Senior Integrated Project

Toads Shape Student’s Conservation Research

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Molly Ratliff with boreal toads at night
Molly Ratliff ’22 shows one of the boreal toads she’s researching this summer in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

Molly Ratliff ’22 hopes to work in an environmental-studies field after she graduates from Kalamazoo College, making her senior integrated project (SIP) this summer an ideal experience. She is researching boreal toads at their known breeding grounds in Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Park, Colorado, as a way to engage with conservation.

“Amphibians, such as boreal toads, are really great indicators of overall ecosystem health,” Ratliff said. “Their skin is highly permeable, making them vulnerable to environmental changes and toxins. Since amphibians are typically the first species to be impacted by changes in the environment such as climate change, they can show general trends of how other species may react.”

To be specific, in her research Ratliff is investigating how a skin disease that affects amphibians around the world—Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis or Bd—might be affecting the sizes of the toads at various locations and how this might relate to survivability. She performs surveys at dusk around lake shores, captures toads to mark them with pit tags, takes body measurements, and swabs them to test for the disease. The toads are then released and can be identified as they’re recaptured by their unique pit tags.

“If amphibian populations are not doing well in an ecosystem, it can be an indicator that there are stressors, toxins, imbalances, etc. within the entire system,” she said. “Amphibians also typically exist as both predators and prey, making them a crucial part of the food chain within an ecosystem.”

Ratliff’s work is an excellent example of the independent scholarship critical to the K-Plan, Kalamazoo College’s integrated approach to academics in the liberal arts and sciences. As a culmination of learning at K, all students explore a subject of their own choosing, resulting in an in-depth, graduate-level research thesis, performance or creative work. Learn more about how these projects fit into the K-Plan at kzoo.edu/k-plan.

‘Ambassador of Science’ Earns NSF Graduate Fellowship

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Each year, up to $100 billion worth of harvested food is lost worldwide to pests and microbes. A Kalamazoo College student’s research could hold part of the solution.

NSF Graduate Fellow uses a microscope at Dow Science Center
Marco Ponce ’19 examines insects through a microscope at Dow Science Center. He will attend Kansas State University with an NSF Graduate Fellowship beginning this fall.

Marco Ponce ’19, a biology major from San Diego, conducted his Senior Individualized Project (SIP) last summer under Rob Morrison, Ph.D., ’06, a research entomologist working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Center for Grain and Animal Health Science in Manhattan, Kansas. Their work targeted alternative methods for managing red flour and lesser grain beetles, which primarily attack stored grains.

“Prior research has found that these beetles release some pheromones that make them come together in groups, and others that trigger them to spread out,” Ponce said. As a result, “we wondered how their density affects their behavior when they look for food. We’ve found the beetles responded less to otherwise attractive food cues when they’re grouped in higher densities, so we’re trying to synthesize the signal that turns off their food-finding behavior and use it as a repellent. Our goal is to figure out how to use their biology against them.”

NSF Graduate Fellow Marco Ponce in a group of six
Marco Ponce ’19 (third from right) stands with Rob Morrison, Ph.D., ’06, (third from left) outside the Insect Zoo at Kansas State University. Ponce will attend Kansas State through an NSF Graduate Fellowship this fall.

Ponce learned last week that he earned a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship to attend Kansas State University as a graduate student this fall, meaning he and Morrison will conduct more research beginning in July. The two will study how stored-product beetles and microbes interact to ruin harvested grains.

“Every year after harvest, we lose anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of our food commodities,” Morrison said. In addition to the U.S., “if you look at some developing countries, this means about $100 billion in commodities are lost every year. Marco’s project has global ramifications. If he can find some of the attractants useful for (pest) management, that will go a long way toward ensuring less pest damage and making agriculture more sustainable.”

Ponce is the second Kalamazoo College student in as many years to earn a prestigious NSF Graduate Fellowship.

“When he was selected, he was up against some students who already are in their graduate programs,” said Biology Professor Ann Fraser, Ponce’s academic adviser. “It’s always gratifying to see students take an interest in science, even if they just make a hobby out of it. But it’s especially rewarding for me to see students go into entomology. There are so many opportunities to get involved in entomology because insects affect our lives in so many ways.”

NSF Graduate Fellow Marco Ponce standing with thumbs up in a field
Marco Ponce ’19 will attend Kansas State University through an NSF Graduate Fellowship beginning this fall.

Ponce and Fraser got to know each other when Ponce was reconsidering his pre-med path. His classes helped him realize he could seek other opportunities in science, and he found the best opportunity in Fraser’s entomology lab.

“That was the transition for me,” Ponce said, admitting his first year at K was difficult, especially as English was his second language, having grown up primarily in Tijuana, Mexico. “I considered changing majors until I saw the email from Dr. Fraser inviting me into her lab. I was surprised because I wasn’t the best academically at the time. It’s one of the reasons why I’m still here: I found my passion.”

Ponce first performed research in Fraser’s lab with painted lady butterflies, a species common in all climates throughout the world. His work analyzed how their antennae responded to different odors produced by flowers compared to those produced by potential predators such as ants, and Fraser was thrilled with his work.

A college track, though, wasn’t always in Ponce’s view. At one point, Ponce expected to join the work force immediately after high school when Pablo Roncoroni, his high school teacher, took him under his wing and helped him navigate the college application process. As a result, not only did Ponce find K, but so did five other students from that high school who since have followed in his footsteps.

The support of teachers and mentors has led Ponce to a place where his research and passion can benefit others around the world including in his backyard. As co-founder of the College’s Entomology Club, he’ll soon start working with that group to inspire students at Kalamazoo’s El Sol Elementary, with a goal of introducing students to science in a different, more hands-on way.

“Marco is very creative,” Fraser said. “I invited him into my lab because he is such an original thinker and he has a great science mind. He is a real ambassador of science.”

K Student’s Fellowship Targets Cyber Threats

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As global cyber threats target U.S. businesses and the government, organizations such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace respond, and so will Natalie Thompson ’19.

Natalie Thompson's Fellowship Addresses Cyber Threats
Natalie Thompson ’19 will help the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace respond to global cyber threats.

Thompson, a math and political science double major from West Olive, Michigan, is the first Kalamazoo College student to earn a James C. Gaither Junior Fellowship. Each year, Carnegie chooses about a dozen graduating seniors or recent grads from a pool of several hundred nominees to serve as junior fellows. The junior fellows work with Carnegie’s senior scholars for one year in Washington, D.C., to conduct research for books, co-author journal articles and policy papers, participate in meetings with high-level officials, contribute to congressional testimony and organize briefings attended by scholars, journalists and government officials.

An ‘Unparalleled Opportunity’

Beginning Aug. 1, Thompson will work in Carnegie’s Cyber Policy Initiative, run through its Technology and International Affairs Program, to promote technology while reducing or eliminating cyber threats that could harm the country’s financial stability, data and transaction integrity, and communication chains.

Students applying for the fellowship are first nominated by their institution and prepare statements of interest and issue-specific essays for their program of interest. Carnegie selects about three or four students to interview for each position and must demonstrate some knowledge of and passion for their focus topic. Plus, according to its website, Carnegie selects only the top 5 percent of its applicants each year for junior fellowships with students.

“I think it’s an unparalleled opportunity,” said Thompson, who added this is just the second year K has been a nominating institution for the fellowship. “Think tanks and nonprofits in Washington, D.C., like Carnegie often prefer employees with several years of work experience or a master’s degree in their field in research positions like these. I hope to take my undergraduate degree and the great writing and research skills I learned at K and transfer them into policy expertise. It’s difficult to describe how exciting it is for me and I hope it’s exciting for the College.”

Before they graduate from K, students including Thompson complete a senior individualized project (SIP), serving as a capstone to their educations in the liberal arts and sciences. Anne Dueweke, K’s director of grants, fellowships and research, who serves as the College’s nominating official for the fellowship, said Thompson’s SIP, about media technologies and their impact on public deliberation, probably factored into Carnegie’s decision to select her.

“I think her SIP certainly had something to do with it along with other experiences in which she has been able to develop her research skills,” Dueweke said. “But Natalie really stands out in her intellectual curiosity. She is incredibly well read and engaged in the topic of cybersecurity, and on many related topics as well. She is also a very sophisticated thinker and writer. The Gaither Fellowship is a perfect fit for her.”

Global Cyber Threats on the Rise

As an example of the cyber threats she might address as a fellow, Thompson described “deepfakes.” Deepfakes are an artificial intelligence-based technology that produce or alter video or audio to convincingly present something that didn’t occur. Video and audio manipulation techniques are not new, but technological advances have made the manipulations more convincing. Usually this means criminals or hackers fool the public into believing a famous influencer, business executive or politician said something they never did. She could explore what such a tactic means for government intelligence connections, diplomatic relations and state-to-state hacking.

State-to-state hacking concerns also have escalated in recent weeks because of China’s government and how it allegedly spies on U.S. businesses. National Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security Department officials brought to light some of those issues this month at a cybersecurity conference, as reported through the Washington Post.

As a result, “what policies will we need to consider?” Thompson asked. “Could there be diplomatic, legal or military responses? Right now, we don’t have clear policy standards or regulations for what to do in these situations.”

Thompson said she’s comfortable in Washington, D.C., as she was among K’s first students to study away there through an internship with Whitmer & Worrall, a bipartisan government relations and strategic consulting firm. However, several K faculty and staff members were instrumental in encouraging her to seek the fellowship. Those influencers included Dueweke, Luce Professor of Complex Systems Studies Peter Erdi, and Kalamazoo College’s Political Science Department.

“Dr. [Jennifer] Einsphar especially has been a tireless mentor for me during my time at K,” said Thompson of the associate professor of political science. “We’ve had so many conversations. She’s an incredible scholar and I’ve loved her courses. Dr. Erdi has also been a tireless advocate for me. He encouraged me to combine hard science and social science, and helped me think from an interdisciplinary perspective.”

Learn more about the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the James C. Gaither Junior Fellowship through the organization’s website.

K Athlete Flexes Liberal Arts Muscle in NBA Internship

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For Amanda Moss ’19, the route to her prestigious internship this summer at National Basketball Association (NBA) headquarters in New York City began, improbably, with getting kicked out of a gym.

Amanda Moss Attending NBA Draft through her NBA Internship
Economics and business major Amanda Moss applied for a highly competitive NBA internship and was one of 50 students chosen from a pool of 6,000.

She says that while she was a basketball player in high school, she went to the community gym in her Detroit suburb daily during the summer to practice her jump shot. One day, however, an employee of the Detroit Pistons NBA team told her she would have to leave because the courts were reserved for a team-run youth basketball program.

“I started to pack up but then I looked around and saw they were way understaffed for the event they were going to hold,” she recalls. “So I went back up to the guy and I offered my assistance. He took me up on the offer and I helped set up chairs, run the scoreboard, that sort of thing, and helped to clean up when it was over.”

After the event, she says, the employee chatted with her and ended up offering her a summer job at the Pistons’ youth basketball camp.

Amanda Moss Playing Basketball NBA Internship
Amanda Moss, who plays on Kalamazoo College’s women’s basketball team, is working in an NBA internship this summer.

“I did that every summer for four years,” says Moss, who plays women’s basketball and lacrosse and was just named to the Jewish Sports Review Women’s College Lacrosse All-America Team for the second year in a row.

Along the way, she got to meet Pistons players including Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson and people in the team’s corporate office. So when it came time to seek an internship in summer 2017, she was well-situated to apply to the Pistons. She worked in community relations and marketing for the team, conceiving a career forum for girls 9 to 16 and then running every aspect of the event, which included presenting a panel of college basketball players and women business leaders.

That, in turn, set her up for this summer’s internship. With the help of K’s Center for Career and Professional Development and with advice from her professors, the economics and business major applied for the highly competitive program and was one of 50 students chosen from a pool of 6,000. She’s working in the retail division of the NBA’s Global Partnerships Department, which manages all aspects of the league’s relationship with companies including Nike, New Era, Foot Locker and Amazon.

That relationship includes activities such as licensing the sale of NBA-branded merchandise, arranging for advertising on NBA TV, approving the use of the NBA logo in social media messages and arranging player appearances at partner businesses, she says. Her role has been mainly in research. One assignment tasked her with finding out everything she could about how the NBA could work with Target Corp., and she says she discovered a natural fit in both organizations’ emphasis on supporting community voluntarism—a synergy around which her boss now is building a partnership program.

She says her K education has given her a real advantage in her role, especially a business research methods course that prepares students for their Senior Individualized Project (SIP). Business and economics professor Timothy Moffit ’80 put a heavy emphasis on identifying information sources in research papers, so in a PowerPoint presentation to NBA professionals, she says, she included a final slide listing all of her sources—about 30, and many of them recognizable names.

She says it helped cement the credibility and validity of her proposal. “They were really impressed. It’s not something that they were expecting.”

A Chinese minor who studied abroad in China during the 2017-18 school year, Moss also has had a chance to use her language skills, aiding her boss in a conference call with the NBA office in China, she says. And content- and video-editing skills she learned in a documentary filmmaking course have turned out to be in high demand, as well.

“Every day is a new day at the league,” she says. “You have to be very multidimensional. Part of the Kalamazoo College liberal arts experience is being able to study multiple subjects because the K-Plan is so flexible.”

With the experience gained in her internships, and a planned SIP contrasting consumer perceptions of professional sports in the United States and China, she hopes to land a corporate job in international sports after graduation. Her ultimate goal—“really just a dream” at this point, she says—would be to start a nonprofit venture that uses sports to connect with and empower Chinese girls.

“I was adopted from China, and when I went to my study abroad in China, I got to volunteer coach in some of the schools, and there was a huge absence of girls in all of the basketball programs,” she says, adding that Chinese girls get little encouragement to participate in team sports in general.

In another effort to help people achieve their goals, she is teaming with fellow Kalamazoo College athletes Alex Dupree ’21 and Jordan Wiley ’19 to form a sports business club for K students that will aid them in charting their way to careers in sports-oriented businesses and link them with alumni in the field.

Her effort to create what she calls “new channels and opportunities” for her classmates echoes what she says is her goal on the lacrosse field and basketball court: “to play for my teammates and make great memories.”

Moss’ enthusiasm and cooperative yet competitive spirit wins high praise from K physical education professor and coach Jeanne Hess.

“Amanda is one of the most committed players and teammates I’ve seen come through Kalamazoo College,” Hess says. “She plays with passion and ferocity and she’s fun to watch. She’s going to do great things.”

Alumni Honor Retiring Professor with Research Fellowship

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Though Kalamazoo College chemistry professor Tom Smith has had 40 years to devise just the right formula for ensuring the success of his students, they’ll tell you that he had it from the very start. Alumni — led by two who were part of the first class Smith taught in the 1978-79 school year, Chris Bodurow and Bob Weinstein, both ’79 — are in the midst of a fundraising effort that has endowed the Thomas J. Smith Student Research Fellowship in Chemistry. The fund honors the retiring Smith, the Dorothy H. Heyl Professor of Chemistry, by supporting an initiative he chose, and which is close to his heart: independent summer research.

Research Fellowship
As Tom Smith, the Kalamazoo College Dorothy H. Heyl Professor of Chemistry, retires after 40 years as a student favorite, some of his former students are honoring him by endowing an independent summer student research fellowship in his name.

With Min Soo Kim ’19 designated as the first recipient, the endowment drive is entering its second phase. Bodurow is personally pledging a match of up to $20,000 in contributions with the goal of expanding the number of students who receive the fellowship each summer, a priority for the College as its new strategic plan re-emphasizes the K-Plan tenets of experiential education and independent scholarship.

Testifying to the devotion Smith inspires: He has been designated an Alpha Lambda Delta National Honorary Society Favorite Teacher by first-year students 13 times since 2003. In addition, he has directed the Senior Individualized Projects of 70 students, was named a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Scholar and was awarded the Florence J. Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Scholarship or Creative Work and the Dr. Winthrop S. and Lois A. Hudson Award for Outstanding Contributions in Research at Kalamazoo College.

It doesn’t take a list of awards, however, to understand the influence Smith has had on students, and the profound sense of appreciation it has engendered in the more than a dozen alumni who have contributed some $130,000 for the endowment.

Bodurow and Weinstein were seniors when Smith arrived at the College, fresh from post-doctoral work at Caltech. They said Smith immediately took on a role that went far beyond just teaching chemistry.

“He really had a very strong propensity to encourage us in our studies and in our post-Kalamazoo College strategies in our lives. He quickly identified students he thought ought to pursue graduate degrees and encouraged us,” said Bodurow, who went on to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry from Princeton University and has had a distinguished career in drug research. Now retired from Eli Lilly and Company, where she was senior research director, external sourcing, for the Medicines Development Unit, she is a member of the board of the American Chemical Society and is president of PharmaDOQS, a consultancy.

“Tom was very deliberate about understanding our strengths and passions and directing us,” said Bodurow. “It was all because of his strong commitment to launching us, and he made sure we had a strong post-Kalamazoo plan. It was quite extraordinary. If you talk to anyone who has had Tom as a professor, they will tell you a similar story.”

Weinstein does.

“He helped us understand what it meant to go to grad school and how to get to grad school. He was telling us what it was like and challenging us with projects,” said Weinstein, who earned his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is president and CEO of Robertet USA, an arm of the French-owned maker of flavors, fragrances and natural raw materials. “It didn’t take Tom Smith very long to say, ‘This is what the College is about: I will prepare these students for graduate school or medical school and really dedicate myself to helping them.’ ”

Smith, he said, “was the engine behind me. To be able to contribute to his legacy at K is a privilege that I am proud to be able to do. I honestly believe that nothing I have accomplished would have been possible without Tom Smith and K.”

Kalamazoo College President Jorge G. Gonzalez said few things are more meaningful to professors than to have former students credit them for their successes. To have them go a step further and fund an endowment in their name, he said, “is both an honor and an affirmation that you have achieved the goal motivating every educator, and that is to make a real difference in your students’ lives.”

Smith called it “humbling.”

“You think you’re getting your job done and then you discover decades later that the impact has lasted,” said Smith, an aficionado of hiking and movies, who described the honor as a fitting capstone for his career.

“So often when I say goodbye to students, I tell them, ‘Go out and make the world a better place,’ ” he said. “It becomes a lifelong interaction. That’s why we do this.”

To contribute to the Thomas J. Smith Student Research Fellowship in Chemistry, or to discuss creating an endowment in the name of another favorite faculty or staff member, contact Kalamazoo College Vice President for Advancement Al J. DeSimone at 269.337.7292 or Al.DeSimone@kzoo.edu.

 

Journalist to Deliver Hilberry Symposium Keynote

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The Kalamazoo College English Department will conduct its annual Hilberry Symposium, which honors English majors and their Senior Individualized Projects, this Friday and Saturday.

Hilberry Symposium Keynote Speaker Lauren Trager
Lauren Trager ’07, an investigative journalist for KMOV-TV in St. Louis, will kick off the annual Hilberry Symposium with a keynote at 6:30 p.m. Friday in the Olmsted Room.

Lauren Trager ’07, an investigative journalist for KMOV-TV in St. Louis, will kick off the event with a keynote at 6:30 p.m. Friday in the Olmsted Room. Trager has spent most of her career as a reporter and anchor through the newspaper, radio and television industries, and has also worked in government. She worked as an anchor and reporter at KARK-TV in Little Rock, Arkansas, before arriving in St. Louis in 2013.

SIP presentation panels will run concurrently from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m. Saturday after an opening session at 1 p.m. at 103 Dewing Hall. A reception at the Arcus Center will follow.

The Hilberry Symposium was named for late Professor Emeritus Conrad Hilberry, who was the founder of the creative writing program at K. The event resembles a professional conference, where scholars and writers share their work and acknowledge each other’s achievements. Alumni, nominated through English Department faculty, have served as keynote speakers for the event since 2001.

Since the first Hilberry Symposium in 2000, the event has been an important collective experience for the graduating class as a ritual of remembrance and celebration. With English Department faculty members, family and friends also attending, English majors have developed a community through the symposium that has evolved over time, with the love of language as its enduring center.

Visit its website for more information on the English Department and the Hilberry Symposium.

Events Offer Students Opportunities in the Sciences

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Two Kalamazoo College events coming soon will give students new experiences and learning opportunities in the sciences.

First, Brendan Bohannan – a professor of environmental studies and biology at the University of Oregon – will present a keynote address titled “Host-Microbe Systems: a Rediscovered Frontier in the Life Sciences” in the annual Diebold Symposium from 4 to 5 p.m. Thursday at 226 Dow Science Center.

Sciences JA Scott Kelso
J.A. Scott Kelso will provide the Tourtellotte Lecture at 5:30 p.m. May 7 in 103 Dewing Hall.

The Diebold Symposium offers senior biology majors a chance to present their Senior Individualized Projects (SIP), regardless of their SIP discipline. The event is dedicated to the memory of Frances “Dieb” Diebold, who was a member of the Kalamazoo College Biology Department for 44 years.

Bohannon focuses on understanding the causes and consequences of microbial biodiversity.  He began his research career studying microbes in non-host environments such as soil, water, air and built environments. However, over the past 12 years, his group has focused more on the microbiomes of humans and other animals including fish, birds and primates.

Then, the Kalamazoo College Physics Department will welcome J.A. Scott Kelso, of the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences at Florida Atlantic University and the Intelligent Systems Research Centre at Ulster University in Northern Ireland, for the Tourtellotte Lecture at 5:30 p.m. May 7 in 103 Dewing Hall.

The lecture will explain some fundamental governing laws behind the behavior of complex physical, biological and social systems.

For most of his scientific career, Kelso has studied human beings and human brains, individually and together, and how they coordinate their behavior from cells to cognition to social settings.

Since the late 1970s, his approach has been grounded in the concepts, methods and tools of self-organizing dynamical systems tailored to living things, a theoretical and empirical framework called Coordination Dynamics.

From 1978 to 1985 Kelso was the senior research scientist at Yale University’s Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut. Since then, he has held the Glenwood and Martha Creech Eminent Scholar Chair in Science at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in Boca Raton, Florida, where he founded The Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences.

Kelso has held visiting appointments in Moscow, Stuttgart, Lyons and Marseille, and is an emeritus professor of computational neuroscience at Ulster University in Northern Ireland.