With the semester almost over, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh students are looking forward to a summer of sun, fun — and research related to Ramsey numbers, invasive algae and the politics of race.

A dozen undergraduate and graduate students have been awarded Student/Faculty Collaborative Research Program grants for summer 2008. Another five undergraduates were awarded 2008-2009 academic year grants.

Graduate students receive $3,000 stipends plus $500 for supplies/expenses, while undergraduate students receive $2,500 plus $500 for supplies/expenses.

UW Oshkosh’s collaborative research program encourages collaborative projects between undergraduate students and faculty or teaching academic staff. Students have the opportunity to assume the principal investigator role with a faculty or academic staff collaborator serving as the mentor.

Students (and their faculty/staff mentors) who have been awarded grants include the following:

Summer 2008 Patricia J. Koll Award (Graduate)

• Brandon Whitman with Gary Burns (Psychology), “How Normative Goal Orientation Functions in the Absence of Feedback Mechanisms.”

Summer 2008 Graduate

• Nicholas Bach with Robert Pillsbury (Biology/Microbiology), “The Effect of Disturbance on the Invasive Alga Didymosphenia geminata in the Presence and Absence of Nutrient Additions.”
• Kathryn Griffiths with Michelle Michalski (Biology/Microbiology), “What Makes Brugia malayi Infective for a Mosquito?”
• Jeremiah Henning with Stephen Bentivenga (Biology/Microbiology), “Soil Fungi and Prairie Grass Competition.”
• Olesya Savchenko with Stephen Makar (Accounting), “Firm-Specific Foreign Exchange Exposure and the Monitoring of Hedge Effectiveness: Do Ineffective Hedgers Modify Future Derivative Use?”

Summer 2008 Undergraduate

• Peter Christensen with Brant Kedrowski (Chemistry), “Development of Enantiomer Separation Methods for the Chiral Molecule Cacalol.”
• Aaryn Mustoe with Samuel David (Chemistry), “Novel Laboratory Synthesis of the Natural Product Aspermgrin.”
• Nicholas Peterson with Tom Naps (Computer Science), “A Heuristic Approach to Finding Ramsey Numbers.”
• Anthony Pietsch with Stephen Kercher (History), “A Tale of Two Cities: Oshkosh, Milwaukee and the Politics of Race in Wisconsin during the 1960s.”
• Virginia Pliska with M. Ryan Haley (Economics), “Estimating the Optimal Reserve Price for Wisconsin State Forestry Auctions.”
• Michael Schuh with Robert Ball (Computer Science), “Understanding How Explicit Versus Implicit Citations Differ.”
• Chan Vang with Li Hu (Art), “Beyond the Refugee Experience.”

Academic Year 2008-2009 Undergraduate

• Jason Busse with Wing Huen (Computer Science), “Automating the Investigation of the Evolutionary Changes in Genomes.”
• Ryan Dhillon with Dan Lehrmann (Geology), “Petrographic Evaluation of a Permian-Triassic Erosion Surface and Implication for Causes of the End-Permian Extinction.”
• Andrew Jansen with George Hudak (Geology), “Evaluation of a Possible Change from ARC to Back-ARC Associated Volcanism in the Neoarchean Ely Greenstone Formation, Northeast Minnesota.”
• Marshall Scorcio with Kathy Faggiani (Computer Science), “Designing Systems That Gain Public Trust: An E-Voting Platform Prototype.”
• Rebecca Zink with Michele Michalski (Biology / Microbiology), “What Makes Brugia pahangi Infective for Two Mosquito Species?”

To learn more about research opportunities for students at UW Oshkosh, visit www.uwosh.edu/grants/assets/uw_student_support.php.