Students Participate in 2020 Obler Summer Research Program

Elmira, NY (07/07/2020) — The 2020 Obler Summer Research Program at Elmira College just concluded with its student research mini-conference on June 30th, 2020. This year, given the challenges due to COVID-19, summer research was performed online, with one-on-one virtual meetings between students and faculty mentors, Friday research progress meetings, and Tuesday meetings to discuss such topics as the research process, careers in research, what to expect in graduate school, and research communication. At the end of the one month program, students wrote an abstract and presented a 20-minute oral presentation on their research findings.

This year's student researchers and their presentations included:

James Blair '23: The Single Smoothing Per Twist Game
Emma Kelly '21: Using Conservation and Evolutionary Analysis to Understand How the RAD19-RAD1-HUS1 Complex Functions in Mammalian Cells
John Mullan '21: Analyzing the Fairness of the Iowa Caucus
Elizabeth Shephard '21: The 9-1-1 DNA Repair Complex and the Structure and Interactions of the RAD9 Subunit
Catherine Smugereski '22: The Conserved Structure and Functional Interactors of the RAD1 Protein in the 9-1-1 Complex
Zackarie Stedge '21: The Median Voter Theorem and Voting Equilibria in Approval Voting Elections
Avery Yeates '21: A Presidential Election Calculator

Faculty mentors included Dr. Adam Giambrone, assistant professor of mathematics; Dr. Joseph Kolacinski, associate professor of mathematics; and Dr. Amy Lyndaker, assistant professor of biology.

The Obler Summer Research Program is generously supported by the Obler family, the Emerson Foundation, and Elmira College.