WSU CAHNRS students displayed the fruits of their hard work at the 2011 Undergraduate Research and Creative Project Poster Fair on April 9 during Mom’s Weekend in the Vogel Plant Biosciences building. More than 20 undergraduate students’ projects were judged by graduate students. Awards were given to the top two presenters in four categories: Applied Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences; Basic Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences; Design Discipline; and Human Sciences.
Carlie Bailes, a junior majoring in Apparel, Merchandising, Design and Textiles, won first place in the Design Discipline category for her project titled “Boys Need Clothes, Too, Right? The Development of Boys Apparel Products.” “I used to work at the Nordstrom’s Kid Department and I would have women complain that the store didn’t carry enough clothing for little boys,” Bailes said. “I wanted to change that because I believe young boy’s apparel can be fashionable too, not just simple.”
Second place in the Design Discipline category went to Horticulture and Landscape Architecture senior, Kassi Lyn Rolin, for her creative design of a 10-acre arboretum for WSU, using a special landscaping technique called xeriscaping, which reduces or eliminates the need for supplemental water from irrigation. “I believe landscape architecture students need to take more of a personal interest in plants,” Rolin said, “They are after all, the palette for our designs.”
First place in Basic Agriculture and Natural Resource Sciences was awarded to Animal Sciences sophomore, Melissa Lyn McCallum, for her research on the human protein steroid progesterone receptor membrane component 1 (PGRMC1) and its role in the establishment and progression of female cancers. “Some 40,000 women die from cancer each year,” McCallum said. “PGRMC1 may be the key to finding out how to combat some cancers that are associated with females.”
Natural Resource Sciences graduate student Randy Burke received second place in Basic Agriculture and Natural Resource Sciences for his project entitled “Coarse woody material, litter, and duff characteristics in an old-growth Sierran mixed-conifer forest,” a study of controlled forest fires, climate change, and bed characteristics and effects of Yosemite Forest, Cali. “Most people think all forest fires are bad but, actually, controlled fires are a highly dependable way of maintaining whole forest health,” Burke said.
First place in the Human Sciences category went to Economic Sciences graduate student Rini Mukhopadhyay for her project titled “Willingness to Pay for Organically Produced and Functional Food Products.” Mukhopadhyay and her team visited four different local grocery stores to conduct surveys of consumers. “We discovered that people’s willingness to pay for higher quality food depended on their previous knowledge of organic foods, their salary, level of education, race, age and how health conscious they were,” Mukhopadhyay said.
Second place in Human Sciences was awarded to Human Development senior Jocelyn Glessing for her examination of the effectiveness of core health messages on low-income mothers in rural Washington. “It is so important for mothers to optimize their health and their family’s health,” Glessing said.
“But it is difficult when mothers don’t have all the information on core health issues because of their lower income, so I wanted to create awareness and provide all the necessary information they require to keep their families healthy and happy.”
First place in Applied Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences went to Crop and Soil Sciences senior Aaron White for his project titled “Effect of Supplemental Green Light on Plant Development”. “It matters for all of us to find out as much as possible about the inner workings of nature because it will benefit human beings as a whole,” White said. “Using crop science to improve growing efficiency will help us fight food insecurity and lessen the environmental costs associated with agricultural systems.”
Animal Sciences sophomore Jaci Barbano was awarded second place in Applied Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences for her project titled “Biennial Canola for Forage and Ecosystem Improvement in Dryland Cropping Systems”. The focus of her research was on determining if a canola crop could be a sufficient substitute for alfalfa hay as a food source for dairy cattle. “This project gave me an opportunity to help find a way to better the methods of growing food for cows, while at the same time helping better the environment by working with a biofuel crop,” Barbano said. “It was a way to make a difference in two different worlds and bring them together with one crop.”
There were many more creative and innovative projects to be seen, and they included:
- Abigail Moody, Food Sciences, “Inactivation of E. coli in apple juice with high pressure, pulsed electric fields, and ultrasound technologies”
- Andrew L. Schultz, Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, “Epidemiology of the Grapevine Leafroll Disease in Washington Vineyards”
- Casey Lawson, Animal Sciences, “Functional Divergence of the Myostatin Gene Family”
- Danielle Hurd, Human Development, “Parents use of the Psychological Control and Children’s Relational Aggression: The Potential Mediating Effect of Psychological Stress System Activation”
- Elizabeth “Libby” Hodgin, Economics, “An Economic Analysis of the USDA 2010 Access to Pasture Rule on Washington Organic Dairies”
- Elizabeth Lee Swanson, Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, “Studies on Epidemiology of the Grapevine Leafroll Disease”
- Haley Saam, Crop and Soil Sciences, “Soil Silica in the Palouse”
- Kathleen E. Reed, Plant Pathology, “Is Restricted Rhizoctonia Growth the Mechanism of Resistance in Scarlet-Rz-1?”
- Kelsie Brown, Food Sciences, “Development of functional food products made with grape pomace flour”
- Matthew Allen, Food Sciences, “Enhancing Sweet Cherry Seed Germination with the Aid of Hormones”
- Noelle Beets, Human Development, “Reservation Status, Substance Use During Sex, and Birth Outcomes Among Native American Adolescents”
- Ryan Liesche, Agricultural and Food Systems, “Characterization of the impact of enterobacter cloacae on onion plants and confirmation of the movement dynamics of E. cloacae in plants”
-By Chelsea Low
CAHNRS Marketing, News, and Educational Communications intern