Penn State Erie, The Behrend College

2011 Undergraduate Student Summer Research Fellowships
Each grant list individual student researcher(s) with respective cooperating faculty
member(s) in parentheses.
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
Kyle Abbott (James Kurre) - $1,200
“Why Do Gasoline Prices Vary by Location?”
Justin Brunot (James Kurre) - $1,200
“Factors of Poverty: An Analysis across Metro Areas”
Sarah Puskas (Frank DeWolf) - $1,200
“The Impact of RFID Implementation on the Bullwhip Effect in Supply Chains”
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
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The Behrend
College
Catherine Franks and Charles Latchaw (Melanie Ford) - $2,400
“Behrend Land: Amusement Park of Mechanical Engineering Principles”
Tim Kaminske (William Lasher) - $1,200
“Modeling Wind Turbines Using ANSYS Fluent Software”
Walter Kerin (George Walters) - $1,200
“A Framework and Algorithm for Conversion of PLC Programs to Microcontroller
Programs”
Elizabeth Lukjanczuk, Muamal Mahdi, and Nathan Mischler (Melanie Ford) - $3,600
“Promotion of STEM Fields through the K-12 Outreach Program”
Jason Pfadt (William Lasher) - $1,200
“The Effect of Wind Velocity on the Heel Angle of Traditional Sailing Vessels”
Vincent Rice (William Lasher) - $1,200
“Resistance of a Sailboat Rudder”
Mujing Wang (Chris Coulston) - $1,200
“Verifying the Feasibility of Using LEDs to Encode Information and to Transmit
Signals by Determining Parameters of LED’s Efficient Operation and Data Transfer
Rate”
Luke Young (George Walters) - $1,200
“Design Patterns and Components for PLC Software”

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
Renee Fanning, Casey Chadwick, Matthew Smith, Joseph Hirn, Sean Boggio, Brittany
Bittner, Noah Rojahn, and Denise Sanata (Dawn Blasko, Wen-Li Wang, Holly Blasko-
Drabik, and Kathryn Holliday-Darr) - $9,600
“Improving Spatial Abilities with Games”
SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
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Bradley Brandt, Matthew Frye, and Kristina Peszel (Leigh-Ann Bedal) - $3,600
“The Petra Garden and Pool Complex Excavation (Jordan)”
Stephanie Cattron, Megan Myers, Ashley Kerr, Jessica Salley, and Rob Fogle
(Victoria Kazmerski and Dawn Blasko) - $4,800
“Initial Development of a Nonliteral Language Corpus for Research”
Mark Connelly and Bianca Bramblett (Dawn Blasko) - $2,400
“The Influence of Time Perspective on Driving Behavior”
Meghan Gillespie, Emily Loker, and Jessica Salley (Carol Wilson) - $3,000
“Money, Memory, and Romantic Relationships”
Dan Hido, Lauren Kolb, Bethany Burlingame, and Talberly House (John Gamble) -
$2,820
“Comprehensive Statistical Database of Multilateral Treaties (CSDMT) Project”
Jamie Manson (Victoria Kazmerski) - $1,200
“Intervention Programs’ Effectiveness on Appearance-Based Tanning Beliefs: Step 1”
Julie Nguyen and Mark DeWolf (Dawn Blasko) - $2,400
“Stigma Surrounding Seeking Mental Health Services: A Comparison across College
Students”
Ashley Kerr and Kylie Peters (Dawn Blasko) - $1,800
“Initial Development of Visual Stimuli and Computer Programming for Brain
Laterality Research”
Kyle Thiel (Victoria Kazmerski) - $1,200
“The Role of Fathers in the Family: Investigating the Effects of Shared Decision
Making, Parental Monitoring, and Parental Risk-Taking Behaviors on Adolescent
Behavior”
SCHOOL OF SCIENCE
Andrea Adams (Beth Potter) - $1,200
“Identification of Bacterial Isolates from House Wren Nests”
Elliot Blackstone (Daniel Galiffa) - $1,200
“Analyzing the Characterizations of the Discrete Charlier Orthogonal Polynomial
Sequences”

Brianne Campbell (Anthony Foyle) - $1,200
“Effects of Precipitation and Urbanization on pH and Bacterial Abundance in Four Mile
Creek”
Rachael Carmichael (Michael Justik) - $1,200
“Exploration of the Reaction of Novel Alkynyl Iodonium Salts with Phenoxides: A
‘Green’ Synthesis of Benzofurans”
Jerry Casbohm (Martin Kociolek) - $1,200
“Benzisoxazole 2-Oxides, a New Class of UV Absorbing Compounds”
Mark Dombrowski (Daniel Galiffa) - $1,200
“Analyzing a Generalized Differential-Difference Equation via the Askey-Wilson
Operator”
Steven Dudenhoeffer (Meng Su) - $1,200
“Improving the Manifold Learning of the OpenCV Library through the Use of Diffusion
Geometry”
Nathan Elbert and Joshua MacCready (Beth Potter and Ann Quinn) - $2,400
“Assessing Mesophilic Bacteria Found in Compost During Summer Months”
Tim Gaw (James Warren) - $1,200
“DNA Methylation Effects on the Epigenome of Zebrafish (Danio rerio)”
Kristi Gdanetz (Matthew Gruwell) - $1,200
“Molecular Evolution of the Primary Endosymbiont Uzinura diaspidicola, and its Host,
the Armored Scale Insect Chionaspis pinifoliae”
Andrew Halmi (James Warren) - $1,200
“Transgenic Analysis of the Effects of Homocysteine on the Development of
Zebrafish (Danio rerio)”
Lindsay Hilldorfer (Michael Campbell) - $1,200
“Expression Analysis of Osmotin and Expansin Transcripts in Potato Tubers Treated
with DMV”
Brittany Hoard (Blair Tuttle) - $1,200
“Computational Models for Amorphous Materials”
Madelyn Hoover (Jay Amicangelo) - $1,200
“The Characterization of Germanium Nitride Intermediates Using Vacuum-UV
Photolysis and Matrix-Isolation Infrared Spectroscopy”
Taylor Kline (Matthew Gruwell) - $1,200
“Analyses and Amplification of rbcl and matk and Their Utilization for Plant Species
Identification”
Evan Liu (Boon Wee Ong) - $1,197
“Finding the Exponential of a Square Matrix”
Nicole Olechowicz (Margaret Voss) - $1,200
“An Investigation of the Circadian Control of Egg-Laying and Clutch Size in the
European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)”

James Pander (Jason Bennett) - $1,200
“Determining the Effects of Cyanide on Fe(III) meso-Tetra(4sulfonatophenyl)porphine
chloride as an Electrocatalyst for the Selective Oxidation of
Carbon Monoxide”
Joe Radak (Darren Williams) - $1,200
“Studying the Gravitational Effects of Neptune on Uranus’s Orbit”
Tanya Riston (Daniel Galiffa) - $1,200
“Continuing the Investigation of the Convergence of an Approximate Solution to a
Homogenous, Nonlinear, Nonlocal Boundary Value Problem”
Brianne Sawders (Michael Justik) - $1,200
“Exploration of Metal Catalyzed Arylation Reactions of 2-
[(Aryl)iodonio]benzenesulfonates”
Courtney Smith and Carl Kallgren IV (Matthew Gruwell) - $2,000
“The Sequencing and Description of the Mitochondrial Genome of Hemiberlesia
lataniae (Hemiptera: Diaspididae)”
Mark Towner (Christopher Gee) - $1,200
“Identification of Presence and Effects of Agrobacterium vitis in Concord Vines within
the Lake Erie Region”
Rajeev Varkey (Michael Campbell) - $1,200
“QT-PCR Analysis of Genes with Expression Profiles Similar to dUTPase in Potato
Tuber Buds”
Christopher Wheeler (Jason Bennett) - $1,200
“Spectroelectrochemical Studies of Electrodeposited Fe (III) meso-Tetra(4carboxyphenyl)
Porphrin”
Joseph Wright (Meng Su) - $1,198
“Implementing Isomaps and Locally Linear Embedding Methods into OpenCV”
Research & Outreach
Undergraduate Research