Five University of Central Arkansas students recently earned Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) grants from the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.
The students will work with UCA faculty on the following research projects:Kyle Basham of Mountainburg will work with Biology Associate Professor Steve Runge and Chemistry Associate Professor Patrick Desrochers in a research project that will study a new chemical that may be useful as a therapeutic compound for treating breast cancer and other human cancers.
The short-term goal is to determine whether this drug will kill breast cancer cells in vivo.
The grant funds a cross-departmental project that enables two UCA communities to work together for a common goal. The state of Arkansas and the country will benefit from such research because is strives to contribute to the treatment of a disease that 216,240 U.S. women were diagnosed with in 2005 alone.
Meaghan Dellar of Little Rock will work with Computer Science Chairman Chenyi Hu on a research project designed to study optimal scheduling algorithms for large-scale multi-objective emergency management.
Dellar will apply existing models such as a weighted graph, acyclic-directed graph and flow network to study optimal scheduling algorithms for large-scale emergency management. Multiple sources, destinations and objectives will be considered. New algorithms and testing software implementations will be developed.
The final results will be disseminated at appropriate regional or national conferences.
Amanda Dougherty of Higden will work with Honors College Assistant Professor Philip Frana on a research project designed to sample conversations from a popular collegiate Internet forum to determine whether online communication produces the same barriers for female students as workplace communication.
LaTeasha Gaither of West Memphis will work with Occupational Therapy Assistant Professor Letha Mosley on a research project that will depict the parameters of health and wellness programs in central Arkansas churches.
The study will include the role of occupational therapy practitioners in facilitating and sustaining those programs.
Krystal Posey of Midland will work with Chemistry Assistant Professor Don Perry on a research project designed to develop better methods of detecting thin layers of organic molecules absorbed on surfaces.
These new techniques will be able to detect organic molecules such as residual pesticides and herbicides in the environment.
