The Southern California Conference for Undergraduate Research (SCCUR) provides the opportunity for the presentation of research scholarship and creative activities of undergraduate students in the region. This year’s conference will be held Saturday Nov. 20 at Pepperdine.
Participating students submitted abstracts of their projects which were reviewed by faculty members from appropriate disciplines. SCCUR entries include social sciences humanities natural sciences and fine arts.
Students whose applications were accepted have been given the chance to present their work in 15-minute presentations poster sessions exhibitions or performances.
PSYCH
After a year of dedication to her research senior Karly Dallas will be presenting her psychology project on pro-social behavior at SCCUR. After being accepted into a Psychology Honors Program that required her to prepare and present a project Dallas decided SCCUR would be the perfect opportunity to display her research. Dallas’ interest in community service prompted her topic of choice.
“I’ve always wondered why some people are more compassionate than others. What motivated people to volunteer? If you know those things you can see what you need to encourage people to volunteer she said.
Dallas’ project sought to uncover what influencing factors and motivations lead people to volunteer. In short, she wanted to see if there was a universal profile of the volunteer.
Dallas’ studies found a direct correlation between volunteering and personality: many of those who spent the most time doing community service stated religion as their primary motivator, according to her research participants, who were students at Pepperdine.
Dallas also came up with a list of six main motivators for volunteering. Although the reasons differ between genders, some factors gracing the list include career experience, social networking, feeling good about oneself, and (the biggest influencer) expressing personal values. Those who hold a negative view of humanity were found to be less likely to volunteer in any capacity.
Dallas hopes her project will be able to help groups like the Pepperdine Volunteer Center learn how they can most effectively gain and retain a large number of volunteers.
I’ve seen volunteer groups struggle to get people involved so I wanted to see what I could do to improve that situation Dallas said.
ART
For junior Emily Branch, art has always been in her blood.
I’ve been doing art my whole life she said. I have an artistic family my sister is an art minor and my mom is an artist.”
After a lifetime’s worth of art camps workshops and competitions Branch has cultivated her artistic style which she now describes as “impressionistic.” The work of art she is presenting at the SCCUR conference named “Excavation explores the layering and excavation of color.
There is a completely different painting under this one. I think it has a pretty neat effect with the texturing and layering of the paint she said.
The painting depicts abstracted potted plants outside of her apartment, which she describes as fairly simple content, but it’s meaningful because it’s about where I’m living.”
Branch chose this painting to submit to SCCUR because of the “laid on and scraped off” painting technique used to achieve the bumpy irregular texture and the unique layered colors.
“I thought it turned out pretty well because it is interesting and a new idea and SCCUR is about the new explored in painting she said.
There are approximately 10 art pieces by Pepperdine student artists that will be displayed at the SCCUR conference on Nov. 20. During the conference, Branch and the other artists will have the opportunity to collaborate, receive feedback from professionals outside of Pepperdine and learn about other art research on other campuses throughout Southern California.
It’ll be a really fun day learning about other works other people have been working on and to hear new ideas Branch said.
BIO
From crayfish to tree frogs, senior Candy Hwang’s research explores biological phenomena with fresh, innovative ideas.
Hwang participated in last year’s SCCUR conference as well. Her project studied the relationship between nitrate levels and aggression in the crayfish of the Santa Monica Mountains.
This year, Hwang is looking at color variations in the Pacific tree frog species, which is native to the West Coast of the United States. So far, red, brown, gray and green are the four identifiable colors of the frogs, but Hwang is researching a possible fifth color type— a color-changing type. Some frogs, Hwang has found, can change from green to brown or brown to green, rather than just variations within one color.
We can induce the color change. If you put frogs in a black container those frogs that are able to change will change from green to brown. In the white containers the color-changing frogs go from brown to greenHwang said.
Hwang measures color with a non-invasive tool that gauges light reflectance of the frog’s skin, and then she uses a series of formulas to assign a number to differentiate between the colors.
We’ve found about five verified color-changing frogs out of a group of 16 Hwang said, who started her research project this summer for the Summer Undergraduate Research in Biology (SURB) program. She is now researching a new group of about 35 frogs.
To Hwang, SCCUR is a great opportunity for her to present data that pertains to a novel method of assessing phenotypes of frogs and how it can be applied to other studies. It’s also an opportunity to get advice and comments on different directions to go with the research.”
Hwang also argues that her research is taking advantage of an opportunity to study a species that may not be around forever.
“Talking about global climate change frogs seem to be the most impacted because of their unique biology. If they’re gone how will we ever know about this cool phenomena?”