UAH Honors College Spring 2018 Newsletter

HONORS COLLEGE UAH.EDU/HONORS

ISSUE 4 // NEWSLETTER

2 From the Dean

7 Honors Courses

3 Prevost Grant Programs

8 Invited Speaker

4 - 6 Spotlights: Grant, research, internship, and student

9 Week of Welcome

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ISSUE 4 // NEWSLETTER

FROM THE DEAN Academics and community are the two pillars that support the UAH Honors College.

Academically, Honors offerings have extended to cover everything from history to math to drawing. In the 2017-18 academic year, we will offer 7 different special Honors seminars.

Topics include Planets & Exoplanets; Bioethics; Sustainability; and a special, introductory seminar in Space Science that is rigorous enough to meet the standards of a technical elective for Engineering Students. Along with this, we have piloted new programs in engineering that support senior design as a means for finishing the Honors Capstone.

An Honors Physics lecture, with fully redesigned lab sections, debuted this year and we will eventually have the entire introductory physics sequence available in Honors.

Honors academics are challenging, but this challenge pays off. Several students told me that Honors calculus prepared them so well that they could have “taught themselves” the next course in the sequence. The newest iteration of Honors Freshman Year Experience (now called, simply, Honors 101) was an academically rigorous course, but it gave students substantial knowledge and skills in research and information literacy. They are prepared for any course that requireds a research paper or project.

In terms of community, we continue to build networks and programs that reinforce a sense of “home” in Honors. Perhaps our more important initiative this year is the establishment of our new Community Leader position. Each Honors Community Leader lives in one of our two halls, Franz or North, but has responsibility for both their hall and the community as a whole. They reach out to the off-campus students; they work with both upper and lower-division students, and they plan many of our community’s events. Besides our tremendously successful Week of Welcome, they have planned a programming game jam, career workshops, an essay contest and dinner to go with this year’s common text (Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven), and a wildly successful Harry Potter themed Yule Ball.

Academics and community: Honors education lives where they meet. Honors Students succeed in part because they share their educational challenges with their fellow Honors students; and using common texts and other shared academic experiences, we can build community out of scholarship.

Dr. William Wilkerson Dean, UAH Honors College

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Morgan Blair, Maia Bergeron, Michael Pettit, Reese Boynton, Mr. Prevost, Dean Wilkerson, Cameron McWilliams, Hayden Fowler, and Jennifer Hernandez are pictured from left to right.

SEVEN HONORS STUDENTS AWARDED RESEARCH GRANTS The Honors College is pleased to announce that seven Honors students have been chosen to receive grants through the Prevost Research Program. Made possible by a private donation from Mr. Stanley Prevost to the UAH Honors College, the program is intended to support the awardees as they pursue undergraduate research toward their Honors Capstone during the fall 2017 and spring 2018 semesters.

“Competition for the grant was exceptional,” says Dr. William Wilkerson, dean of the Honors College. “The number of applicants more than doubled the number of available awards, and the separation between the scored applicants was only a few percentage points. Students with abilities and dedication like those selected for this grant enhance the reputation of the Honors College and UAH.”

The students are expected to complete their research by the end of the 2018 spring semester. They are also required to submit the results of their research to “Perpetua: the UAH Journal of Undergraduate Research” and participate in the Alabama System Honors Research Day in the fall of 2018 and/or UAH’s Research Horizons Day in the spring of 2019.

The recipients of the grant and their research titles are as follows:

Maia Bergeron (College of Business), Reese Boynton (College of Engineering), and Michael Pettit (College of The Woman in Academia Project

This multidisciplinary project examines the continued disparity of women outcomes in society at large and more specifically in academia.

Faculty mentors: Dr. Sophia Marinova and Dr. Wafa Orman, College of Business; and Dr. Dianhan Zheng, College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences

Morgan Blair

Taking Steps: Utilizing Learning Walks to Intentionally Notice and Discuss Effective Mathematics Teaching Practices

This study explores the debriefing conversations from a small group of middle school math teachers to identify effective mathematics teaching practices and their perceptions of knowledge about effective mathematics teaching practices.

Faculty mentor: Dr. Yu Lei, College of Engineering

Jennifer Hernandez (College of Nursing)

Autism Spectrum Disorder progression and exposure to indoor and outdoor air pollution

This study attempts to determine if a relationship exists between indoor and outdoor air pollutants and volatile organic compounds and the severity of autism spectrum disorders.

Faculty mentor: Dr. Azita Amiri, College of Nursing

(College of Education)

This project seeks to develop a novel gold-copper bimetallic catalyst for the more-efficient, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly synthesis of propylene oxide, a very highly valued chemical intermediate used in the automobile and construction industries.

Science)

Faculty mentor: Dr. Sarah Roller, College of Education

Haden Fowler

Cameron McWilliams

(College of Engineering)

Climate Data Informed Conditional Assessment for Critical Infrastructures

This project seeks to develop an algorithm that will be able to prioritize bridges for repair based on data from the National Bridge Inventory database and to quantify the effects of the environmental conditions that drive the deterioration process.

Faculty mentor is Dr. Hongyu Zhou, College of Engineering

(College of Engineering)

Investigation of Copper Catalysts for Propylene Epoxidation

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SPOTLIGHT ISSUE 4 // NEWSLETTER

STUDY ABROAD GRANT FOR AIRFARE UAH Honors Study Abroad Grant for Airfare (SAGA) allows Honors students to apply for funds to cover airfare for approved study abroad programs of their choice. The purpose of SAGA is to enable opportunities for Honors students to study abroad, provide a unique way to earn Honors credit, and enhance international awareness and students’ knowledge of other cultures, languages, and lands. The Honors College works closely with the Office of Study Abroad to identify study abroad opportunities that are the right fit for Honors Students. The money for this grant comes directly from the Honors Student Fee.

UAH Honors students travel

The Honors College awarded the SAGA to fifteen Honors Students. This summer and fall, they traveled to such destinations as Ireland, Costa Rica, New Zealand, India, Germany, and Ecuador. Students who receive the Honors SAGA must provide a weekly “share” of their experiences while abroad: the Honors SAGA blog gives students the opportunity to “share their SAGA.” So far, students have used the blog to share trip photos, describe their explorations and personal reactions to destinations, as well as give other students a “how-to-travel” guide when it comes to their destination. One common theme is that most of SAGA travelers encourage students who may be thinking of studying abroad to “get out of their comfort zone!”

The SAGA will be awarded twice per year, in February and September.

to New Zealand

To read the blog, go to uahhonorssaga.wordpress.com.

SUMMER CAPSTONE RESEARCH PROGRAM

By Tyler Welty My name is Tyler Welty and I worked at SWIRLL last summer developing a lightning sensor!

Thanks to the Honors Summer Capstone Research Program, I was funded to work in an electronics lab with the Atmospheric Science department here at UAH. My project was a challenging and exciting experience for me. I certainly learned a lot of things that I normally wouldn’t get in a classroom, from technology development to meeting with fellow researchers and more. Building a lightning sensor required a mix of knowledge about weather that I learned in my degree program, plus new skills that I learned relating to electrical and computer engineering, including hardware development and soldering. I did hardware research and testing, plenty of coding, and a lot of learning! When the sensor was done, I spent the rest of the summer learning how to process and handle data, collaborate with other researchers, write a scientific paper, and present my sensor and research to others. All of these tasks taught me valuable skills for a future in research, and I can’t thank the Honors College and my mentor Dr. Phillip Bitzer enough for this opportunity!

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From left: Victoria Van, Susanna Manning, Northrop Grumman Corporate Vice President and President of Mission Systems sector Kathy Warden, and Patrick Brady

HONORS SPONSORED INTERNSHIPS

By Victoria Van During Fall 2016, I participated in the UAH Northrop Grumman Mentorship Program. For the semester long program, I attended leadership meetings with Northrop Grumman mentors and learn about how the company functions and innovations in the defense industry, especially in the Huntsville-area. At the conclusion of the program, I had the opportunity to interview with Northrop Grumman and received an offer for a college technical intern position.

As a rising junior, I am a computer engineering student interested in cybersecurity. My summer project involved designing an onboarding mobile app for Northrop

Grumman. Honestly, my internship nudged me out of my comfort zone. Apparently, engineers must present briefings, preliminary design reviews, critical design reviews, final presentations, and updates at daily scrum meetings. Public speaking is heavily embedded in real-life engineering.

Northrop Grumman is also a leader in the cyber field. This summer I had the opportunity to attend the National Cyber Summit and compete in the CyberCup Competition as part of UAH’s Cyber Team. Additionally, I met Northrop Grumman Corporate Vice President and President of Mission Systems Kathy Warden at her Huntsville Town Hall and African American Task Group (AATG) meet and greet.

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STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

Of course she’s a brilliant scholar and researcher. But it’s the generosity with which she shares her gifts that makes

HAYDEN FOWLER Each newsletter, we’d like to highlight one student in Honors who has been both an outstanding scholar and an outstanding member of our community. Our inaugural student spotlight couldn’t go to a more deserving student than Hayden Fowler.

A graduate of the Alabama School of Fine Arts’ stellar Math and Science program, Hayden came to UAH in 2014 with a transcript packed with advanced courses. More importantly for her time here in Honors, Hayden had already engaged in advanced research as a result of her attending such an accelerated high school program.

Since matriculating here, she has amassed a number of research grants and awards, winning both an Honors Summer Research Grant and a grant from the Prevost Research Grant (supported by a private donation). Her current work investigates methods for the use of copper catalysts to create propylene oxide, a chemical used in numerous manufacturing processes.

her a vital member of our community.

She was an outstanding mentor for incoming freshmen. She was our most popular Honors Tutor, and also our first Head Honors Tutor. In this position, she established the parameters and precedents of that job. It often seemed that either officially or unofficially, she was tutoring and helping the entire Honors College.

Sometimes you serve by being a leader.

Sometimes you serve by quietly holding the community together.

Hayden has done both.

- Dr. William Wilkerson

She has also been very active in Honors Community. As Dean Wilkerson notes, “Of course she’s a brilliant scholar and researcher. But it’s the generosity with which she shares her gifts that makes her a vital member of our community. She was an outstanding mentor for incoming freshmen. She was our most popular Honors Tutor, and also our first Head Honors Tutor.

In this position, she established the parameters and precedents of that job. It often seemed that either officially or unofficially, she was tutoring and helping the entire Honors College. Sometimes you serve by being a leader. Sometimes you serve by quietly holding the community together.

Hayden has done both.”

Other students have also appreciated her support. Said one of her former mentees: “Not only did she do an excellent job as my mentor - checking up on me on a regular basis, etc. - but she went above and beyond and spent hours upon hours helping me with homework and studying. During these hours of working math and engineering problems, I got to know Hayden as a kind and caring person. I could tell that it mattered to her how I was doing, and that she wanted to help when she could. I was extremely lucky to have her as my mentor, and as a friend.”

Hayden is actually from Hayden, Alabama.

(Nobody knows if her parents came up with the name before realizing that!) Hayden’s favorite foods are tacos and steak. She loves concerts, South Park, drawing, and video games. She has a cat named Kiki. Generally shy in front of crowds, she is funny, warm and always genuine. We will be sad to see her graduate this year, but wish her much success in the future.

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ISSUE 4 // NEWSLETTER

HONORS SPECIAL SEMINARS The 2017-2018 academic year is a record one for Honors Special Seminars. Between fall and spring, we have offered 6 special seminars. In the fall, we were excited to offer Planets, Exoplanets, and Other Worlds. Honors Alumni who were part of the Honors Program during the early 2000s would recognize this course as a narrowly focused version of the old Honors Lecture. A variety of speakers, some from UAH, some from NASA Marshall, gave talks on various aspects of planetary science, both in and out of the solar system. The final lecture discussed the role of planets in science fiction (thus the “Other Worlds” in the course title). We are grateful to Dr. Jack Fix, retired Dean of Science, for leading the course. A 10 week course, taught by Dr. Jeffrey Nelson, examined Michael Frayn’s Tony-award winning play, Copenhagen. As the play covers the famous and mysterious meeting of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in Copenhagen during the Second World War, it provides the perfect interdisciplinary ground for an Honors seminar; a blend of history, science, and politics.

In the spring, we will offer four courses:

Poverty in the U.S. (a service-learning course) Bioethics (in conjunction with the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology) Sustainability – People, Planets, Profit Introduction to Space Science

Top: Dr. Gary Zank is a facilitator of the Space Science course.

Bottom: Dr. Charles Hickman is the facilitator of Poverty in the U.S. service learning course.

The last of these, Space Science, is particularly noteworthy. Aside from being the first Honors Seminar in the history of Honors to have pre-requisites, the course will be taught by National Academy of Science member Dr. Gary Zank and his team of internationally known space scientists. For the students enrolled in the course, this is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Going forward, we hope to offer at least this many courses each year. Honors will always strive to offer unusual learning opportunities for students, opportunities that expand their range of vision and provide unique perspectives on their own fields of study.

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EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL VISITS THE HONORS COLLEGE ISSUE 4 // NEWSLETTER

Every year, all Honors Freshmen read the same book as part of their Honors English Seminar.

The common text experience has proved to be rewarding and enjoyable for students. Even if some don’t like the required text, the opportunity to talk about it with any other Honors freshman provides a vital link among our incoming students.

For this year, the common text was Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven. Short-listed for the National Book Award and a finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award, this much-discussed bestseller chronicles the story of the Travelling Symphony, an itinerate troop that performs Shakespeare and music in a world rendered almost devoid of humans after a pandemic. Although it has the appearance of genre fiction, Mandel’s tremendously complex and literary narrative explores topics as wide-ranging as memory, the limits of technology, and the value of story.

We always bring a speaker connected with the common text to campus every year, but this year students were unusually lucky: we were able to bring the actual author, Emily St. John Mandel. She proved herself to be an extraordinarily generous speaker. She spoke to large groups on three occasions, and was excited to answer questions about her writing process (she uses an Excel spreadsheet to track her plot points), her views on the value of technology (very ambivalent), and her influences (she wanted to write the opposite book from McCarthy’s The Road). She signed books, and went to dinner with 4 very lucky Honors Students who won the essay contest on her book.

Most importantly for our students, she said that even if everyone reads the same text, each reader nonetheless reads a different book because of the personal experience and questions they bring to it. The important role that she gave to readers in developing the meaning of her text certainly made everyone feel at home with their own, unique experience of the book that we all shared.

Emily St. John Mandel, New York Times bestselling author of “Station Eleven,” visited the UAH campus in November for a series of public talks and a book signing.

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ISSUE 4 // NEWSLETTER

HONORS WEEK OF WELCOME With the help of our new Honors College Community Leaders, Chris McClurg and Sarah Salajka, this year was far and away the best Honors Week of Welcome yet. Events included the ever popular Dinner with the Dean, Meet your Honors Mentor, the Amazing Race, and a Picnic by the Lakeside. Despite unpredictable and torrential downpours of rain, broken up by the steamy sun of an Alabama August, hundreds participated in our events and found their new home in Honors.

HONORS COMMUNITY LEADERS Left: Sarah Salajka Right: Chris McClurg

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HONORS GRADUATES 2017

Nicholas Diliberti

Patrick Monroe

College of Science

College of Science

Thesis Title: “An Extensible Real Estate Paperwork Utility”

Thesis Title: “Peirce-ing the Veil: On the Usefullness of Camparing American Pramatism and Buddhism”

Advisor: Dr. Richard Coleman

Matthew England

SPRING DIPLOMAS: Claire Birkholz College of Business

Thesis Title: “To Hedge or Not to Hedge: Long-Term Currency Risk in International Investment Portfolios” Advisor: Dr. John Burnett

Zachary Burkhardt College of Engineering

Thesis Title: “Finite Element Analysis for an ISS Mounted Cubesat” Advisor: Dr. Matthew Turner

Thomas Carlton College of Business

Thesis Title: “A Strategic Analysis of the Nintendo Corporation” Advisor: Dr. Eric Fong

Elliot Codd College of Science

Thesis Title: “The Occurrence of “Jellyfish” Galaties in Galactic Clusters” Advisor: Dr. Ming Sun

Breanna Crane College of Science

Thesis Title: “Determining the Flux of Gamma Rays From the Moon” Advisor: Dr. Richard Miller

Danielle Curet College of Business

Thesis Title: “Optimal Networking and Strategy: Escape Rooms” Advisor: Dr. Allen Wilhite

Michaella Daigle College of Business

Thesis Title: “Digital Marketing Campaign for Local Pops” Advisor: Dr. Ralph “Foster” Perry

Advisor: Dr. Nick Jones

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences Thesis Title: “The Good Christians: Papal Reform, Corruption, and the Rise of the Cathars in 12th Century Europe”

Moriah Morehouse

Advisor: Dr. Stephen Waring

Advisor: Dr. Christina Carmen

Justin Grimm

Jasper Morrow

College of Science

Thesis Title: “Role of ACC-deaminase containing bacteria in Aspen stress response” Advisor: Dr. Leland Cseke

Justin Hughes College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Thesis Title: “Anxiety and Depression Symptoms in Patients Undergoing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Chronic Pain” Advisor: Dr. Eric Seemann

Aidan Iftikhar College of Engineering

Thesis Title: “Automatizing of a RF Focus Beam” Advisor: Mr. Dennis Hite

Casey Lanier College of Science

Thesis Title: “Searching for the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium using X-Ray Spectrography”

Advisor: Dr. Massimiliano Bonamente

Aaron McNully College of Arts, Humanities & Social

Sciences Thesis Title: “Gladly to the Truth”: The Role of the Bishop in Shaping Late Antique Imperial Orthodoxy Advisor: Dr. Stephen Waring

Marko Milosavljevic College of Science

Thesis Title: “Chaotic Systems in Radar” Advisor: Dr. James Miller

Alena Mitchell College of Science

Thesis Title: “Identification of Fungal Species that Trigger Invasive Plants”

College of Engineering

Thesis Title: “Design and Analysis of a Mobile Arm Support for Patients with Degenerative Muscular Disorders”

College of Science Thesis Title: “Theoretical vs Practical Software Development” Advisor: Dr. Richard Coleman

Kareem Omar College of Engineering

Thesis Title: “Simultaneous Orbital and Attitude Propagation of CubeSats in Low Earth Orbit” Advisor: Dr. Michael Briggs

Valaine Pfister College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences Thesis Title: “Christian Soldiers Karate SE Film” Advisor: Dr. Pavica Sheldon

Chelsea Posey College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Thesis Title: “English Learners in American Schools: Legislation, Misconceptions and Effective Pedagogy” Advisor: Dr. Jason O’Brien

James Rothenflue College of Science

Thesis Title: “The Multiple Engagement Combat System Engine” Advisor: Dr. Richard Coleman

Christopher Sebastian College of Science

Thesis Title: “Characteristics and Inhibitory Analysis of Klebsiella pneumoniae inorganic pyrophosphatase” Advisor: Dr. Joseph Ng

William Shankles College of Science

Thesis Title: “The Arrow of Time from Cosmic to Quantum Scales” Advisor: Dr. Richard Lieu

Advisor: Dr. Leland Cseke

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Molly Stalons College of Science

FALL DIPLOMAS:

Thesis Title: “Release Factor mutants that affect the function of the Tnac regulatory peptide”

Anders, Megan

Evan Unruh

Advisor: Dr. John F. Kvach

Advisor: Dr. Luis Cruz-Vera College of Engineering

College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Thesis Title: Japanese-American Internment Camps: The Concentration Camps of the United States

Thesis Title: “Reduced Pressure Environment Testing of an Augmented Spark Igniter”

Kristen Bertrand

Tiia Vesalainen

Advisor: Dr. Ellise Adams

Advisor: Dr. David Lineberry College of Science

College of Nursing

Thesis Title: “A Study of Skin-To-Skin During Cesarean Birth: A Mother’s Experience”

Thesis Title: “The Effects of a Complex Terrain and Surface Elevation on the Airflow in Convective Systems A Simulation Study”

James Block

Advisor: Dr. Udaysankar Nair

Advisor: Dr. Judith Schneider

Brittany Whitten

Kathryn Bradley

College of Engineering

Thesis Title: “Production of Maleic Anhydride” Advisor: Dr. Ramon Cerro

College of Engineering

Thesis Title: “Direct Deposition 3D Printing with Robotic Welding”

College of Nursing

Thesis Title: “What is the current practice regarding the measurement of ammonia levels after lung transplantation?”

Advisor: Haley Hoy

Rachel Byrd SPRING CERTIFICATES: Robert Hicks College of Engineering

Thesis Title: “Reduced Pressure Environment Testing of an Augmented Spark Igniter” Advisor: Dr. David Lineberry

Yusuke Nakamura College of Engineering

Thesis Title: “Analysis of Relations between Points of Vertical Tail and Aerodynamic Coefficients” Advisor: Dr. Brian Landrum

College of Science

Thesis Title: “Of Microbes and Men: The effect of men, meat, media and microbes on an industry” Advisor: Stephen Waring

Matthew Christley College of Engineering

Thesis Title: “Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Using Water Rockets for Educating Students in K-12 Classrooms” Advisor: Dr. Michael Benfield

Elizabeth Gates College of Nursing

Thesis Title: “Validation & Optimization of CAPTURE: Rapid Diagnosis of Pathogens Causing Urinary Tract Infections” Advisor: Dr. Louise O’Keefe

Linda Hanson College of Nursing

Thesis Title: “Assessing the Efficacy of Recommended Antiseptics for Killing Bacterial Growth in Neonatal Blue bulb Syringes: Addressing a Clinical Issue”

Delaney Humphrey College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Thesis Title: “Insights into Russian Energy Policy: The Viability of Renewable Energy in Russia” Advisor: Dr. Shuang Zhao

Kelsey Matthews College of Business

Thesis Title: “An Exploration of the Effects of Logistical Changes on Company Culture” Advisor: Anna Devlin

William Parsons College of Science

Thesis Title: “Concerns Related to GUI design and Language Features and Tools that Address Them” Advisor: Dr. Richard Coleman

Zachary Pinz College of Engineering

Thesis Title: “Microstrip Patch Antenna Design for Wireless Energy Harvesting” Advisor: Mr. Dennis Hite

Heather Rachford College of Engineering

Thesis Title: “Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Using Water Rockets for Educating Students in K-12 Classrooms” Advisor: Dr. Michael Benfield

Jonathan Shields College of Science

Thesis Title: “Analyzing the Capabilities of the next Engine: 3D Scanner Ultra HD” Advisor: Dr. Timothy Newman

Hannah Thomas College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Thesis Title: “Some Melodious Sonnet: Southern Cultural Identity in Popular Religious Poetry” Advisor: Dr. Anna Foy

Tevon Walker College of Engineering

Detection and Localization of Drones Using Image Processing Advisor: Dr. Earl Wells

Advisor: Dr. Pamela O’Neal

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HONORS COLLEGE 301 Sparkman Drive Frank Franz Hall, Room 104 Huntsville, Alabama 35899

uah.edu/honors

An Equal Opportunity University

HONORS COLLEGE uah.edu/honors

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