Nine Clark Undergraduates Receive Steinbrecher Fellowships

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Saturday, May 11, 2013

GoLocalWorcester Lifestyle Team

Nine Clark University undergraduate students were recently named Steinbrecher Fellows; all will undertake projects this summer and during the 2013-2014 academic year. The Steinbrecher Fellowship Program was established in 2006 to encourage and support Clark undergraduates’ pursuit of original ideas, creative research, and community service projects.

The Honored Students

Information about the 2013-2014 Steinbrecher Fellows and their projects follows.

Samuel L. Berman ’14, of Norwalk, Conn., will participate in the Polaris Project 2013 and conduct research on organic carbon storage and transport in a watershed in East Siberia with Geography professor Karen Frey. Berman is an environmental science major.

Patrick R. Burchat ’15, a Canadian citizen currently residing in Templeton, Mass., will explore Cuba’s use of propaganda to attempt to divert the attention of its citizens from the country’s economic problems and open-market style reforms. The project is under the guidance of Political Science professor Michael Butler. Burchat majors in political science and economics.

Moriah A. Day ’15, of Exeter, Maine, will examine the effects on forest structure and composition of spruce beetle outbreaks in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado with Geography professor Dominik Kulakowski to see if the beetle outbreaks correlate with climate change. Day is planning to major in environmental science, with a focus on conservation biology.

Lyor Dotan ’14, of Ra’anana, Israel, will spend two weeks in Honduras, photographing and speaking with people who live in Tegucigalpa in order to create a book that will “tell the story” about the physical, social, and economic conditions in that city. Dotan’s project is under the guidance of Photography instructor Stephen DiRado. Dotan is majoring in communication and culture.

Blaine McCarthy ’15, of Norfolk, Mass., will spend the summer in Chemistry professor Charles Jakobsche’s lab, conducting research on a target molecule that has the ability to kill MRSA bacteria. McCarthy studies organic chemistry.

Claire S. McDonald ’14, of Delmark, N.Y., will embark on a research project using the Steinbeck Archives in Salinas, Calif., and the Steinbeck Collection at Stanford University, to study how John Steinbeck developed “Group-Man” Social Theory, and see how it evolved in his novels. Her project is under the guidance of English Professor James (Jay) Elliott; McDonald majors in English.

Emma C. O’Melia ’15, of Issaquah, Mass., will travel with Biology Professor Susan Foster to Alaska and Newfoundland to research the behavior of the threespine stickleback fish. She will communicate her research findings via photographs and a blog that people with little or no scientific training will be able to understand. O’Melia is a biology major.

Jennifer K. O’Rourke ’14, of Somerset, Mass., will examine editorials published in southern and northern county newspapers that focus on the trial of the two white men accused of viciously killing young, black Emmett Till in order to compare racial attitudes in those regions. Professor Janette Greenwood will serve as the project adviser. O’Rourke majors in history and English.

Hoamy T. Tran ’15, of Portland, Maine, will conduct a community service project with an NGO in Vietnam that provides dental care to disadvantaged children. Tran will also speak with Worcester-area dentists about the dental problems that Vietnamese immigrants living in the region experience. Tran will work with Sociology Professor Parminder Bhachu. Tran is a communication and culture major.

The Steinbrecher Fellowship

The Steinbrecher Fellowship Program was established in memory of David C. Steinbrecher, class of ’81, by his parents, Phyllis and Stephen Steinbrecher, class of ’55, and is funded by generous gifts from the Steinbrecher family and friends of David.

“A record-breaking number of students applied for these important fellowships this year. After carefully reviewing each of them and deliberating on all of them, the Selection Committee chose the nine most outstanding proposals,” said Sharon Krefetz, professor of political science and director of the Steinbrecher Fellowship Program.

“Each of these Fellows will embark on a project that has the potential to make a significant contribution to the advancement of knowledge in his or her field, or one that can help improve the lives of disadvantaged people living in the U.S. or abroad.”

For more information please click here.
 

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