UH students
show off research
"It gives you faith in the future," said Jeff Taylor, associate director of the Hawaii Space Grant Consortium, after hearing University of Hawaii undergraduate students describe research projects yesterday.
About 70 students participated in the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium at the East-West Center's Hawaii Imin International Conference Center. Most were from UH-Manoa.
They presented their work in posters and oral sessions moderated by UH professors.
The research covered an array of disciplines -- education; humanities; biological, physical, social and computer sciences; engineering; fine arts; and business.
Among the topics discussed were rocket technology, diseases of ancient Egypt, Muslims in Hawaii, visual sensing in autonomous robots, ancient Cambodian beads, the relationship of architecture and politics, learning of honeybees, comparison of wizardry and witchcraft in the "Harry Potter" series and children's literature, hate crime and hate speech, issues influencing U.S. policies toward China, the Deadhead subculture in music and state-county regulations regarding landslides and rockslides compared to other states.
Many of the juniors and seniors are in the UH-Manoa Honors Program, which involves designing and conducting a research project over three semesters with a mentor in their department.
Sherwood Maynard, Marine Option Program director and one of the moderators, said the presentations were bigger and better this year: "It's just incredible the things the students have done."
The only two students outside of Manoa describing their research were Steven Clegg, a geology major at UH-Hilo, and Kawailehua Kuluhiwa, a liberal arts major at Maui Community College.
Clegg analyzed use of a new ultraviolet spectrometer, FLYSPEC, to identify specific sources of volcanic emissions and sample sulfur dioxide emission rates from Kilauea Volcano.
Kuluhiwa presented an analysis of the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking Program, a cooperative effort between NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and U.S. Air Force using telescopes on Haleakala, Maui, and Mount Palomar, Calif.
Inspiration for some of the projects came from unexpected sources.
Celka Mewhort, an English major, said her project, "By the Power of the Pig: Swine Symbolism in Medieval Europe" came about because she was always running into pig things.
"You can collect hundreds of them. My mother does," she said.
Tegan Hammond, Hawaiian language and fine arts major, drew the idea for her project from her experience with a Hawaiian studies professor, a specialist in medicinal herbs with a lot of humor.
"Laughing Ourselves to Health" was the title of her poster, and her project was titled, "Simplifying Medicinal Language through Humorous Cartoon Illustrations, Language Translations and Cultural Sensitivity for the People of Hawaii."
The 2003 Symposium was sponsored by the UH-Manoa Honors Program, Hawaii Space Grant Consortium, Hawaii Sea Grant, Marine Option Program, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, Global Environmental Science Degree Program and the Manoa chancellor's office.
University of Hawaii