More than 30 teams of College of Charleston students and faculty mentors are conducting research this summer as part of the Summer Undergraduate Research with Faculty (SURF) grant program. Teams are investigating everything from insect flight muscles to farming as a religious experience to contamination effects on water and soil.

“Past SURF grant recipients say the experience has prepared them well for post-graduate pursuits, particularly admission to top graduate schools and access to competitive jobs after graduation,” says Trisha Folds-Bennett, Director of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities. “Plus, SURF grants support faculty-student collaboration, one of the most enriching and rewarding experiences on an undergraduate campus.”

SURF grant recipients are awarded up to $6,500 and the student is expected to work 40 hours a week for 10 weeks. The culmination of the research is participation in the college-wide “Celebration of Summer Scholars: Exposition of Faculty and Student Research, Scholarship & Creativity at the College of Charleston”, which will be held on Monday, August 20, 2012. They are also required to submit a written project summary for public dissemination and are encouraged to submit results to regional, national and international publications.

Physics and Astronomy professor Linda Jones and Biology major Pooja Patel will be working with a doctor at Mayo Clinic to improve the results of photodynamic therapy (PDT) for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Psychology professor Jen Wright and students Evan Reinhold and Matthew Echols will study whether people are more motivated to become the self that they or the self that other people think they ought to be. They will have participants complete a personality survey, to which negative feedback will be given. Then the subjects will complete a survey asking questions about how motivated they are to develop those traits in the future.

Religious studies professor Katie Hladky and Women’s and Gender Studies major Meredith Porter will collect and analyze more than 30 oral histories from African Americans who attended church in Charleston during the Civil Rights Movement. The recordings will be archived in the Avery Research Center and the article will be submitted to national publications and conferences.

Geology and Environmental Geosciences professor K. Adem Ali and Physics and Astronomy professor Narayanan Kuthirummal and Geology major Morgan Shuman are hoping to develop robust algorithms that can estimate color producing agents (CPAs) from satellite data using analytical and multivariate techniques. This approach should apply to a variety of optically complex aquatic environments.

Music professor Blake Stevens and student Martin Dawson will study versions of Mozart’s Die Zauberflote and Die Enthfuhrung aus dem Serail performed in France. The project will compare the textual and musical material of the original German-language editions with the corresponding French editions and record all significant changes.

African American Studies professor Conseula Francis and psychology major Brittany Counts will be studying contemporary narratives of love and desire aimed at/about black women with a hypothesis that contemporary culture is full of anxiety-producing narratives painting black women as unlovable, unattractive, unrealistic in romantic relationships. The research will be published in a book entitled Standing Straight in a Crooked Room: Black female Desire in Popular Media.

Chemistry professor Neal Tonks and Biochemistry major Brett Snyder will work in partnership with a small industrial firm and two manufacturing firms to develop “green chemicals” for use in the polyurethane industry.

For more information on the SURF program and other research opportunities offered through the office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities go to their website: http://urca.cofc.edu.