DAHLONEGA - While many students spent their summer breaks relaxing, members of North Georgia College & State University's summer undergraduate-research program gained valuable, career-worthy experience around the country and nearby as they spent their days in laboratories, an oceanic research institute, art and music studios, and wildlife habitats.
Operated through North Georgia's Center for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (CURCA), the FUSE (Faculty-Undergraduate Summer Engagement) program succeeded this year in supporting a research team in California. Dr. Holly Carpenter Desai, assistant professor of biochemistry, and Patrick Pickens, president of the Student Government Association, spent eight weeks at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California in San Diego to continue Desai's ground-breaking research in the study of reflectins. The protein material found naturally in the skin of squid has many "very interesting spectral and optical properties," Desai said.
Dr. Miriam Segura-Totten, associate professor of biology and CURCA director, is very pleased with the opportunities presented to students of the FUSE program this summer.
"The fact that we were able to support a team on the West Coast and have them Skype into FUSE meetings shows that CURCA is flexible and accommodating in its support of faculty-student research," Segura-Totten said. "In my experience, summer research programs that are supported internally do not typically support teams to perform research at another location, especially if the location is out-of-state."
FUSE has also achieved new heights by supporting research in subjects typically not supported by other undergraduate summer research programs.
"This year we had a team from performing arts and a team from visual arts," Segura-Totten said. "This is another exemplary feature of our program. Many other institutions focus mostly on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields."
The performing arts team of Dr. Lee G. Barrow, professor of music, and student Sean O'Keefe focused on developing an original three-movement musical composition created by O'Keefe. The visual arts team of Jorie Berman and student Abigail Thomas researched and documented traditional folk pottery significant to the region of north Georgia, then constructed their own pottery in the same style.
The other four teams are still working on projects that impact the local community, region, and state. Dr. Janice Crook-Hill and Geoff Nelson researched the restoration of habitat for the rare Golden-winged warbler, a bird that exists in Georgia only on Brawley Mountain. This is also the southern-most area where the birds have been known to maintain a breeding population.
Kayleigh Faulkner, Rachel Smudde, Rachel Busic, and their faculty mentors Drs. Tony Zschau and Danny Hatch researched the development of rehabilitation programs for the Lumpkin County Drug Court in an effort to lower the rate of repeat offenders. Research has shown that social circles have strong influence on drug use-the FUSE group hopes to use social circles to instead provide support to those in drug rehabilitation programs.
Danielle Carver and her faculty mentor Joseph Covert examined the potential for single-sex classrooms to outperform classes of mixed gender. Using fifth-graders, they studied the performance of classrooms composed of boys, girls, and both.
Amanda Helton and Jordan Ross, aided by their faculty mentors, Drs. Steven Lloyd and Ryan Shanks, studied the effects that prescription ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) drugs have on future drug use. Their research seeks to examine whether these prescription drugs can later cause greater sensitivity to illegal drugs such as cocaine.
Monday
July 14th, 2025
7:00PM
