Undergrad Research Training
Course Number: 82-198
These courses are designed to give eligible and interested students some hands-on research experience working on a faculty project or in a lab in ways that might stimulate and nurture the students' interest in doing more research. They are open to students who are Dietrich College, SHS, or BHA majors, double majors, and minors who will be second semester freshmen or sophomores during the semester they take the course.
SPRING 2025 Section A: Latin American Comics Archive
This project involves research of Latin American comics. The course will teach the basics of Comic Book Markup Language (CBML, a TEI-based XML vocabulary) for encoding and analyzing the structural, textual, visual, and bibliographic complexity of digitized comic books and related documents. Student researchers will assist in: a) editing, marking up, and structuring digitized Latin American comics; b) reading and subjecting these texts to interpretation, making inferences, and embarking in theoretical explorations of issues according to given criteria. Long-term results of this project entail possible inclusion of encoded materials in the Latin American Comics Archive (LACA), an award-winning Digital Humanities project; collaboration with national and international students and researchers; and perhaps a published work (for which student participants would be acknowledged as contributors).
Open to one or more students with at least low-intermediate level reading skills in Spanish.
Interested students should send an email to Felipe Gómez and include information about your interests in this project.
SPRING 2025 Section B: The Language of Pain
This interdisciplinary research looks at the exciting intersection of linguistics and medicine. Specifically, how we use language to express the severity of physical pain. The student will join a collaborative research team, which includes a linguist and pain doctor. The student will work with the team to help with the literature review on language and bodily pain. The student will also work to improve and develop questionnaires aimed at describing pain using simple pictures and words. Finally, the student will help carry out small pilot studies to test basic hypotheses related to language and pain. The ideal candidate is interested in medicine, language, and/or psychology.
Open to one or two students.
Interested students should send an email to Seth Wiener and include information about your interests in this project.
SPRING 2025 Section C: TBD
Research project information coming coon.
Open to more than one student.
Interested students can send email to Kiyono Fujinaga-Gordon to learn more information.
SPRING 2025 Section D: Radical Pedagogy Lab (Radlab)
The is a research lab dedicated to advancing the theory and practice of radical pedagogy, with a focus on empirical research, curriculum development and community engagement. The Radlab explores methods that are being carried out in higher ed classrooms with the goal of being inclusive. Preliminary research suggests that there is very little in the way of student voices regarding how they feel the classroom (documentation, space, instructor, assignments, assessments, rubrics, feedback, ect.) contributes or does not contribute to their feeling of safety and belonging. For this reason, in the RadLab, students and faculty work together to collate a robust bibliography referencing other research that has been carried out. This initial research then informs the design and implementation of peer-to-peer surveys, interviews and focus groups that aim to understand the student experience of inclusivity in the classroom.
Open to more than one student.
Interested students can send email to Candace Skibba to learn more information and schedule an interview.
SPRING 2025 Section E: TBD
Research project information coming coon.
Open to more than one student.
Interested students can send email to Bonnie Youngs to learn more information.
Units: VAR
Prerequisite(s): None