Current Research Projects with LBC Faculty
Here at Briggs we value undergraduate research experiences, as we know they set our students up for success as scientists. Each year, many of our faculty have projects for which they need student assistants. Below, find opportunities to work with LBC faculty members on research in Summer 2024.
Note, applications will be open for Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 projects at the start of the academic year in August/September 2024.
To apply for these positions, please visit the application form, and refer to the Research Support webpage for further details.
Summer 2024 Projects
Project 1: Finding Your True North: A purpose-driven approach to building students’ STEM career identity and sense of belonging
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Shahnaz Masani
Term: Summer 2024
Maximum number of research positions: 4
Expected hours/week: 5 or 10 hours for 10 weeks
Location: Either remote or in person is acceptable
Overview
Engaging in career exploration positively impacts students’ STEM self-efficacy and identity, helping to close opportunity gaps by promoting retention and reducing the time to graduation. However, this work remains siloed as ‘outside of class’ work, or in career-specific courses that are separate from students’ disciplinary courses, which allows students to see this work as important, but separate. In addition, this siloed approach means that only students who take these classes or engage with career services support individually have access to these opportunities, thus creating a structural barrier. At Lyman Briggs College, we aim to break down this barrier by integrating purpose driven career exploration into core STEM classes, an initiative funded by Lyman Briggs College and the American Association of Colleges and Universities. The undergraduate researcher will work with an interdisciplinary team of faculty, staff and graduate students to assess the impacts of these interventions on students’ STEM career identity and their sense of belonging. They will also work with the team to conduct a review of the scholarly literature, and will develop their qualitative and quantitative research skills, learning how to conduct and analyze data from validated survey instruments, interviews and focus groups.
Project specific qualifications or preferences: Lived experience with the IRL curriculum in LB144 would be preferred, but not required
Project 2: Determining the function of leg flags in Matador Bugs
Faculty Mentor: Dr. JP Lawrence
Term: Summer 2024
Maximum number of research positions: 1
Expected hours/week: up to 10 hours/week
Location: Either remote or in person is acceptable
Overview
Extreme traits found in animals are usually the result of runaway selection, particularly runaway sexual selection. The Matador Bug (Anisoscelis alipes) has large tarsal expansions on its hindlegs that are brightly colored – red, orange, and black. Notably, when these insects land, they will often slowly and deliberately wave their legs, begging the question of what this behavior might signify. Preliminary research suggests that these signals are not sexual in nature, though more research needs to be done to confirm this. For this research, the selected student will work with standardized photos and reflectance spectra to characterize the color in these insects with the intent of determining if there are differences between the sexes as well as how different prospective predators may see these insects. This is part of a larger project in collaboration with researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. Students will help develop a pipeline through the statistical program, R, to process reflectance spectra and standardized photos. Students interested in this project should be proficient with R and RStudio and be capable of working independently and part of a team.
Project specific qualifications or preferences: Proficiency in R and RStudio.
Project 3: Understanding the Quality of Chemistry Educational Videos on YouTube
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Ryan Sweeder
Term: Summer 2024
Maximum number of research positions: 2
Expected hours/week: 5 hours for 10 weeks
Location: Either remote or in person is acceptable
Overview
The advent of websites like YouTube has provided a way for learners to get additional just-in-time instructional help outside of the classroom. This is good as it has the potential to help meet the unique and diverse needs of students. However, the instructional quality of chemistry videos available on sites like YouTube varies greatly. Thus, learners or instructors looking for quality videos frequently need to spend considerable time to find what they seek. This project will evaluate the instructional quality of frequently watched chemistry videos using a set of measures that have been shown to positively affect learning, and then use these data to create a curated database of videos for several core chemistry concepts. To support conceptual chemistry learning, instructional videos should include a focus on things such as connecting the various levels of chemistry instruction (macroscopic, particulate, and symbolic), three-dimensional learning, causal mechanistic reasoning, and active engagement of students in the learning process, all characteristics which research has shown to support deep conceptual learning of core chemistry concepts. The students who participate in this project will help to test the training materials developed to support students joining the research team. In this process, they will gain familiarity with the expected criteria for quality chemistry educational videos and then work to catalog frequently viewed or the top results for relevant general chemistry topics. The result will be that students help identify appropriate videos for analysis and contribute to building the curated database of videos that will then be disseminated broadly to support both students and instructors of general chemistry.
Project specific qualifications or preferences: Students must have completed general chemistry or an equivalent course.
Project 4: East and South Asian Identities in STEM Education
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Shahnaz Masani
Term: Summer 2024
Maximum number of research positions: 2
Expected hours/week: 5 or 10 hours for 10 weeks
Location: Either remote or in person is acceptable
Overview
National calls to reform STEM education have led to the adoption of active, student-centered teaching approaches that emphasize engagement, collaboration, and real-world problem-solving, proving more effective for a diverse student population, thus promoting inclusion and equity in STEM education. In this context, Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) play a crucial role in facilitating small group interactions and providing additional support, further enhancing the inclusivity and effectiveness of these teaching approaches. The GTA model is not only meant to enhance inclusion in current STEM classrooms, but also to serve as an opportunity to mentor graduate students, training them as the next generation of inclusive STEM educators. However, the diverse identities of GTAs, in contrast to the typically less diverse faculty often pose a barrier to effective mentoring. Even as they engage in inclusive teaching practices, STEM faculty often adopt harmful, equality-based, ‘one size fits all’ approaches to mentoring. They draw on color-evasive narratives, explaining racial differences without naming race or racism, while simultaneously drawing on stereotypical and deficit-based descriptions of GTAs. Specifically, for East and South Asian GTAs, this may include being perceived as one monolithic population, ignoring the diverse identities and cultures that encompass East and South Asian identities and experiences. Further, these GTAs may be positioned as ‘model minorities’, while also being seen as ‘lacking creativity’ or ‘lacking initiative and deep critical thinking’. Our team draws on frameworks of Desi-Crit, Asian-Crit and Edward Said’s Orientalism to understand how faculty at primarily white institutions draw on color-evasive narratives that claim to ‘not see race’ while simultaneously ‘othering’ their East and South Asian GTAs, as well as to understand the impacts of these experiences on these GTAs. By identifying these narratives and the impacts on East and South Asian GTAs, we aim to identify effective, cross-cultural mentoring approaches that serve to recognize and celebrate the different identities and lived experiences of East and South Asian GTAs, thus contributing to equity and justice in STEM education. The undergraduate researcher will work with a team of faculty to conduct a review of scholarly literature, and to develop their qualitative research skills, learning how to conduct and analyze data from interviews and focus groups.
Project specific qualifications or preferences: Experience with qualitative research is preferred, but not required.