ruthscholarship

2019/2020 RUTH DICKIE WINNERS

Elise Hopman
Photo by Mark Koranda

Elise is in the Psychology Department in MacDonald’s lab.  Below is her project abstract.

How does language production practice benefit second language grammar learning?
Learning foreign languages is important, but mastering their grammar is hard. In earlier research, I have shown that production (speaking) training improves people’s grammar learning compared to comprehension (listening) training. However, it’s unclear what causes this benefit. Does production training directly improve learning, or does it do so indirectly through increased motivation? I propose a novel language learning experiment that will help parse the contributions of both factors. Understanding how the production benefit works will pave the way for the efficient application of production practice within the classroom.

Morgan Walcheck

Morgan is in the Molecular and Environmental Toxicology Program in Sean Ronnekleiv-Kelly’s lab. Below is her project abstract.

Knockout of the Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor decreases levels of infiltrating effector immune cells resulting in an increase in pancreas cancer development.
Only 10% of those diagnosed with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) live beyond 5 years creating an urgent need for the discovery of an effective therapeutic target. Recent discoveries suggest the Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor (AhR) plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of several cancers including PDAC. Preliminary research from our lab show the AhR functions as a tumor suppressor of PDAC, but the mechanism is unclear. Previous studies suggest the AhR influences immune cell biology. For this reason, we sought to evaluate the effect of AhR loss on infiltrating immune cell populations in PDAC using a novel mouse model.

PAST WINNERS

Adati Tarfa – Health Services and Policy Research (2019 – Grant-in-aid)
Amanda Salvi – Botany (2018)
Julia Patterson – (2017)
Diana Guzman –
(2017 – Grant-in-aid)
Maribeth Kniffin
 – Civil Engineering (2015)
Rosabeth Link – Entomology (2015)
Lisa Schomaker – Botany (2014)
Allison Didychuk – Biochemistry (2014 – Grant-in-aid)
Lauren Moscoe – Botany (2013)
Margaret Thairu 
– Entomology (2013)
Stephanie Smith
– Comparative Biosciences (2013)
Caroline Piskun – Comparative Biomedical Sciences (2013 – Grant-in-aid)
Tess Kilpatrick  Chemistry (2012)
Heather Walder 
– Geography (2012)
Alissa Hanshew
– Bacteriology/Microbiology (2012)
Rebecca S. Bartlett 
– Communicative Disorders (2012)
Daria V. Fedyukina – Chemistry (2011)
Jing Gao – Geography (2011)
Mira Kolodkin – Neuroscience (2011)
Chelsey Smith – Neuroscience (2011)
Heather Walder – Anthropology (2011)