Ashley Byrd, a graduate English M.A. student, recently won the $200 Ellen Millsaps Prize in American Literature at the Alpha Chi National College Honor Society’s National convention in Indianapolis for her paper “‘Stop mixin’ up mah doings wid mah looks’: Exploring Surrogacy, Sex, and Separation in Janie Crawford’s Early Self-Image.” Byrd originally wrote the paper in Dr. Jeffrey Johnson’s class.
Brian Besel and Scott Musial, who are students in UCA’s Department of Chemistry, recently presented their research at the 29th Annual Undergraduate Research Conference sponsored by the Department of Chemistry at the University of Memphis. Besel, a sophomore chemistry major, presented “A Simple Route to Single-Scorpionate Nickel(II) Complexes with Minimum Steric Requirements,” which included results on nickel-based protein sensor/purification materials, and was part of work funded by the National Science Foundation in the laboratory of UCA professors Patrick Desrochers and Richard Tarkka. Musial, a senior chemistry major who works in the laboratory of UCA professor William Taylor, presented “Dipole Orientation Effects on Reactants of Cu+(3D) with Substituted Methanes,” based on his investigations of reactions catalyzed by excited state copper with chlorofluorocarbons and other halocarbon molecules. In competition with chemistry students from Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi, Besel was recognized for his outstanding presentation with a $200 cash prize sponsored by the U of M Department of Chemistry and Dr. Frank A. Anthony from Schering-Plough HealthCare Products, Inc of Memphis.
