Student Research Teams Compete May 2-3

CSUF Students to Showcase Research Efforts in Statewide Contest

May 1, 2008 :: No. 247

Ten Cal State Fullerton students representing eight separate projects will go head-to-head with students from other California State University campuses May 2-3 at the 22nd annual California State University Student Research Competition at Cal State East Bay.

The purpose of the competition is to promote excellence in undergraduate and graduate scholarly research and creative activity by recognizing outstanding student accomplishments throughout the 23 campuses.

Projects entered by Cal State Fullerton students cover a wide and creative range:

Abraham Lincoln's views on God: History major Jean Fiddler of Downey
Author William Faulkner's opposing depictions of religion: English major Cori Knight of Placentia
Prevalence of secondary traumatic stress to emergency room nurses: Nursing major Elvira Dominguez-Gomez of Hemet
Using the Internet to educate the public about stuttering: Speech communication majors Mabel DeLeon of Hemet, Mylinh Nguyen of Hacienda Heights and Zakira Kalyan of Cerritos
The role of photographs in how people falsely remember events in their lives: Psychology major Rhona Slaughter of Brea
A long-term investigation of students' early experiences with literacy: Psychology major Alma Martinez of Walnut
How heritage language learners use diacritics (accents in written words): in Spanish Linguistics major Thomas E. Beeman of Tustin
How to model a person's early environmental experiences on mathematics mastery: Psychology major Rhiannon Vaughn of Santa Ana

In this contest, graduate students compete with other graduate students, and undergraduates with undergraduates. On the CSUF teams, all but Fiddler, DeLeon, Nguyen and Kaylan are graduate students.

To reach the statewide finals, Fullerton's eight teams had to compete in a field of 18 research teams on the campus during three intense days in March. Typically, said Robert A. Young, associate vice president for academic programs, the research projects start with term papers in class, others with team projects.

"The projects were judged by associate deans," Young said. "The associate deans don't just judge the projects, either. They offer recommendations on how to improve them - not just the research, but the presentation.

"We have a good group," he said. "I think we'll make a solid showing."

According to Young, the competition "gives the students a chance to showcase their work, and to do it themselves. One of the joys in my job is to oversee this and to help them to do that."

The winners at Cal State Fullerton were awarded $300 per team. The funds can be used to cover as many expenses as possible to go to the finals. "Students Affairs will cover travel expenses beyond what the award covers," Young said. "We're hoping for a benefactor in the future to help cover that."

Statewide winners will be awarded up to $1,000. As a bonus, they can hear an address by Nobel laureate Donald Glaser at Saturday's awards luncheon. Glaser is a professor in the Graduate School of Biophysics and Neurobiology at UC Berkeley. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1960 for the invention of the bubble chamber for studying elementary particles.

Glaser's talk is titled "How Our Brain Uses its Internal Noise." Glaser explains: "Our brains are always generating electrical signals, even if we close our eyes, plug our ears and lie in a warm bath.

"These signals are called our cortical noise," he said, " because they don't correlate with any sensation or thought of which we are aware. I will discuss how this noise is essential for several common brain functions."

Media Contacts:
Ray Young, Academic Programs, 657-278-3602 or ryoung@fullerton.edu
Russ L. Hudson, Public Affairs, 657-278-4007 or rhudson@fullerton.edu

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