undergraduate research opportunities

Smithsonian-Mason team keeps watch, so elephants can doze off

Colleen Rich — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 16:22:41 +0000

Smithsonian-Mason team keeps watch, so elephants can doze off Colleen Rich Fri, 12/17/2021 - 11:22

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Because elephants only sleep three to four hours a night, and frequently wake during that time, their sleep is a precious commodity.

Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation student Eva Noroski (left) works with Mason Alumna and Elephant Trails Keeper Ashley Fortner to research elephant sleep patterns at the National Zoo. Photo by: Shelby Burgess/Strategic Communications/��

That’s why �� senior Eva Noroski has spent a month this semester assisting 2017 Mason alumna and Elephant Trails keeper Ashley Fortner at the National Zoo, researching how these massive mammals can get optimal sleep.

“Sleep is super important for the elephants because they don’t actually do a lot of it,” said Fortner, who studied for a year at the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation (SMSC).

“Eva’s work is actually directly, every day, impacting how we take care of the elephants.”

Noroski has been accessing footage from the Smithsonian’s camera system to monitor the elephants from 5 p.m. until 5 a.m., and logging what she observes. In particular, she’s tracking Kamala, a female elephant who has arthritis, which causes her difficulty in laying down and getting up.

“I’m trying to determine which elephants she sleeps best with, if she sleeps best by herself, if there are any social dynamics that appear during the night that I can let the keepers know about,” said Noroski, an environmental science major and conservation studies minor. “That’s all really significant information because their sleep is important to their health, and if any mammal is losing sleep, they could become more susceptible to illness.”

Noroski’s findings will help management create pairings that offer the best sleep for each of their five elephants, said Fortner, who graduated from Mason with a integrative studies degree and a concentration on applied global conservation.

When Noroski isn’t behind the computer, she can be found performing zookeeping tasks, and shadowing Fortner as she interacts with, trains, and completes wellness checks with the elephants.

“I have made great connections, not only with people here at the zoo, but also with my [SMSC] teachers who are active conservationists,” Noroski said. “They’re super willing to help students find opportunities as well as connect us with other people—that’s a really unique thing you can’t just get in any conservation program.”

That’s exactly why Fortner said she also “fell in love” with the SMSC program.

“It means so much,” Fortner said of being able to mentor students in the same way she was mentored. “Once I found my path, I found that having those practicums and hands-on learning experiences helped me make that decision.”

“For the mentor side of it, it’s giving back to the conservation community,” she said. “It was really important for me to not only take care of elephants and give back to conservation in that way, but to help people that also want to do this see that this is possible.”

Noroski, who grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said she chose Mason after researching schools with the best conservation programs.

Being at SMSC with a small cohort of students and teachers is one of the most rewarding parts, she and Fortner agreed.

“It’s a great program where you get really personal attention, as well as amazing practical experience that you will not just be able to find anywhere else,” Noroski said. “You are put in a position where you are pretty much handed useful, practical experience in the real working world.

“That’s invaluable when you’re an undergrad and trying to get your foot in the door,” she said.

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Reconstructing their narratives: $300,000 DOJ grant elevates Mason’s lynching research

Mariam Aburdeineh — Fri, 11 Dec 2020 17:43:08 +0000

Reconstructing their narratives: $300,000 DOJ grant elevates Mason’s lynching research Mariam Aburdeineh Fri, 12/11/2020 - 12:43

Of the more than 4,000 lynchings of Black Americans that took place in the United States between 1865 and 1950, at least 43 cases occurred in Maryland.

��’s John Mitchell Jr. Program (JMJP), housed within the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, has been helping research several of these cases since 2019 to support the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In October, they received news that they will be taking their research to the next level, thanks to a $300,000 Department of Justice grant they helped secure for the commission.

Charles Chavis speaks at a dialogue on memorialization in December 2019. Photo provided.

“States, in terms of their narratives, don’t shed light on these historic traumas,” said Carter School professor Charles Chavis, who is on the board of directors for the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project. “We wanted to give life to the relatives of victims whose loved ones had been forgotten.”

The grant, which is part of the Emmett Till Cold Case Investigations Program, will allow the commission and JMJP to supercharge their research.

“We work directly with the relatives in the sentence that we identify because we believe there is a direct line that can be drawn from the racial terror and lynchings of old to the existing racial terror and anti-blackness that we continue to see manifest in 2020,” Chavis said. “[With the grant] we’re now able to hire expert genealogists to help us track down the relatives [of lynching victims] so that they can be a part of the process.”

$100,000 is set aside for the communities and families of the victims for restorative justice reform, said Chavis, who founded JMJP to address narrative change and social transformation. The rest of the funds will go toward live reconciliation-style hearings.

“We work through each individual case in the various communities with key expert witnesses, relatives, descendants bearing witness to this history,” Chavis said.

Before that happens, Chavis said the Mason team helps with forensic reconstruction, which involves leaning on existing research and records to put together a mosaic of the case.

The Maryland State Archives have been key to their efforts.

“Students have been able to work directly with the research, documenting cases, doing census data, pulling death certificates, verifying biographical data and pulling together narratives of individuals,” Chavis said.

In the process, undergraduate and graduate students are gaining hands-on activist and research experience.

“What has been most important for me is being able to put some of what I learned about narrative approaches to racial and social justice into practice,” said master’s in conflict analysis and resolution student Audrey Williams, who is one of five students supporting the commission.

She said the project has also helped her better understand her role in creating change.

“You have to recommit to confronting anti-Black racism every day,” Williams said. “What that means for people who already benefit from the system is committing, with humility, to listening to and platforming the voices of colleagues, friends, and community members who have been harmed, and to becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable. The best place for this entire process to start is in our own hallways, classrooms and relationships.”

The programs and services offered by �� are open to all who seek them. George Mason does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnic national origin (including shared ancestry and/or ethnic characteristics), sex, disability, military status (including veteran status), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, pregnancy status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. After a thorough review of its policies and practices, the university confirms that it meets all federal mandates as articulated in federal law, as well as recent executive orders and federal agency directives.

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Could avoiding rush hour traffic be healthier? Mason research drives new insight.

Mariam Aburdeineh — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 02:52:05 +0000

Could avoiding rush hour traffic be healthier? Mason research drives new insight. Mariam Aburdeineh Sun, 05/31/2020 - 22:52

The COVID-19 pandemic shifted thousands of jobs online, allowing employees to telework and avoid congested roadways. That’s good for slowing the spread of the virus, but new research from �� also shows such habits could limit people’s exposure to harmful traffic pollution.

“This is one of the first studies to use vehicle monitors paired with air pollution monitors to assess trip exposures,” said Jenna Krall, assistant professor of global and community health. “We found there was higher pollution exposure during rush hour compared to nontrip exposures.”

The study led by Krall that included collaborators from the College of Health and Human Services, the Volgenau School of Engineering, and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences specifically measured women’s exposure to traffic pollution during commutes. Krall said she was inspired to conduct the study by recent research that showed pollution exposure during pregnancy may lead to adverse health outcomes.

Alumni Nada Adibah and Gabriella Cuevas, seen here in a photo from 2019, demonstrate the installation of air pollution monitors in a vehicle. As students, they worked with Dr. Jenna Krall, assistant professor of global and community health, on a multidisciplinary study looking at the effect of traffic pollution exposure for women. Photo by Lathan Goumas/Strategic Communications

When study participants were in the car, their exposure to fine particulate matter (air pollutants that can become a health concern when they enter the body) was higher than when they weren’t driving. The exposure to the pollutants increased even more when they drove during rush hour.

“It is really awesome to be part of one of the first studies that [examined] traffic pollution exposure [for women] during real-world commutes,” said Nada Adibah, a 2019 master of public health graduate who is one of the paper’s authors.

“The findings were interesting and very insightful,” Adibah said, adding that she was surprised to find no differences in pollution concentrations for varying commute lengths.

From left to right: Nada Adibah, Jenna Krall, Gabriella Cuevas. Photo by Lathan Goumas/Strategic Communications

The data could be used to help inform policy decisions, Krall said, such as implementing telework as a potential solution for women with health risks.

“We need to develop policies that protect public health, this may mean that it is necessary to reduce exposure to traffic-related pollution,” Krall said.

Funded by a Provost’s Multidisciplinary Research Award and a Jeffress Memorial Trust grant, the project provided opportunities for Mason undergraduate and graduate students to be involved in research with real-world impact.

“I am so grateful for this opportunity to work with Dr. Krall and Dr. [Anna] Pollack,” said Karlin Moore, a May 2020 chemistry graduate from the Honors College.

Moore said she helped analyze data from the air pollution monitors, determining ratios and concentrations of individual pollutants.

“It was interesting seeing a different area of STEM,” Moore said. “Getting exposure and experience to biostatistics and epidemiology opened my eyes to a whole plethora of different fields and careers that help public health.”

Moving forward, Krall said Mason researchers will take a deeper dive into the collected data and conduct further analysis.

“One goal is to develop new statistical approaches for estimating how we’re exposed to traffic pollution,” Krall said. “Hopefully this presents a new way for us to move forward with collecting better information to understand pollution exposure during commutes.”

Alumna Nada Abidah, seen here in a photo from 2019, downloads data from an air pollution monitor with Dr. Jenna Krall. Photo by Lathan Goumas/Strategic Communications

Mason named a top-tier research university once more

Melanie Balog — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 23:23:28 +0000

Mason named a top-tier research university once more Melanie Balog Mon, 12/17/2018 - 18:23

�� has once again been recognized as one of the nation’s top research universities by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

Institute for Advanced Biomedical Research at the Prince William campus. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services.

By earning the “very high research” (or R1) designation, Mason—the largest public research university in Virginia—is among an elite group of 120 institutions known for performing at the highest research level in terms of research productivity and impact. Mason, which first attained the tier one research ranking in 2016, is the youngest independent university listed.

Mason President Ángel Cabrera said the designation is “an affirmation of our commitment to excellence and recognition of the caliber of our faculty. It is an impressive achievement of our entire university community.”

The Carnegie evaluation, performed by the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University, looked at university levels of research activity in 2016-17, and awards of research/scholarship doctorates and professional practice doctorates.

“The outstanding scholarship of our faculty and the vibrancy of our doctoral programs is really what carries the day, specifically in fields Mason is traditionally known for in the social sciences and humanities, and the strides we made in STEM and other fields,” Provost S. David Wu said. “Most importantly, this ranking doesn’t even take into account the momentum created by our faculty in 2018.”

Annual sponsored expenditures for research, scholarship and creative work rose 14 percent between 2017 and 2018, setting a Mason record. Sponsored awards increased by more than 30 percent over the same period, which puts Mason on pace to meet a strategic goal of $225 million in annual research expenditures by 2024.

Those gains reflect the confidence federal research agencies have in Mason faculty and expertise.

Mason was the eighth-highest recipient of funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities in the past decade, with $5.8 million. It was in the top 23 percent of universities in research and development expenditures from the National Science Foundation for fiscal year 2017.

“It is an honor to work with Mason’s talented faculty and student community, and to support an environment in which multidisciplinary research, scholarship and creative work is so highly prized,” said Deb Crawford, Mason’s vice president for research.

Virginia also continues to invest in Mason, helping fund state-of-the-art research facilities in each of the university’s Northern Virginia campuses, including $125 million to create the Institute for Digital InnovAtion (IDIA) and School of Computing in Arlington.

“Few institutions have grown in size and stature as rapidly as George Mason,” Cabrera said. “The Carnegie Tier 1 status sends an unequivocal signal to our partners and funders about our capabilities.”

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