Twelve teams of students and professors received Abshire Research Scholar Awards from the college for research projects this semester. The subjects of the projects cover a wide variety of disciplines and departments, ranging from cancer treatment to a course on the Silk Roads.
Alfred D. Abshire, who graduated from Whitman in 1945, founded the Abshire Scholar Awards program in 1981 in honor of his wife. The awards are given every semester to students involved in undergraduate research projects. By working with professors for five to eight hours per week, students can earn up to $800 from the award.

“It’s just like a job,” said Physics Professor Dayle Smith, who is working with junior Ben Miller on research about the potential use of DNA in computer components. “It’s a research experience. Students are taking classes and have a lot going on: five hours of research a week is asking a lot. The financial incentive helps take the edge off that.”
The 12 awards given this semester mark an increase in the number of recipients compared to previous semesters.

“The interest in collaborative experiences such as this is greater now than it may have been in the past,” said Provost and Dean of Faculty Lori Bettison-Varga in an e-mail. “Since we do have the funds available to support that greater interest, we were able to grant a larger number of awards.”

Students are nominated for the Abshire Research Scholar Award by professors. Some professors planned their projects with specific students in mind, while others, like Chemistry Professor Tommaso Vannelli, were approached by students with specific research interests.
“Last year, professors presented work at a seminar for chemistry and BBMB majors,” said Vannelli. “Afterwards, John Nelson and Simon Quay approached me and said they were interested in doing research with me.”

Both Nelson, a junior chemistry major, and Quay, a junior BBMB major, are Abshire Scholars. Vannelli is advising Nelson in synthesizing a library of molecules belonging to a class of compounds known to treat cancer tumors after activated by light. Quay is isolating a protein to detect arsenic in water.

Some of the research teams see the Abshire award as an opportunity to conduct research across disciplines that might not ordinarily be grouped together. Senior Sarah Haas, a double major in philosophy and studio arts, is working with Philosophy Professor Tom Davis on “A Graphic Interpretation of Conformist Subjectivation in Emerson, Nietzsche and Judith Butler.”

“The diagram Professor Davis is working on is a perfect opportunity to study how art and philosophy play into each other,” said Haas. “In art and philosophy, it’s hard to come up with a way to do collective research: this is a unique opportunity in that respect.”

History Professor Brian Dott and Biology Professor Heidi Dobson are also working on interdisciplinary research, planning a course about the Silk Roads to be offered for the first time in spring 2009. Dobson, with junior Nicole Goehring, will be researching the scientific aspects of products traded throughout China, central Asia and Europe. Senior Kate Rosenberg is helping Dott with research tracing the historical movement of goods.

“In addition to researching different aspects of the course, both Professor Dobson and I need a lot of help from the students in narrowing down the focus of the course,” said Dott. “Right now we’re covering from 200 B.C. to the 13th century, which is much too broad for a one semester course.”

Other recipients of the Abshire Scholar Awards include English Professor Sharon Alker and senior Kim Trinh, who are working on the Daniel Defoe Society project; Professor of Geology and Environmental Studies Bob Carson and sophomores Ian Hoyer and Julia Spencer for work on Carson’s book on the geology of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem in Wyoming; History Professor Julie Charlip and first-year Jaspreet Gill for a project titled “Bearing Arms without an Army: The Security Forces of Costa Rica”; Theater Professor Tom Hines and sophomore Ian Jagel, who are continuing to develop Hines’s online “Ancient Theatre Archive”; Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies Kari Norgaard and junior Leora Stein for their comparative study of responses to climate change in the United States and Norway; and French Professor Zahi Zalloua and senior Anne Conners, who are addressing questions about magical realism through Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.”