentored by Dr. Kimberly Reiter, Ex Americanus: The Translation of European Catholic Relics to the American Midwest
Madison Hill, mentored by Dr. Emily Mieras, The Representation of Women and Context of Gender in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History
Sarah Hollmann, mentored by Dr. Eugene Huskey, Origin and Ethnicity in Northern Ireland
Holly Molinaro, mentored by Dr. Terence M. Farrell, Kin Recognition in Pygmy Rattlesnakes (Sistrurus miliarius)
Amanda Rogers, mentored by Dr. Jelena Petrovic, Trail Magic on the A.T.
Arden Tomassetti, mentored by Dr. Michele Skelton, A comparative analysis of the beliefs and attitudes of Physician Assistant students and practicing Physician Assistants on Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Victoria Wells, mentored by Dr. William Nylen, Funding of the Arts
Brett Whitmore, mentored by Dr. Kimberly Reiter, Dissecting the Wreckers: Where Does History Meet Commodity in Key West and South Florida?
Congratulations to our 2018 SURE Grant winners, we commend your effort!
Nathan Bodger, mentored by Dr. Christopher Bell, Dharma and Human Rights in Thailand
John Levee, mentored by Dr. Nathan Wolek, Acousmatic Composition for Multi-Channel Speaker Arrangement
Linsey Hughes, mentored by Dr. Mayhill Fowler, Present but Unrepresented: Finding Women in the Gulag
Colette Cacciola, mentored by Dr. Kimberly Reiter, The Politics At Play in the Creation of the Museum of the Bible
Chelsea Seaver, mentored by Dr. Asal Johnson, Uncovering the History behind Spring Hill’s Wright Building
Mackenzie Nalven, mentored by Dr. Camille King, The Effect of Limiting Email Usage on Job Productivity
Riley Reynolds, mentored by Dr. Holley Lynch, The Effects of Fibronectin Concentration on the Rate of Tissue Spreading
Riley Bibaud, mentored by Dr. Jason Evans, Coral Abundance and Distribution in Roatan, Bay Islands, Honduras
George Ridgeway, mentored by Dr. Holley Lynch, Collective cell migration in Axolotl embryos during the Epiboly stage and how initial explant size affects spreading rate
Jessica Algieri, mentored by Dr. Emily Mieras, The History of Elizabeth Stetson
Porter Crapps, mentored by Dr. Philip Lucas, The Camino de Santiago: Meaning and Motivations in the Medieval and Post-Modern Periods
Congratulations to our 2019 SURE Grant winners, we commend your effort!
Vincenzo Cornacchione, Assessing Perceptions of Healthcare Access Among Rural Honduran Community Members
Lezhi Liu, Convergent Series Solution Analysis for Lane–Emden equations with initial values and boundary conditions
Jeffery Lu, An Analysis Regarding the Accuracy of An Application of The Monod Equation for The Growth and Decay of Escherichia Coli Biofilm Under Variable Conditions
Jenna Palmisano, Determining the Competent Intermediate Hosts of a Recently Introduced Snake Parasite, Raillietiella orientalis, in Florida
Breanna Shi, Study of the Homotopy Perturbation Method and the effect on different non-linearites on the Lane-Emden Equation
Caitlyn Bishop, Dating Experiences of Asian-American Women
Dakota Figueroa, From Archenemies to Allies: Reassessing the Birth of the United States-Japan Alliance, 1945-1960
John Levee, Interactive Audio Installation for 5.1 Speaker Array and VR Headset
Emily Maule, Where Has the Art Gone? Examining the Use of Imagery in the Baptist Community
Isabelle Palmer, 3D Modeling and Animation at FIEA
James Parman, America’s Genocide: Analyzing the Motives and Effects of Anti-Native Violence
Nelson Quezada Herrera, Elite-Driven Beliefs How Issue Framing Affects American Attitudes Toward the Green New Deal
Congratulations to our 2022 SURE Grant winners, we commend your effort!
Yahia Adla, mentored by Michael King, The Effects of Spilanthol on Behavioral Responses to Salty Taste.
Chloe DeYoung, mentored by Dr. Jean Smith, Analyzing the function of Fus1 during cell fusion in Saccharomyces cerevisiae,”
Brandon Evans, mentored by Dr. Cynthia Bennington, Effects of competition and fire suppression on the growth of two sandhill understory plants, Aristida stricta and Pityopsis graminifolia
Molly James, mentored Dr. Jason Evans, The Potential Effectiveness of Vertical Rain Gardens in the Mitigation of Stormwater Runoff and Pollution.
Andrea R. Mingo, mentored by Dr. Danielle Lindner, Food Allergies, Anxiety, and Disordered Eating
Lauren Radesi, mentored by Dr. Michael Eskenazi, An Exploration of the Effectiveness of Virtual Reality Nature Based Therapy
Tom Sussan, mentored by Dr. Corie Charpentier, Examining the comparison of substrate location for eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica spat settlement and the effect of boat wake on settlement in the Mosquito Lagoon, Florida.
Grayson Taber, mentored by Dr. Holley Lynch, Imaging Early Developmental Stages of Butterfly, Vanessa cardui
Kaira Thevenin, mentored by Dr. Kristine Dye, Exploration of Merkel Cell Polyomavirus Small Tumor Antigen Localization in Transformation and Tumorigenesis
Nicole Verdecia, mentored by Dr. Corie Charpentier, Quantifying the Diversity and Settlement Rate of Organisms Along a Living Shoreline in Mosquito Lagoon
Catherine Kraft, mentored by Dr. Leander Seah, Speaking of Dictators: Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, and the Language of Personality Cults
Alexa McDonough, mentored by Dr. William Nylen, Legacies of War: Argentina’s Catholic Church During the Dirty War and Beyond
Lily Paternoster, mentored by Dr. Ekaterina Kudryavtseva, Uneasy: Commodification of Jean-Michel Basquiat
Osmara Rodriguez, mentored by Dr. Emily Mieras, Domesticity in Nineteenth Century Suburbia; Ideal vs. Reality
Dylaney Sabino, Dr. Nathan Wolek, Investigating The Daisy Patch Using Max Gen~
Mario Saponaro, mentored by Luca Molnar, Living in a State of Mind
Madison Skelton, mentored by Dr. Sarah Cramer, How do agricultural and food practices and identity interact with one another within Mayan culture?
Nicole Steiniger, mentored by Dr. Terence Farrell, Do pygmy rattlesnakes exhibit behavioral fevers in response to infection by a fungal pathogen?
Katie Wedderstrand, mentored by Dr. Kimberly Reiter, The Bone Wars as a Study of Paleontological Growth in Western America
Congratulations to the 2020 SURE Grant award winners! We commend all faculty mentors and award recipients.
Julia Gray, “Social Media Usage and Conspiracy Theory Belief”
Mentor: Michael Eskenazi
Kristina Mickens, “Prairie-Dwelling Rodents/Anaplasma phagocytophilum“
Mentor: Sean Beckmann
Trenton Ward, “Lack of military coups/repression in Costa Rica after 1948“
Mentor: Nicole Mottier
Ryan Estes, “Ecclesiastical Responses to the Albigensian Crusade“
Mentor: Kimberly Reiter
Jake Simmons, “Protein-Ligand Interactions“
Mentor: Matthew Shannon
Emily Keck, “Access to Black History in Volusia County“
Mentor: Anthony Abbott
Jade Ammones, “Equity & Art Institutions“
Mentor: Katya Kudryavtseva
Abigail Arient, “Vodou Dance in the Caribbean“
Mentor: Nicole Mottier
Shadia Muñoz-Najar, “The Effects of Compulsory Voting on COVID Mortality in Latin America“
Mentor: Elizabeth Plantan
Mary Caputa, “Am Military crimes against the Japanese 1941-52“
Mentor: Emily Mieras
Liam Leider, “Issues With Current Methods of Advertising SNAP“
Mentor: Kelly Smith
Jordan Acosta, “Post-Soviet Mosque: Islamic Revival“
Mentor: Michael Denner
Julia Finver, “COVID-19 health measures in FL universities“
Mentor: Asal Johnson
Ruby Rosenthal, “Sex, Work and COVID 19“
Mentor: Andy Dehnart
Meghan Landsberg, “The New Era of Misinformation“
Mentor: Su Young Choi
“Showcase is back.”
Those were the immediate and enthusiastic words from Kimberly Reiter, PhD, when about the status of Stetson Showcase 2022.
Since 1999, Showcase has been a springtime tradition that celebrates the research and scholarly achievements of students from across the DeLand campus. Students from all years and schools are invited to participate. Hundreds of them share their research through presentations, portfolios, posters, readings, music and theater performances, art shows and multimedia work to the general public. And they present their programs in professional settings for audiences that include judges, faculty, fellow students and esteemed members of the community.
In essence, while many Stetson students have the opportunity to present their work at professional meetings across the country, Stetson Showcase has provided an additional opportunity for them to display their work to faculty, fellow students and interested members of the wider community.
For the past two years, however, the COVID-19 pandemic halted the big show, leaving students with only an online platform to share their prowess.
Yet, now the return of Showcase is only days away, set for April 12 — live and in person, with one session available for students, regardless of major, to present online. In addition, Stetson President Christopher F. Roellke, PhD, was the scheduled keynote speaker.
Appropriately enough, the Showcase theme is “Resilience. Resurgence. Revival.”
“We have almost no students who remember what a normal Showcase looks like,” said Reiter, associate professor of history and long-time chair of Stetson Showcase. “The only students who remember what a normal Showcase looks like are in the graduating class, and they were freshmen who probably didn’t participate in Showcase 2019.”
Reiter, nonetheless, was anticipating a very busy day.
There will be as many as 10 concurrent sessions during the hours of 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m.. That is followed by an evening reception, featuring Roellke’s keynote speech, “Higher Education at the Crossroads,” and an awards ceremony.
The program is available here.
“Everybody is engaged,” Reiter concluded, “and sessions will be going on all over campus.”
-Michael Candelaria
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The Undergraduate Research and Creative Arts Symposium Showcase — an annual celebration of academic achievement at Stetson — is set for Tuesday, April 13.
More than 160 students from the School of Music, School of Business Administration and the College of Arts and Sciences will present research by juniors, seniors and Honors students between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Showcase will be a hybrid presentation. Some events, such as the senior recital and Hand exhibits, will be available both live and online. Two other sessions will be face-to-face but viewable online. Many others will be entirely online.
Students, faculty and staff, along with family outside the Stetson community, must register to attend events virtually. Registration began April 7 and continues through April 13. For those attending live sessions, there are capacity limits, which will be observed. Once the registration form is received, registrants will receive links to the sessions. The Registration link can be found here.
Day classes across campus are being canceled, providing all students with the opportunity to see and hear the work of fellow students. Cultural credit will be awarded by 15-minute participation blocks on Zoom or in person. For every 15 minutes logged into or attending a session, one-third of a cultural credit will be awarded. A maximum of five cultural credits can be earned for the symposium event. At each venue, student ID numbers will have to be used for cultural credit.
View the planned Showcase program here.
Showcase, with its debut in 1999, has grown to be one of the oldest and most distinctive comprehensive Undergraduate Research Days nationwide. Former names include Undergraduate Scholarship and Performance Day and Undergraduate Scholarship Day.
COVID-19 halted the celebration in 2020, but not this year.
“COVID may have put us down last year, because we just had no time to put this together, but this year … we are alive and kicking,” asserted Kimberly Reiter, PhD, associate professor of history and chair of the Stetson Undergraduate Research Committee and Stetson Showcase.
The theme this year is New Worlds, acknowledging the challenges that undergraduate research has faced in the past year, and the new understandings that have resulted in conducting that research. The theme also celebrates the opportunities students have created for both learning and research in a world of virtual academe, Reiter said.
The Showcase will be competitive, too. Project judging, encompassing input from selected faculty, staff and industry leaders, will culminate in an awards ceremony. In general, students are asked to discuss their projects at a level that anyone not knowing the area can understand, with the belief that part of an effective presentation is effective communication.
The winners of each of the locations or poster sessions will receive a Maris Prize of $200 and a certificate of excellence.
-Michael Candelaria
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