Event to highlight regional environmental projects, renowned researcher

Mon, July 19, 2010 |

Valparaiso University students engaged in summer research will discuss and display their work, and hear from a renowned environmental researcher at Valpo's Summer Celebration of Undergraduate Research.

The event, sponsored by Valpo's Office of Undergraduate Research, takes place July 27 at Harre Union and will feature student project poster presentations, the keynote speaker and a luncheon. The public is invited to learn about student projects and talk to some of the researchers about their work this summer from 8:30 a.m. until noon.

Lauren Banina, a junior biochemistry major from Peru, Ind., is one of a number of students who have spent the summer working on projects involving environmental restoration in areas of Northwest Indiana damaged by pollution and other destructive forces. Banina and her research partners, with the support of the Northwest Indiana Restoration Monitoring Inventory, are traveling to many of these sites in Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties throughout the summer.

"We lay out plots and use an inventory method involving different sized nesting modules for which we record every kind of plant life found on these different levels," said Banina. "This data will be made available to other researchers and restorers so they can track the progress of the restorations and the effects of different restoration methods."

The work of the students, Banina said, lays the groundwork for the same procedure to be done in future years in the same area as efforts continue to restore native plants, improve the regional quality of life and preserve natural resources for future generations.

Another group of students are conducting similar work on environmental restoration in the Indiana Dunes region.

"They are working with two environmental organizations in the region and with students from other schools as a way to build close relationships between these organizations and local universities, to gain valuable skills for future environmental careers and to help develop future service learning projects for Valpo courses," said Laurie Eberhardt, project adviser and associate professor of biology.

Other projects to be featured at the Celebration examine the seismic safety and performance of steel truss systems, light variations in pulsating evolved stars, pattern avoidance in Ternary Trees, water quality in the Salt Creek watershed in Valparaiso and solar thermal electrolysis.

After the presentation of student projects, Alanah Fitch, professor of chemistry at Loyola University-Chicago, will deliver the keynote address "Sharing Instrumentation Globally - Challenges and Successes," discussing the successes and failures of sharing chemical instrumentation in her service learning research project involving an environmental restoration project in Africa,

"Dr. Fitch provides African chemists with the capability to use an instrument at Loyola to analyze their environmental samples," said Tom Goyne, associate professor of chemistry. "The African team collects samples for environmental analysis and mails them to Loyola where Fitch's students then load the samples onto the instrument and the African chemist remotely controls the Loyola instrument to perform the analysis, with a video link that provides the African chemist with real-time video of the instrument in action."

More information about Valpo's Office of Undergraduate Research and various grant opportunities can be found online at www.valpo.edu/osur.