Among the selected students are rising juniors Ashley Baker and Fumin Li, who just completed Pannell Scholarships, as well as Dolores Gallagher, Moriah Donaldson and Amy Kvien; rising seniors Kaitlyn Cartwright, Rebecca Dalley, Anna Donko, Katlyn Fleming and Lilian Tauber; and soon-to-be graduate Jennifer Gray.

“This is a bigger group of students than we have had in a while,” said Julie Hemstreet, who organizes the program. “We also had a bigger and much more competitive pool of applicants than we have had in many years.”

Under the supervision of a faculty member, each student will conduct independent research on a topic of her choice. The eight-week, on-campus program offers participants a exceptional academic experience by providing the opportunity for intensely focused research, a one-on-one working relationship with a faculty mentor, and weekly meetings and presentations by both professors and students highlighting their ongoing research.

For more information about the program, email jhemstreet@sbc.edu.

Projects:

Ashley Baker ’15
Faculty sponsor: Rob Granger (Chemistry)
With an understanding of photosynthesis, Baker will replicate it using organometallic catalysts (molecules that contain both carbon and metal atoms).

Kaitlyn Cartwright ’14
Faculty sponsor: Abraham Yousef (Chemistry)
An important aspect of anticancer research is the development of compounds that possess selectivity to cancer cells and the ability to avoid resistance from cancer cells. Cartwright will synthesize a novel organic compound containing a phenanthroline scaffold that will allow for binding to platinum and a 3(2H)-furanone core. The compound will later be tested against various cancer cells, both with and without platinum. The project will serve as the beginning of her Honors thesis work.

Katlyn Fleming ’14
Faculty sponsor: Abraham Yousef (Chemistry)
Fleming’s research project involves a novel organic compound containing a phenanthroline scaffold designed to bind to platinum. While platinum-containing compounds are known to be effective against cancer cells, not all compounds are equally effective, and some cancer cells can develop resistance to currently known drugs. The target compound will be synthesized this summer and later tested against various cancer cells, both with and without platinum. Fleming will continue her research in her senior Honors thesis.

Rebecca Dalley ’14
Faculty sponsor: Janet Steven (Biology)
Using clonal growth in plants, Dalley will investigate the age of interrupted ferns (Osmunda claytoniana L.). Interrupted fern rhizomes grow at a slow rate of about a quarter inch per year. With the use of DNA markers and measurements taken during sampling, Dalley will determine the approximate age and illuminate the history of the current forest undergrowth.

Moriah Donaldson ’15
Faculty sponsor: Scott Pierce (Engineering)
Donaldson’s project aims to help develop a new treatment for phantom limb pain, a syndrome affecting 80 percent of amputees. She’ll create a realistic, computer-based simulation of hands as they perform grasping and pointing motions. Her two main goals are constructing a complete kinematic model of a hand in motion, and using a solid modeling library to create dimensionally correct models.

Anna Donko ’14
Faculty sponsor: Pamela DeWeese (Modern languages and literatures)
Through her research, Donko aims to demonstrate how Ramón del Valle-Inclán’s theatrical concept of “Esperpento” molded his creation of the fictitious, dictatorial world in his masterpiece, “Tirano Banderas,” a novel depicting the fall of a cruel South American dictator.

Fumin Li ’15
Faculty sponsor: Bethany Brinkman (Engineering)
Using AutoCAD, Li will create a virtual model of Sweet Briar House that people can visit online.

Dolores Gallagher ’15
Faculty sponsor: Bryce Walker (Classics, philosophy and religion)
During her project, Gallagher will study medicine in ancient Greece, particularly its relationship to Greek culture. She will also look at the Hippocratic oath and its influence on doctors at the time and today.

Jennifer Gray ’13
Faculty sponsors: Lynn Laufenberg (History) and Eric Casey (Classics)
Through a comparative historical study, Gray hopes to understand how the perception of women with political power evolved between the 5th century B.C. and the 6th century A.D.

Amy Kvien ’15
Faculty sponsor: Sherry Forbes (Economics)
Kvien’s research project seeks to understand the effect of the recent financial regulations in response to the Great Recession on the structure of the financial services industry.

Lilian Tauber ’14
Faculty sponsor: Lynn Laufenberg (History)
In her research, Tauber will investigate the Arab Spring and its impact on the emergence or expansion of political and human rights in the countries involved. Among other things, she will explore whether U.S. interests in the region have had an impact on this process. Tauber hopes to shed light on it through a comparative, historical investigation into discernible U.S. influence in two case studies (Egypt and Morocco), focusing on the integration of political rights into government institutions in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Weathersby is a professorial lecturer in Korean studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. She is also a visiting professor in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at Sungshin Women’s University in Seoul, Korea. She teaches courses on South/North Korean relations in historical context, the history of post-World War II international relations and North Korean history and politics. Following the collapse of communist rule in the Soviet Union, Weathersby pioneered research in Russian archives on the creation of the North Korean state and the Korean War, and has published and lectured widely on these subjects. She founded and directed the North Korea International Documentation Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., and has served as a consultant for several documentaries on North Korea. Weathersby holds a Ph.D. in Russian history, with a second field in Modern East Asia, from Indiana University.

Kasey Stewart is an aspiring doctor who, in addition to double-majoring in art history and Spanish, is taking pre-med courses and minoring in Latin American studies. Her Pannell project, “Doctors Without Borders: Step One,” combines her passion for language with her dreams of becoming a doctor and helping children.

To explore her career goal of working as a pediatrician in Guatemala, Stewart has been analyzing Costa Rica’s health care system, its culture, and the history and inner workings of Doctors Without Borders. She also used the scholarship money to travel to Costa Rica in December and January to volunteer at an orphanage, which allowed her to experience the country’s culture and health care system first hand.

“I hope to apply this knowledge to suggest how Doctors Without Borders, or another health NGO, could help Guatemala achieve the same level of health services that Costa Rica has obtained,” she explained before the trip.

“My ultimate career goal is to lead Doctors Without Borders missions in Latin American countries. Experiencing a successful Latin American health care system, as well as getting the Spanish-speaking and cultural experience, will all help me be the best mission leader that I can possibly be.”

Costa Rica’s rainforest was one of several attractions Stewart visited during her monthlong stay.

The trip also gave the South Carolina native a taste of what it would be like to live abroad — and what it’s like when plans don’t work out.

Upon her arrival in San Jose, the orientation she was supposed to receive was canceled, leaving her to figure out everything on her own for the first few days.

“I thought I was prepared to travel alone, but I definitely wasn’t,” she admits.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to for very long. Fellow Sweet Briar student Ariel Taylor ’14 joined her two weeks later to also volunteer at the orphanage. Along with several other international students, the two spent weekdays tending to the young children and traveled around the country on the weekends, getting to know Costa Rica’s culture and wildlife — overall a “fantastic” experience, Stewart says.

But as things go with exploratory research projects, they don’t always yield the results one may have expected.

“Working with the children definitely reassured me that I want to work in pediatrics, but I also really enjoyed teaching the kids and I have always been passionate about education,” she said.

Stewart says she is now more interested in developmental pediatrics than emergency care, which is the primary focus of Doctors Without Borders.

“You can’t really volunteer in behavioral pediatrics,” she explained, adding that her goals have changed somewhat. While she still wants to work abroad as a doctor, it will have to be a more permanent position than those provided by Doctors Without Borders, since developmental pediatricians have to build relationships with their patients.

Stewart hopes to intern with a doctor in her hometown near Columbia during spring break to further explore the field. She’s also researching other international organizations that operate in Spanish-speaking countries.

Along with the practical experience she gained in Costa Rica, Stewart’s research has broadened her perspective on international health care aid, including its limitations.

“I have seen both the good and the bad side of international health care aid,” she said. “Obviously, western medicine has done wonders for the world, but there are also secret indigenous methods that are very important to those cultures and have clearly been working. Unfortunately, western medicine and international aid have a tendency to wipe out these wonderful health care approaches.”

Going forward, Stewart continues to explore everything there is to know about the subject — “good” or “bad.” It’s all part of the process that will get her one step closer to realizing her goals.

— Janika Carey

The Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side of Manhattan

Cheryl Mares, Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor of English, spent the past week in New York City to prepare for a special honors class this spring.

“New York City in Literature and Art” is an interdisciplinary course that will introduce students to artistic interpretations of the city since the mid-19th century.

“The course focuses on the ways that New York City has captured artists’ and writers’ imaginations in the course of its evolution from a struggling colony on the tip of an island the native peoples called ‘Mannahatta’ to the world city that it is today,” said Mares, who majored in history as an undergraduate and later received her M.A. and Ph.D. in comparative literature.

Students will explore New York’s emergence as a metropolis through the lenses of immigration, segregation and mobility, cosmopolitanism and the neighborhood, queer New York and postmodernism. To better understand the city’s significance in literature and the visual arts, they will also have the opportunity to experience New York first hand during a three-day trip.

“The places we will be visiting … this spring are all related to the texts we will be reading for the course and the films, photos and paintings we will be viewing,” Mares said.

Having lived there for three years while in graduate school, and having returned many times since, Mares knows New York fairly well. But narrowing down the possibilities to what’s doable in just a few days takes some field research. To come up with a ‘map’ for the trip, the professor scoped the city through walking tours of lower Manhattan, Gramercy Park, Union Square, Harlem, Chelsea, the Lower East Side and the Villages.

“I have to make decisions as to which sites we will be visiting or viewing,” she said. “These could include neighborhoods, buildings, streets and avenues, parks and squares, museums, bridges, hotels, bars and other kinds of ‘cityscapes.’ ”

Cheryl Mares in the East Village

Mares wants her students to get a true ‘feel’ for New York — its geography and architecture, but also its culture and history. Immigration has played a crucial role in shaping New York City and its literary and artistic heritage, she says, adding yet another item — and a maybe-item — to her map of must-sees for the spring trip.

“I … want us to visit the Tenement Museum in the Lower East Side to see how ‘the other half’ lived,” she said. “By way of contrast, we might consider the opulence on display at the Frick [Collection], which testifies to the concentration of wealth and power by the reigning elite of the time.”

In keeping with the theme of the class, the trip will offer students many different ways of looking at New York City, both metaphorically and literally.

“I would … like to take the students on a harbor cruise so that they have an experiential sense of the island of Manhattan as a physical entity and some idea of the importance of its great natural harbor for the city’s development,” Mares explained.

“And I’d like to take them up to the Top of the Rock [Observation Deck] at the Rockefeller Center or the top of the Empire State Building so that they have a panoramic overview of the city.”

While she won’t be able to show her class everything the city has to offer, students will have plenty of opportunity for in-depth research during the semester.

“Although we will be covering a lot of ground in the course, literally and figuratively, the students will have the chance to go into more depth in their research projects, and we will all benefit from their work when they give presentations based on their research at the end of the term.”

A Colorado native, Mares has been teaching at Sweet Briar since 1982, receiving tenure in 1995. In her classes, she focuses primarily on modern and contemporary fiction and poetry, including post-Colonial literature. Her research interests involve connections between literature, history and politics in contemporary fiction and in works by modernist writers, especially Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust, on whom she has published a number of articles. Mares has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder and completed her M.A. and Ph.D. at Princeton University. For more information, visit mares.english.sbc.edu/.

— Janika Carey

In addition to playing Benvolio in the Endstation Theatre Company production of “Romeo and Juliet” in July, Zuckerman will be writing a novel from the point of view of Ophelia, the heroine of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” for the 2008 Honors Summer Research Program.

“It’s the summer of Shakespeare,” the rising senior from Philadelphia said. “This cements my status as a geek even more.”

A rising senior with a double major in creative writing and theater, Zuckerman said her research project will give her the opportunity to get to know Ophelia, “to imagine what she might have to say, to attempt to give her a voice that Shakespeare didn’t give her,” and get her take on the political and social inner workings of Ellsinore.

“This is totally the theater geek in me,” she said.

On Thursday, May 22, Zuckerman and 10 other Sweet Briar students chosen for the Honors Summer Research Program gave short presentations about the projects they will be working on.

The eight-week projects, some of which will extend into the 2008-09 academic year, include everything from Zuckerman’s Ophelia novel to a survey of Lynchburg, Va., evangelicals. In all, eight departments and nine faculty members are represented.

The following is an overview of the other student projects:

• Carolanne Bonanno ’09 will learn the techniques and nuances of a century-old photographic process called bromoil in the interest of creating fine art.

• Petra Dacheva ’09 will study the method of implementing the power of microfinance to defeat global poverty and empower women.

• Maxine Emerich ’10 will help develop a robot to assist in nanotechnology research.

• Laura Hanold ’10 will study the photochemical properties of 3(2H)-furanones in an attempt to gain insight on the possibility of using these chemicals as anti-inflammatory medications.

• Katelyn James ’11 will work to develop a new method for increasing the performance and efficiency of turbomachineries.

• Brittany Patterson ’09 will study the art of the Dogon people of Mali, a project which will culminate in 2009 with an art exhibit and lecture series and her senior honors thesis in anthropology.

• Cynthia Roden ’10 will develop an equation using socio-economic variables to predict suicide rates in U.S. counties.

• Lara Slough ’10 will do an histology of the digestive system of sharks.

• Jessie Waitt ’09 also will study sharks, particularly the placoid scales which distinguish one species from another.
• Laurel Watts ’09 will examine the religious strength of the Lynchburg, Va., evangelical community and will attempt to explain its vitality with the Competitive Marketing Theory.

For more information on the Honors Summer Research Program, visit their Web site.

The purpose of the scholarship is to recognize and encourage academic excellence. The award recognizes high standards and exceptional performance in academic courses of study, achievement reflected in the cumulative grade point average, and in the balance, variety and level of courses undertaken.

In addition, the Honors Scholarship seeks to recognize and encourage academic leadership both inside and outside of the classroom. In selecting the Honors Scholars from each class, the Honors Committee carefully evaluates students’ essays, letters of recommendation and academic records.

The following students were awarded 2008-2009 Honors Scholarships.

Class of 2009
Jessica Baker
Katherine Beach
Sarah Hall
Murphy Horne
Kathryn Lydin
Emma Meador
Julia Patt
Kirsten Porter-Stransky
Natalie Renaldo

Class of 2010
Lauren Bomar
Dorothy Buchli
Crystal Collins
Courtney Cunningham
Madeline Davis
Alexis Doyle
Laura Hanold
Madeleine MacIntire

Class of 2011
Kathryn Alexander
Ashley Howard
Katelyn James
Laura Jett
Jessica Joiner
Melaina Macone
Victoria Trudeau
Catherine Waterman

For more information on Sweet Briar’s Honors Program, visit www.sbc.edu/honors.

“Masks of Madness: Contextualizing Euripides’ ‘Bacchae,’ ” was one of 35 papers submitted to the conference. In addition to Sweet Briar, entries came from several Ohio universities, Ball State University, the College of William and Mary, Dartmouth College, Harvard University and the University of Virginia.

Meador, a classics major from Austin, Colo., researched and wrote the paper for Sweet Briar’s 2007 Honors Summer Research Program. She also presented her work at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference of Undergraduate Scholarship (MARCUS) held last fall at Sweet Briar.

Emma Meador

Of the papers submitted, 30 were chosen to be presented at the conference. Students presented abridged versions of their papers and the complete works were judged by faculty members from the Miami University classics department.

When the judging was complete, Meador was declared the first-place winner, followed by students from Miami and Xavier University. As a prize, she was presented a copy of The Oxford Classical Dictionary.

Eric Casey, SBC associate professor of classics, was pleased with the judges’ decision. “She is the first student I have had here (or anywhere else I have taught) who not only wrote an abstract for a conference and got it accepted but even won a prize for the best paper at the conference. … It is really quite an honor,” he wrote in an e-mail.

On her Facebook profile, Meador lists “Euripides” among her favorite authors, along with “Ender’s Game” author Orson Scott Card and C.S. Lewis, who wrote the “Chronicles of Narnia” series. “He’s definitely my favorite now,” she said of the Greek playwright.

Although she studied classics in high school, Meador became interested in Euripides during her first year at Sweet Briar, when she wrote a paper about his tragedy “Alcestis” for one of her classes. Last summer, she chose “The Bacchae” as her topic for the Honors Summer Research Program.

The title characters in Euripides’ play were female followers of Bacchus, another name for the Greek god Dionysus. Although Dionysus appears on stage in Greek comedy, Meador explained, “The Bacchae” is the only known Greek tragedy to feature Dionysus as a character.

“ ‘The Bacchae’ is the latest surviving Greek tragedy, the last one that we have,” she said. “It’s the only one that puts the god Dionysus on the stage. All Athenian tragedy was performed in honor of Dionysius. I was just studying the effects of having him on stage.”

In the abstract for her paper, Meador writes, “The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance of the presence of Dionysus in Euripides’ ‘Bacchae’ by looking at the ‘Bacchae’ in the context of both its festival performance and its place within the history of tragedy.

“Dionysian themes run through much of tragedy, and the god would have been a highly visible presence during its performance. I argue that the late position of the ‘Bacchae’ in the history of tragedy allows it to reflect on the preceding body of work, and that the presence of Dionysus on the stage casts a new light on themes that had already been well established.”

To read Meador’s complete abstract and those of the other students who presented, visit the conference’s Web site.

— Suzanne Ramsey

The competitive program provides fellowships to a select group of students each year to support independent research projects. Participants work with a faculty supervisor during eight weeks of intensive, focused research. Students and faculty also present their work in a series of seminars held throughout the summer term.

The program begins May 19 and runs through July 11. Faculty and staff are encouraged to attend the seminars. A schedule will be posted on the HSRP Web site at a later date.

This year’s recipients and project overviews are:

Carolanne Bonanno ’09, a studio art student, will research the process and execution of the photographic bromoil process, in which prints are made from 35mm film, bleached, and then inked. The goal of the project is to experiment with the process and produce a portfolio of prints. Her faculty sponsor is assistant professor of studio art Paige Critcher.

Petra Dacheva ’09 is working with assistant professor of economics Eugene Gotwalt to research using microfinance to defeat global poverty and empower women. Other points of interest include its effect on the Human Development Index. The research also will focus on new ways microfinance can expand in the future.

Maxine Emerich ’10 will work with Scott Pierce, assistant professor of engineering, to build a robot to develop nano-technology films related to engineering program director Hank Yochum’s research.

Laura Hanold ’10 will try to synthesize 3(2H)-furanones and study their photochemical properties. Hanold’s idea is based on a recent discovery of inotilone, a chemical that has been found to be a selective inhibitor of the enzymes cyclooxygenase (COX) and xanthine oxidase (XO), which are responsible for inflammatory responses in rheumatoid arthritis and gouty arthritis, respectively. Her sponsor is assistant professor of chemistry Abraham Yousef.

Katelyn James ’11 will work on a new method for increasing the performance and efficiency of turbomachineries, which is under investigation by Dorsa Sanadgol, assistant professor of engineering. The method involves the use of an electrostatic boost mediated by an electric field internal to a compressor system. Sanadgol is her faculty sponsor.

Anthropology student Brittany Patterson ’09 will examine several pieces of art intended for display in a 2008 African art exhibit in Pannell Gallery. Her research will focus on the interpretation and representation of the religious and mythological significance behind the pieces, which were created by the Dogon people of Mali. She is working with visiting assistant professor of anthropology Kimberly Dukes.

Cynthia Roden ’10 plans to use empirical data and economic theory to examine the economics of suicide. She will use data from different countries or U.S. counties to determine variables that influence suicide rates. Economic theory will be used to supplement the data and explain relationships. Eugene Gotwalt is her faculty sponsor.

Lara Slough ’10 notes that little is known about the biology of the deep sea-dwelling elasmobranch, Scyliorhinus retifer, also known as the chain catshark. She plans to study the histology of the species, focusing on the digestive system. She’ll examine the tissues of the major digestive organs of several specimens and compare the results with published studies on the spiny dogfish. She will be working with associate professor of biology John Morrissey.

Jessie Waitt ’09 also will work with Morrissey, comparing and analyzing placoid scales from different areas of a shark’s body to determine if predicted variation is present. Waitt will look at catsharks of different ages and both sexes.

Laurel Watts ’09 plans a sociological study of fundamentalist Christian conservatives and evangelicals as a subculture. Debbie Kasper, assistant professor of sociology, is her sponsor.

Elizabeth Zuckerman ’09 will write and revise a novel about Ophelia, the heroine of “Hamlet,” told as an autobiography from childhood through the events of the play. Sweet Briar’s Banister Writer-in-Residence, Carrie Brown, is her sponsor.

For more information about Sweet Briar’s Honors Summer Research Program, visit the Web site.

SBC President Elisabeth Muhlenfeld presented medals to Natalie Batman and Mary Dance at the Academic Recognition Dinner on March 19, an annual event that also recognizes dean’s list and first-year honors students.

Taking the podium to announce the recipients, Muhlenfeld lifted the official medal of her office and draped its pink and green ribbon around her neck. “Ah. This one’s mine,” she said, before explaining that the student award is a smaller replica of the one she received upon her inauguration.

The Presidential Medal is given to a senior or seniors who have demonstrated exemplary intellectual achievement in addition to distinction in some or all of the following areas: service to the community, contributions to the arts, enlargement of the College’s global perspective, athletic fitness and achievement, leadership and contributions to the community discourse.

This year, faculty, staff and administrators nominated 10 or 12 students, handing the senior staff its perennially difficult task of selecting a winner. When the field was winnowed to two, “we talked, we debated, we extolled the virtues of first one candidate, then the other,” Muhlenfeld said. “We really could not decide between these two characters.”

Batman, who was 16 when she arrived at Sweet Briar, will graduate in May with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and a minor in government. Her honors include the Emilie Watts McVea, Louise Cox Jones and Acuff scholarships. She is an Honors Scholar, a Commonwealth Scholar, appears regularly on the dean’s list, and is a member of Alpha Lambda Delta and Omicron Delta Epsilon. Recently, she was named to Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Batman also is a department tutor in economics, a student music leader in the chaplain’s office, chair of the Senior Class Campaign, a research assistant for Habitat for Humanity, and interns in the president’s office, where she helped coordinate the most successful United Way Campaign in the College’s history.

She has served five internships, including summers at Northrop Grumman and as a researcher at a venture capital firm. She has traveled twice to Fuzhou, China, to serve as an assistant English teacher, where she was able to practice her love for written and spoken Mandarin Chinese.

Dance, who will graduate in May with a Bachelor of Arts in government and classical studies with a classical language concentration, is a recipient of the Commonwealth, Emilie Watts McVea, Honors and Kenmore scholarships. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Eta Sigma Phi and Alpha Lambda Delta. She also is a dean’s list regular and recently was named to Who’s Who Among Students.

Dance has interned at the U.S. Supreme Court and at the Virginia attorney general’s office in Richmond. At SBC, she was a research assistant in the government department, conducted independent research in the Honors Research Program and is the hostess program chairwoman and a tour guide in the admissions office.

She is an officer for the Collegium Classics Club; a student representative on the board of directors’ educational programs committee; a student member on the classics, religion and philosophy department advisory committee; and a voting member on the faculty instruction and general education committees.

She also performs regularly in the College’s dance productions and writes a fashion column for the student newspaper, The Voice.