Students receive grants supporting research

Fri, December 22, 2006 |

Valparaiso University has awarded research grants to nine undergraduate students that will support projects in a variety of disciplines during the current academic year.

Those awarded grants by the University’s Committee on Creative Work and Research are:

• Benjamin Anderson, a senior physics and theology major from Utica, Mich., to purchase equipment, software and other materials for research in atomic physics;

• Paige Cox, a senior biology major from South Bend, for supplies to conduct an experiment on the role of certain genes in pollen tube germination;

• Joshua Kellams, a senior physics major from Portage, for expenses related to an experiment studying indoor radon concentrations;

• Jeffrey Massura, a senior physics and secondary education major from Downers Grove, Ill., to present his research on the physical properties of stars in a binary star system at the national meeting of the American Astronomical Society;

• Eric Matul, a senior American studies and Spanish major from Orland Park, Ill., to support research on the transformation of the Chicago Historical Society into the Chicago History Museum and the image of museums in the United States;

• Ashley Mefferd, a senior meteorology major from Minooka, Ill., to present her research on meteorological factors influencing ozone concentrations in northern Indiana and Michigan at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society;

• Kristen Painting, a senior mechanical engineering major from Grafton, Ohio, to fund a senior design project seeking to create a sustainable energy source for an orphanage in Nicaragua;

• Michael Steffen, a senior mechanical and electrical engineering major from Springfield, Ill., to purchase hardware and create a computer cluster for use in the University’s virtual reality laboratory;

• Joshua Vredevoogd, a senior physics and mathematics major from Muskegon, Mich., for research expenses in his study of the scattering of high-energy x-ray photons.