Young Eyes and Minds
Undergrad researchers overcome apprehension to seize opportunities in advanced studies
Planets, people, lightwaves and more are composed of matter particles—protons, neutrons and electrons.
However, scientists say matter’s opposite—antimatter—also exists in the universe, even if it is hard to find.
The BaBar experiment at Stanford University’s famous linear accelerator center in California uses sophisticated tools to study such phenomena by simulating particle collisions and other universal forces.
![[Image]](images/youngminds1.jpg)
Undergraduate ad graduate researchers working with Professor Barbara Burns share ideas during weekly meetings.
U of L undergraduate student Suzanne Nichols recently studied data generated by the huge BaBar particle detector as part of her physics studies. She worked with her mentor, David Brown, an associate professor and acting chair in the physics department in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Another of Brown’s former students, Jason Newkirk, ran three, eight-hour shifts on the BaBar detector.
“That’s a $150-million experiment being done by an undergraduate,” Brown says. “That’s impressive.”
He adds, “To my knowledge, Newkirk is the only undergraduate in the world to run shifts on the BaBar detector. And he came from right here at U of L.”
Nichols and Newkirk, both recent U of L undergraduates who’ve gone on to graduate studies, aren’t yet Nobel Prize-winning physicists. Yet, Brown says, they prove that undergraduates can do heavy-duty graduate-level and higher research.
“Research is not just for graduate students anymore,” Brown says. “Yet many undergraduates don’t recognize that research is accessible to them.”
At U of L, Nichols earned the physics department’s Donald M. Bennett Award for academic and research excellence. She says doing advanced research and presenting her work at events such as the university’s annual Undergraduate Research Symposium each spring have been plusses.
“I think it has made me very competitive as a graduate student,” she says.
While Nichols is now doing graduate work in physics at Purdue University, Brown says there are other talented new students like her in his department.
“We have many accomplished students,” he says. “I’ve had about 40 working with me since 1999 running software and analyzing large sets of data. I’m very proud of what our students have done.”
Taking Chances
Apprehension causes some undergraduates to avoid research, says Barbara Burns, a professor in the psychological and brain sciences department in A&S.
“Students think research is too hard or just for A-plus students, but it’s not,” she says.
Burns has worked with more than 150 undergraduates in her studies of attention-deficit disorder in low-income children and other issues. She also has seen many students’ initial fright in labs and clinics.
“They’re scared until they get involved, and then it takes on a life of its own.”
Hands-on research often fires undergrads’ imaginations and drives the rest of their academic experience, she adds.
Senior Carol Busse, who recently made the A&S dean’s list and has worked with Burns, agrees.
“This is like real life,” Busse says.
Burns’ young collaborators Tara Weatherhold and Liz Snyder were inspired to pursue graduate studies in psychology at U of L because of their undergraduate work in examining data generated by the now defunct Louisville Twin Study, conducted for nearly three decades at U of L’s Health Sciences Center.
“What we study is very serious, and we always need help,” Snyder says. “We appreciate the important work that undergraduates do with us.”
A Bubbling Stew Pot of Ideas
Alphabet soup comes to mind when one looks at the various campus units that sponsor undergraduate research events (KBRIN, SROP, IMD3, EPSCoR) at U of L each year.
In 2002, Pamela Feldhoff and others decided to turn the alphabet soup into one hearty stew of ideas—bringing undergrad researchers in different fields from U of L and other institutions together into one super-event for 10 weeks each summer.
The Summer Undergraduate Research Program will be in its fourth year in summer 2005. It combines undergraduate research events for several programs covering biomedicine, physiology, neurosciences, cancer studies and more.
“Instead of having many isolated summer undergraduate programs, we thought it would spark interdisciplinary idea-sharing to have people from different fields—somebody from engineering and somebody else from the neurosciences, for example—get the chance to meet one another,” says Feldhoff, who is assistant vice president for research as well as an associate professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology.
For the 2004 program, 51 undergraduates—mainly juniors and seniors—conducted what Feldhoff calls a “summer of intensive research.” In the last week, the students gave poster presentations.
“The whole program becomes a big part of their undergraduate experience,” she says. “It gets them to think about graduate school and gives them confidence.”
She adds that several other U of L events accomplish the same goals. Listings of internal and external undergraduate research opportunities at U of L are at:
http://research.louisville.edu/undergrad-res.htm
Feldhoff and Brown say undergraduate studies lead to more than graduate school.
“These experiences show students that everything they do in life depends on some creativity,” Brown says, “because not every answer can be found in books.”
Information for this story was provided by Judy Hughes.