2008 Woodie Awards
Students present public policy work at Undergraduate Research Exposition
Nathan Seder
Issue date: 1/24/08 Section: News
This past Tuesday, three Union students submitted presentations to the inaugural Independent Sector Undergraduate Research Exposition at the Empire State Plaza in Albany. Jasmine Maldonado, '09, Latoya Roper '08, and Crystal Smith, '07, each presented undergraduate research for legislators at the capitol.
The event, sponsored by the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, is similar to Union's Steinmetz Symposium, though the Exposition is a state-wide program. The Commission consists of 460,000 undergraduates and works to bring attention to issues of public policy.
Maldonado devoted much of her project to legislative work on the death penalty. Having interned at New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty (NYADP), Maldonado presented her research on mental illness and the death penalty to the legislature, at a time when the national status of the death penalty is under review after moves by New York and New Jersey to eliminate the death penalty.
Maldonado presented similar research at Union's Summer Alumni Week and the Hamilton College Social Justice Conference.
Maldonado's advisor, Professor of Philosophy Linda Patrik, noted the prestige of attending the Exposition.
"As a pre-law student, Jasmine has been able to combine her philosophical training in moral issues with her hands-on internship training at NYADP to develop arguments about this complex and controversial question of whether the death penalty should ever be administered to the mentally retarded or mentally ill defendant," said Patrik.
Patrik's husband, David Kaczynski, helped Jasmine with her project by arranging meetings with social activists and exonerated prisoners, as well as helping give her more leeway in developing her own research.
Crystal Smith worked on nuclear astrophysics and was guided in her research by Professor of Physics Rebecca Surman. Surman helped direct Smith's work on the formation of p-process nuclei and how they can form from a gamma-ray burst (a type of exploding star that produces a black hole).
"For her project, Crystal had to learn to program in a couple of different programming languages, to run a set of nuclear network codes that solve for the abundances of thousands of nuclei, and to sort, analyze, and interpret the results," said Surman.
Surman credited Smith for her earlier work at the American Physical Society Division of Nuclear Physics national meeting in Newport News, Virginia and the Steinmetz Symposium. Surman also praised the Exposition as a way for the legislature to "appreciate the value of undergraduate research experiences and understand the resources required to make it happen."
The event, sponsored by the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, is similar to Union's Steinmetz Symposium, though the Exposition is a state-wide program. The Commission consists of 460,000 undergraduates and works to bring attention to issues of public policy.
Maldonado devoted much of her project to legislative work on the death penalty. Having interned at New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty (NYADP), Maldonado presented her research on mental illness and the death penalty to the legislature, at a time when the national status of the death penalty is under review after moves by New York and New Jersey to eliminate the death penalty.
Maldonado presented similar research at Union's Summer Alumni Week and the Hamilton College Social Justice Conference.
Maldonado's advisor, Professor of Philosophy Linda Patrik, noted the prestige of attending the Exposition.
"As a pre-law student, Jasmine has been able to combine her philosophical training in moral issues with her hands-on internship training at NYADP to develop arguments about this complex and controversial question of whether the death penalty should ever be administered to the mentally retarded or mentally ill defendant," said Patrik.
Patrik's husband, David Kaczynski, helped Jasmine with her project by arranging meetings with social activists and exonerated prisoners, as well as helping give her more leeway in developing her own research.
Crystal Smith worked on nuclear astrophysics and was guided in her research by Professor of Physics Rebecca Surman. Surman helped direct Smith's work on the formation of p-process nuclei and how they can form from a gamma-ray burst (a type of exploding star that produces a black hole).
"For her project, Crystal had to learn to program in a couple of different programming languages, to run a set of nuclear network codes that solve for the abundances of thousands of nuclei, and to sort, analyze, and interpret the results," said Surman.
Surman credited Smith for her earlier work at the American Physical Society Division of Nuclear Physics national meeting in Newport News, Virginia and the Steinmetz Symposium. Surman also praised the Exposition as a way for the legislature to "appreciate the value of undergraduate research experiences and understand the resources required to make it happen."
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