Celebrating excellence

It's April at UAA. Prepare to be stunned.

April is when student endeavor ripens into fruition, when people in the community can come absorb the projects, research, exhibits and performances that scholars and artists have been preparing for months.

The students' work explores opera, replication of the 1918 H1N1 pandemic virus and Lt. Henry Allen's 1885 exploration of the Copper River; piano, crime prevention in Mountain View and "chemical gardens;" Walmart, live-stream gameplay and the effects of DNA repair defects on a roundworm's taste for alcohol.

The UAA University Honors College's Undergraduate Research & Discovery Symposium, April 14-18, will feature a poster fair in the Consortium Library and student presentations in Rasmuson Hall. Music recitals and art exhibits are slated in the UAA Fine Arts Building through the end of April, and presentations for the 2014 Student Showcase are scheduled April 10-11 in Rasmuson Hall.

One of this year's Student Showcase presenters, Xenia Vlieger, has been interested in art, storytelling and theater since elementary school.

"As I got older, I became more anxious doing theater and more interested in storytelling through images," she said. She graduated last fall with a bachelor's degree in art, with an emphasis in photography, but was still allowed to participate in Student Showcase for images she made in 2013-including an experimental photography piece entitled, "Thank God I don't think out loud."

The idea for the piece emerged from an assignment art professor Mariano Gonzales made, Vlieger said.

Students had to create a self-portrait that was supposed to complete the sentence "I am..." They were required to print on metal or plastic and the final piece was required to be at least 24 inches on one side, she said.

"My spring semester 2013 was very stressful," Vlieger said. "I felt overwhelmed by my classes and the pressure I was putting [on] myself to create art, so the sentence I made for myself was, 'I am drowning.'"

In her presentation, Vlieger will discuss self-portraits and why they are important, her process for creating the piece-including how the image was conceptualized, edited and then printed-and also, how the symbolism of the image and materials used to create the piece relate to each other.

"Self-portraits are important because they are such a timeless genre of art," she said. "Photography and digital art are new compared to painting, drawing and sculpture, but when I make a self-portrait using those tools, I'm engaging in an activity countless artists (including Rembrandt, Vincent Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, just to name a few) have done through the ages. Self-portraits are not only a form of image management-as in, I want the world to see me in this particular way-but also the most intimate form of expression. What an artist chooses to reveal and not reveal in an art piece ultimately reveals it all."

Undergraduate Research & Discovery Symposium

The Symposium is a series of events held each April to celebrate undergraduate achievements throughout the university. It provides an opportunity for students in all disciplines to present and display their research and creative work to the university and the community. Featured events include the Undergraduate Research Awards ceremony and project presentations. The Symposium also features a keynote lecture by a distinguished researcher.

Five Alaska Heart Institute fellows and the winner of the Fran Ulmer Transformative Award will present their work at the Undergraduate Research & Discovery Symposium. The AHI grants, made possible by a major gift from the Alaska Cardiovascular Research Foundation, fund significant undergraduate research projects in biomedicine under the guidance of a faculty mentor.

The Fran Ulmer Transformative Award funds undergraduate research and creative projects with the potential to transform the way people live, work and see the world.

AHI fellows this year are:

• Karen Carlson, a biology student working with Dr. Jonathan Stecyk on a project focusing on the intracellular pH of goldfish cardiac muscle cells.
• Jaeyeon Cho, a biological sciences student working with Dr. Caroline Wilson on a project exploring the role of a gene associated with Williams syndrome in early stages of heart development in the African clawed frog. Williams syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that can lead to life-threatening cardiovascular problems and other developmental difficulties.
• Ana-Gabriela Herrera, a biological sciences student working with Dr. Miki Li on a project studying the effects of DNA repair defects on ethanol preference in roundworms.
• Wesley Burgess, a mechanical engineering student working with Dr. Anthony Paris on a spine rod bender project.
• Ellen Dore, a chemistry enthusiast and natural sciences major working in cancer research with Dr. Eric Bortz.

Winner of the Fran Ulmer Transformative Award is:

Robert Robl, a biological sciences student under the supervision of Dr. Eric Bortz, who is investigating an antiviral protein, NF90, which he used in flu-infected human lung cells. His research found that NF90 blocks replication of the H1N1 virus-the virulent flu strain that, in 1918, swept the world and devastated Alaska Native communities, particularly on the Seward and Kenai peninsulas.

"He's using models to figure out on a molecular level what was the basis of its virulence and pathogenicity," Bortz said. "We have ways of studying it that don't use whole live virus. He's looking at how the virus interacts with the host cell, what components of the virus interact with what components of the cell. It was an interesting study that was proposed, studying a viral disease that had a very severe and lasting impact on people in Alaska. Really understanding why that happened, the molecular reasons for it, is a really important thing to do. Who knows when there might be another one?"

Winner of the Brian & Amy Meissner Creativity Award in Visual Arts is:

Chelsea Klusewitz, who will receive the award in a ceremony scheduled for 3:30-5 p.m., April 18, in Rasmuson Hall, Room 101. Chelsea's faculty mentor was Garry Mealor. The Meissner Award is a $1,000 prize awarded to one student each year for an outstanding visual arts project. And, Klusewitz, Bill Jamison and Jenna Roosdett will receive OURS Undergraduate Research Grants at an April 18 ceremony that will take place during the 2014 Undergraduate Research & Discovery Symposium.

The National Conferences on Undergraduate Research accepted the research of two UAA Honors College students, Ellen Dore and Theresa Cho, for presentation at the 2014 NCUR conference at the University of Kentucky. Dore studied immunotherapy against cancer using viral RNA and Cho investigated how cold-acclimation affects the intrinsic heart rate of pond slider turtles.

Music recitals

Students are giving their junior and senior recitals at the UAA Fine Arts Recital Hall, ARTS 150. The recitals are free and open to the public.

• Jillian Pollock, 4 p.m., April 12, senior, voice
• Hayatt Chettfour, 4 p.m., April 13, senior, piano
• Stephen Bergstrom, 7:30 p.m., April 13, senior, trumpet
• Paula Gray, 4 p.m., April 26, senior, piano

A senior recital is a thesis or senior project for music majors.

"It shows we've mastered various techniques, styles, genres of music," said Pollock, who will sing musical theater, opera and other types of music during her recital. "I'm being adjudicated by vocal instructors, the equivalent of an exam. They determine whether I've mastered the material, whether I graduate or not. Ultimately it's a culmination of everything I've done, everything I've been working on for the last five years."

Fine Arts exhibits

Chelsea Klusewitz, Bill Jamison and Owen Lee will exhibit their work in a Bachelor of Fine Arts exhibition April 21-25 in Kimura Gallery, UAA Fine Arts Building. A reception for the artists is set for 5:30-8 p.m., April 21.

Tyler Goodwin, Aubrey Morgan and Jenna Roosdett will exhibit their work in a Bachelor of Fine Arts exhibition April 28-May 2 in Kimura Gallery, UAA Fine Arts Building. A reception for the artists is set for 5:30-8 p.m., April 28.

UAA Student Showcase

The UAA Student Showcase highlights the extraordinary work of students throughout the UAA system, which includes campuses in Homer, Kenai and Mat-Su, and creates an opportunity for dialogue among university and community members. Students this year submitted their best work from the 2013 semesters and a faculty member of the submission discipline performed an anonymous review. Projects that earned the highest marks are being presented at the showcase, and distinguished community members invited to the showcase will evaluate, critique and comment on the students' works.

Awards for top papers and projects include publication in the 2014 Student Showcase Journal and a $300 cash prize.

Presenters at this year's Student Showcase include:

April 10, 6:30 p.m., Rasmuson 101

• Curtis Leitch, "Modern schools and changing family dynamics in Bhutan."
• Petra Banks, "The journal of Fred W. Fickett: a gritty perspective into Lt. Allen's 1885 Copper River expedition."
• Matthew Myers, "Gender difference in attraction: does this title make me look sexy?"
• John Hemmeter, "Hi Yu Mill, Moose Creek, Alaska reconstruction drawing."
• Mara Hill, "Factors of body dissatisfaction and body dysmorphic disorder."

April 10, 7 p.m., Rasmuson 110

• Jane Giraldo, "Quote The Raven evermore: keeping the classics alive."
• Colin Lyons, "Friedrich Nietzsche on scholars."
• Jordan Norquist, "Charity begins at home: how public opinion denied Jewish refugees asylum in Alaska."
• Maria Crouch, "A case for the utility of projective tests: examining the Rorschach."
• Nithya Thiru, "Mysticism and orthodoxy in the Iron Guard: assessing its impact upon Romanian anti-Semitism and national memory."

April 11, 11:45 a.m., Rasmuson 117

• Ronald Lauscher, "Religion and language as a tool for social control in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale."
• Wolfgang Olsson, "Explorations of the human mind in American poetry."
• Xenia Vlieger, "Thank God I don't think out loud."
• Salomé Scott, "Silicate flowers: hierarchical growth in chemical gardens."

April 11, 1:15 p.m., Rasmuson 117

• Laura Vaught, "Drug offenders in the U.S. prison system: a utilitarian perspective."
• Daniel Reinhard, "Crime prevention: Mountain View shopping center."
• Sofia Fouquet, "Walmart strategic analysis."
• Joseph Selmont, "A tortured balance: ambivalence toward the Japanese in Tan Twan Eng's fiction."
• Katy Wright, Theresa Lyons and Kevin McClear, "Why are some community councils more active than others?"

April 11, 1:30 p.m., Rasmuson 110

• Frazier Manfull, "Beauty and sorrow: culture and poetics among Heian court aristocracy."
• Jennis Yambao, "Let's talk about female characters."
• Jeremiah Stegman, "The emergence of the live-stream gameplay industry: in-depth interview with consumers and producers."
• Rylyn Hughes, "Wired."
• Christine Caswell, "Why Martin Heidegger and Albert Borgmann would reject the value-neutral hypothesis."

Caswell, a recent graduate of UAA's philosophy and biological sciences programs, used ideas from the two philosophers as the basis for her discussion of the impact technology has made on the human experience. The topic came up in Dr. Terry Kelly's postmodernism course last fall, she said. "Given that technology is something we tend to view as improving life, I thought it interesting to think about where that cost benefit starts to tip back toward harm," Caswell said. "Heidegger was someone we spent a lot of time talking about, and had written very interesting pieces that applied to technology and environmentalism. Borgmann is a contemporary philosopher who writes specifically on technology in the modern sense and seemed appropriate to consider in the discussion. Where Heidegger was thinking in the sense of water wheels, Borgmann is writing in the time of smart phones."

Caswell says technology is neutral with respect to values.

"Technology is simply a tool with no inherent good or bad value, in and of itself," she said. "For example, a hammer is a tool. It can be used to help my neighbor fix his roof or kill him. Either act does not make the hammer good or evil, inherently."

Caswell focuses on biomedical ethics-"hence the science and philosophy double major," she said. "I have been lucky to have an internship with a local hospital as an ethicist for the last year. She didn't intend to become a philosophy major, "but once you start on the path of critical thinking, it's hard to walk away...never a dull moment."

Written by Tracy Kalytiak, UAA Office of University Advancement.