Undergraduate Research Fall 2014 - The University of Alabama by The University of Alabama

UNDERGRADUATE FALL 2014

Research Service Leadership Study Abroad

DISCOVERY

ON THE BACK COVER: Items from The University of Alabama Museums Gorgas House collection. For the full story, turn to page 36.

The University of Alabamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Undergraduate Magazine is published by the Office for Academic Affairs in conjunction with University Relations. President: Judy Bonner Address correspondence to: The University of Alabama, University Relations, Box 870144, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487-0144. The University of Alabama is an equalopportunity educational institution/ employer. MC8629 For admissions information, please visit www.gobama.ua.edu.

College is about discovery, and it is a large part of the undergraduate experience at The University of Alabama. Some students discover their callings in the research lab and become tomorrowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inventors and entrepreneurs. Others see a need on campus, in their community or on the other side of the world, and they set out to meet it. In the process they discover they are leaders. Some of them discover careers they never imagined, and others find confirmation that they have been on the right path all along. The students featured in our discoverythemed issue of Undergraduate Magazine represent majors in chemistry, biology, anthropology, engineering, business, dance, psychology, computer science, geography, human development and family studies, education, social work and nursing. Each and every one of them is on an individual path of discovery that started at UA, and I am pleased to present their stories to you in this issue.

Dr. Joe Benson Interim Provost

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CONTENTS

Diving Deep into Research 4

Snakes, Spiders and Scribes 8

Studying lionfish at UA propels Ronneshia Jackson toward a potential career in pharmaceutical research.

An insatiable scientific curiosity leads Jonathan Belanich to the editorial helm of UA’s student-produced research journal.

Cultivating Kindness 42

Inspired by a friend’s random act of kindness toward a stranger, Jennifer Hodnett set out to spread mirth and compassion across campus.

In It Together 48

UA faculty and administrators wouldn’t let Aaron Brazelton slip through the cracks. Now he’s paying it forward to the community and across the world.

The Next Big Idea 14 Reaching Up and Reaching Out 54

Chemical engineering major Megan Torman discovers a passion for entrepreneurship through UA’s STEM Path to the MBA.

A Clean Hit 20

A baseball player after hours, metallurgical engineering student Michael Carton finds his niche in the lab.

Where Art and Science Meet 24

For some, advanced chemistry studies and professional dance aspirations might seem like an odd pair. For Savannah Reach, they’re a natural fit.

Friendly Faces 30

Three high school friends become research partners at UA and create a smartphone app aimed toward helping children with autism spectrum disorders.

Glimpsing History 36

From ancient fossils to WWI gas masks, the UA Museums student volunteer experience instilled in Elizabeth Schweers a passion for preserving history.

Having overcome family tragedy and an unstable childhood, social work major Michaela Sanderson helps others find a way through.

Global Calling 58

For nursing student Lindsay Ghiroli, a medical mission trip to Costa Rica confirmed what she has always known about her future career.

A Recurring Concern 62

When the world proved too small for Koushik Kasanagottu to distance himself from diabetes, he took action.

E DITOR Te r r i R o b e r t s o n P H OTO G R A P HERS Jeff Hanson Bryan Hester Zach Riggins Matthew Wood G R A P H I C D E SIG N Natorio Howard Julia Ludlam Anita Sears Doug Shinholster

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STUDYING LIONFISH AT U A P R O P E L S RONNESHIA JACKSON TOWARD A POTENTIAL CAREER IN PHARMACEUTICAL RESEARCH. B Y C H R I S B R YA N T

t’s the week before Spring Break, and the vibe inside Starbucks on The University of Alabama campus feels amped. A mellow tune wafting through the sound system contrasts with the excited tones of dozens of student conversations spilling onto each other. Ronneshia Jackson, sitting at a table near the back of the coffee shop, expresses her enthusiasm too. But, for this moment at least, it’s not a beach trip or even the chance to sleep in that has her pumped. Instead, she’s looking past Spring Break to the week following it. “I’m excited,” Jackson says. “This is my first time going to Honors Week.” Honors Week is an annual celebration of outstanding achievements by UA students and faculty, culminating with a “Tapping on the Mound” ceremony, a tradition dating back to the early 1900s. Jackson, whose friends call her “Ro,” is a chemistry major and biology minor who knows how to have fun outside the classroom. She’s a licensed scuba diver – “if I could stay under there forever, I probably would,” she says – and she loves riding quarter horses and Tennessee Walkers. But, she set a goal the previous year. She didn’t want another Honors Day, the culmination of Honors Week, to pass with her sitting on the sideline. “I don’t want the day off,” she recalls telling herself. “I want to be a part of that.”

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“I came here thinking I was going to come here, go to class, get a degree and go somewhere else. But the people I have met here have pushed me … past my limits. And it was fun.” – Ronneshia Jackson

Mission accomplished. Two weeks later, during Honors Week, Jackson receives the Dean’s Award of Merit and is formally selected for the Randall Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award Program, developed to recognize the best research activity by UA undergraduates.

“I want to work on the discovery side of the pharmaceutical industry – not making the medicines but finding those organisms that give us that product that we can make the medicine out of.” – Ronneshia Jackson Perhaps, in Jackson’s case, it’s really mission “segment accomplished.” She’s pursuing many goals. She’s narrowing her top graduate school choices where she plans to pursue a doctorate. Upon completion, she hopes to work within the pharmaceutical industry. “I love strictly research,” Jackson says. “I want to work on the discovery side of the pharmaceutical industry – not making the medicines but finding those organisms that give us that product that we can make the medicine out of.” In pursuit of this goal, Jackson has immersed herself in undergraduate research at UA, where she studies lionfish in a laboratory alongside Dr. Julie Olson, UA professor of biological sciences, and Olson’s graduate students.

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More precisely, she plays a role in the lab’s efforts to determine whether lionfish are introducing potential disease as they spread outside their native South Pacific waters. “Ronneshia has been a true pleasure to have in the lab, as she embodies the curiosity and tenacity needed to perform good research,” Olson says. “Shortly after she joined the lab, she was coming to me with research questions that were beyond the scope of what we were currently investigating. “I encouraged her to seek out the relevant primary literature, which she readily did. This willingness to take ownership of her project while also soliciting input from others will help her immensely in the future.” Jackson’s work focuses on something called secondary metabolites. These are chemical compounds produced by organisms, including bacteria, often as a protective measure. A bacterium that may be innocuous in one environment can prove harmful when a non-native species, like the lionfish, carries it on its body and introduces it into a different environment. “Secondary metabolites are widely studied,” Jackson says. “They’re where many of our medicines come from. This project is laying the foundation for what I want to do in grad school.” Another foundation-laying event for Jackson came when she was one of eight students selected for the 2013 Multicultural Initiative in the Marine Sciences Undergraduate Participation

Program. The National Science Foundation-sponsored program is designed to increase diversity in the next generation of marine scientists by providing students with career mentorship and research experience. For Jackson, a Birmingham native, it meant an opportunity to spend six months at a Western Washington University marine science center in Anacortes, Washington. She earned 21 hours of marine science course credit, a new set of friends and an increased desire for future travels. Research has also been integral to Jackson’s UA experience as a whole. “I came here (to UA) thinking I was going to come here, go to class, get a degree and go somewhere else. But the people I have met here have pushed me … past my limits. And it was fun. “Research connects you to the campus,” Jackson said, “and not just with science. You can do research in history, research in fine arts, you can do research in whatever you want. “It really opens your mind up to what is out there. You get a hands-on experience that, frankly, you just can’t get in class. It gives you a different way to think about things. It makes you a more independent person. It builds up your confidence to say, ‘All right, here’s a question, how am I going to answer it?’”

Bacteria living on lionfish produce chemical compounds called secondary metabolites. These compounds, often produced as a protective measure, can be harmful to a new environment when introduced by a non-native species, but they are also widely studied for their potential medicinal benefits.

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A N I N S AT I A B L E S C I E N T I F I C C U R I O S I T Y L E A D S J O N AT H A N BELANICH TO THE EDITORIAL HELM OF UA’S STUDENTPRODUCED RESEARCH JOURNAL. B Y K R I S T I PAY N E

A N I N S AT I A B L E S C I E N T I F I C C U R I O S I T Y P R O P E L S J O N AT H A N BELANICH TO THE EDITORIAL HELM O F U A’ S S T U D E N T- P R O D U C E D RESEARCH JOURNAL.

BY RICHARD LECOMTE

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s editor-in-chief of The University of Alabama’s completely student-driven Journal of Science and Health at UA, Jonathan Belanich found a passion for promoting undergraduate research.

Belanich developed a passion for science as a young child and hasn’t stopped wanting to immerse himself in new research opportunities ever since.

Established in 2003, the magazine, called JOSHUA, has brought UA’s cutting-edge undergraduate research to international attention, and Belanich takes that very seriously.

“I was always interested in the world around me and what was happening in our bodies,” he said. “Having a lot of questions prompted both reading and looking for answers.”

“Research is necessary for scientific progress, but unless it is published, it is just data in a log book somewhere,” he said. “There is a lot of good research being conducted on campus, and it should be published to show just what we have been doing.” Belanich, a May 2014 graduate who majored in biology and anthropology, credits UA’s research programs with solidifying his decision to make the 1,200-mile move to the Capstone from his hometown of Lindenhurst, New York, after graduating from high school. “I chose UA because of the amount of research being conducted and the opportunity for freshmen to participate in it,” he said.

He first visited UA as a high school recruit. His skill and enthusiasm caught the attention of Dr. Guy Caldwell, professor of biological sciences at UA and faculty adviser to JOSHUA. Caldwell knew when he met Belanich that he had the makings of a prolific researcher and that UA would be the perfect place for him to flourish as a scientist.

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“Research is necessary for scientific progress, but unless it is published, it is just data in a log book somewhere.” — Jonathan Belanich

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“(Belanich) is a rare combination of passion and competence who strikes me as a person who gets things done, but enjoys the process,” Caldwell said. Once on campus, Belanich took advantage of those freshman research opportunities. Within a year of arriving on campus, he submitted his first article to JOSHUA and was published in the eighth edition. That piece focused on his research of the metabolic rate and digestive energetics of Chilean rose-haired tarantulas, a project for which he was handpicked by Dr. Stephen Secor, associate professor of biological sciences. Though the eight-legged creatures may be phobia-inducing for some, Belanich – who had already worked with pythons in Secor’s lab – was not intimidated by the prospect of studying the arachnids in depth. “It was interesting because (they) have such different mechanisms for eating than other animals of their size,” said Belanich, who continued developing and expanding his arachnid research throughout his time at UA. Secor said the information gleaned from the research has proven invaluable to the study of arachnid energetics. He credits Belanich’s relentless,

round-the-clock data collection, trial development and data analysis for the success of the project. JOSHUA was the perfect place to publish such a study. Throughout its 11 years of publication, the journal has featured a number of surprisingly diverse articles, such as a piece that applied evolutionary theory to hip-hop culture and an award-winning philosophy paper on the ethics of human cloning. The following year, Caldwell recruited Belanich to serve as a student editor for the journal’s ninth edition and invited him to be the editor-in-chief of the 10th volume. “It is his personal exuberance for science and the manner by which he engages people that told me he would be an ideal representative for the journal,” said Caldwell, who is particularly acquainted with what it takes to publish a successful undergraduate journal of science. As an undergraduate at Washington and Lee University, Caldwell co-founded a journal of students’ research and scientific reviews. Later, as a faculty member at UA, he saw the opportunity to reproduce the concept here. T H E

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“I feel that my positive experiences with research at UA have fully prepared me to successfully pursue higher studies.” — Jonathan Belanich

The National Biological Honor Society, TriBeta, for which Caldwell served as adviser, served as a springboard for establishing JOSHUA. Initial funding came from multiple sources, including the Howard Hughes Medical Institute undergraduate program at UA and Caldwell’s own National Science Foundation CAREER award. The UA administration, the Office of Admissions and Honors College have funded the journal since the initial grants ended. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute selected the journal as one of only three undergraduate journals nationwide to highlight in its quarterly bulletin. Thanks to features such as that one, as well as the international audience of the publication’s online version, JOSHUA’s staff members now routinely receive publishing requests from students and faculty at other universities. Caldwell says the success and longevity of the publication rests squarely on the shoulders of students like Belanich. “JOSHUA’s content is completely written, edited and peerreviewed by undergraduate staff members at UA,” he said. 12

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“While articles must be endorsed by a faculty sponsor, the work represented in the journal is almost exclusively that of students.” As for Belanich, in addition to his work with JOSHUA, he continued to add new species to his data collection and pursued other research, including working with Dr. Christopher Lynn of UA’s Human Behavioral Ecology Research Group on a study on cultural knowledge and mating success. He even presented talks at scientific meetings. “It’s a pleasure to watch Jonathan describe his work to others,” said Secor. “He becomes quite animated and loves to describe how the tarantulas and scorpions eat.” Researcher, editor, speaker and now UA graduate, Belanich is well-prepared to take the next step in his research career. “I feel that my positive experiences with research at UA have fully prepared me to successfully pursue higher studies,” said Belanich.

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING MAJOR MEGAN TORMAN D I S C O V E R S A PA S S I O N FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP T H R O U G H U A’ S S T E M PAT H T O T H E M B A . B Y E D I T H PA R T E N

magine a college experience where you spend each day thinking of new ways to solve problems – and then figure out how to put your ideas into action. Actually, that’s exactly what college has been for Megan Torman, a National Merit Scholar and chemical engineering major at The University of Alabama. Torman is part of the STEM Path to the MBA program at the Culverhouse College of Commerce’s Manderson Graduate School of Business. With STEM standing for science, technology, engineering and math, the program enables UA undergraduate students majoring in these disciplines to earn a master of business administration in only one additional year. The STEM program and the National Merit Scholarship are what attracted Torman to UA. “Alabama offers one of the best National Merit packages that I have found,” Torman said. “I saw the STEM brochure and that helped me make my decision. … I thought, ‘Wow, that’s awesome, I can get my chemical engineering degree at the same time and get a completely different experience.’” Since coming to UA, Torman has thrived in the STEM program. Along with her STEM partner Josh Stoddard, she became the co-inventor of a

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Me ga n Tor m an i s one of t he y ounges t UA st udent s ever t o r e ce ive a pr ovi si onal pat ent .

Inspired by a UA professorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s idea to hybridize 18-wheelers, Torman and her STEM partner, Josh Stoddard, incorporated the idea into an air-assisted hybridizing device for smaller vocational vehicles like mail and garbage trucks.

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hybrid mechanization device that’s designed to improve fuel efficiency for vehicles. With a provisional patent pending in D.C., they are the youngest students at UA to receive a provisional patent. The first concept started with an engineering professor who came up with the idea of creating a push dinghy device to pull behind semi-trucks that would use the energy collected to kinetically power the semi. Torman and Stoddard expanded on the idea after Torman got some advice from her dad, a mail carrier in her hometown of Umatilla, Florida. The initial idea was to hybridize 18-wheelers, but they incorporated the idea into an air-assisted hybridizing device for smaller vocational vehicles like mail and garbage trucks. Dr. Rob Morgan, executive director for innovation initiatives at the Culverhouse College of Commerce and the STEM Program, as well as Torman’s academic adviser, suggested that Torman and Stoddard pursue a patent on their device. “Josh and I looked at each other and thought, why not?” said Torman. UA approved the patent pursuit, and it’s moving forward. The STEM duo is now seeking business partners to help create a prototype and investors to produce and market the device. And by the way, Torman accomplished this during her freshman year. “It all makes my head spin. It’s so exciting, and I never anticipated this happening – especially not during our freshman year,” said Torman. Given what she has accomplished, it may be hard to believe that there was a time when, as an incoming freshman, she was worried about starting college and didn’t know what to expect, especially since she came from a small town. “That first semester was really rough for me. Being away from home, being away from friends and family. It was completely new, difficult and challenging. But once spring rolled around it got a little bit better, and the next thing you know you’re done with the first year and you’ve made friends.” Those first-year jitters are now long gone, and Torman

“It made us see that we are capable of so much more than we think we are sometimes. The entire college experience so far has just been proving that over and over.” – Megan Torman

isn’t passing up any opportunities that come her way. “I know once I start doing something, I enjoy it. I just have to do it. I just have to get there.” Fostering this type of can-do attitude in students is exactly what the STEM Path to the MBA is meant to do. For example, as part of the STEM Business Honors class, students work on a business innovation project every five weeks. They are given a theme and are charged to come up with an idea for a new product or business. “Megan came to me and said, ‘Dr. Morgan, if you told me a year ago that I would spend all of my free time dreaming up ideas for new products and businesses, I would have told you that you are crazy. But now I’ll be walking around campus thinking about what new product or business I can come up with to solve problems.’ It’s stuff like that that really makes you feel blessed about what you’re doing as a teacher,” Morgan said. Torman’s entrepreneurial spirit has even bubbled over into her life outside the classroom. She was part of a four-member UA team that won first place and $4,000 in the Target Wellness Competition. For the winning entry, her team developed a business model for “Live Healthy, Live Happy” and created a display for Super Target stores that featured recipes and food items for creating healthy meals. She also volunteered for the Avon Foundation’s Breast Cancer Startup Challenge earlier this year. The worldwide challenge was open to university students and offered the opportunity for teams to develop business plans for breast cancer inventions. Torman’s team nominated her to serve as CEO. “I am one of those people who goes after every little opportunity I see. I have no experience whatsoever in breast cancer research or that kind of science, pharmacy science, other than chemistry. So I texted a few friends from class who I had worked with on previous projects and got them together to talk about it. We decided, hey we’re gonna do this thing. Why not?” The team had a month of crunch time to prepare for the challenge, for

which they had to create a 10-page business report and present via phone to executives from the Avon Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. “We hunkered down and divided up the tasks, researched and researched and researched. We spent every single moment of free time the last two weeks making final preparations. We were working on it literally up to two minutes before the deadline for submission. Once we turned it in and pushed the button to submit, it was such a relief. We felt so accomplished,” she said. “It didn’t even matter if we won or placed.” Three teams from UA participated in the Avon challenge. All three teams, including Torman’s, were the only undergraduate teams in the competition, among more than 40 graduate-student teams. “It made us see that we are capable of so much more than we think we are sometimes,” she said. “The entire college experience so far has just been proving that over and over. … That’s why I like trying something new, because you push yourself and get out from behind the wall and experience new things.” What advice would Torman offer future UA students trying to decide whether to take the STEM Path to an MBA? “Definitely do it. It is the most amazing thing. Once you get in, learning is so much fun. It’s real-life stuff. You are thinking things through in a different way. It really broadens your perspective. It makes you get outside your box.” The STEM program, she said, is a place to challenge yourself and to meet people who change your life, like professors and students who genuinely care about you, your success and your life. “One of the things I love most about the STEM Program is being able to build relationships with students. They’re not just classmates when you graduate. They are going to be other people in industries. You will keep the connections you make. It’s unique that you get to stay with the same group of students throughout the program and connect on a deeper level.” And, finally, Torman has one last piece of wisdom for future UA students:

About the STEM Path to the MBA The STEM Path to the MBA program, offered through the UA Culverhouse College of Commerce, enables students majoring in the sciences, technology, engineering or mathematics disciplines to earn an MBA in one additional calendar year. Through the program, students develop communication, leadership, decision-making and businessanalytical skills that prepare them to thrive in today’s growing high-tech industries. To enroll, STEM Path applicants must hold a minimum high school GPA of 3.5 and a minimum ACT score of 28 for early admission to the MBA program. During their junior year, students apply for admission to Culverhouse’s Manderson Graduate School of Business for the MBA program. Recruiters continue to seek STEM MBA graduates as manufacturing, software engineering, computer science, alternative energy, hightech steel production, infrastructure replacement, commercial construction, health care and evolving forms of communication create demand for engineers, technicians and scientists from a variety of fields.

“I was talking to my dad on the phone and told him I have pretty much figured out the secret to college and success. I stole it from Nike, ‘Just Do It.’ You’ll just be amazed at what comes out of it,” she said.

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A Clean Hit A B A S E B A L L P L AY E R A F T E R H O U R S , M E TA L L U R G I C A L E N G I N E E R I N G STUDENT MICHAEL CARTON FINDS HIS NICHE IN THE LAB. BY JUDAH MARTIN

ichael Carton joined the Alabama Club Baseball team his sophomore year at The University of Alabama, but he’s played the sport competitively since his T-ball years. He enjoys the travel and has played with the team in states across the South, including Louisiana, Tennessee and South Carolina. Then there’s the main reason he plays: “I think, honestly, I just like hitting the ball.” With night practices and weekend games, he sees a lot of his teammates. But most of them probably would not recognize Carton if they saw him at work. Disguised in a plastic jumpsuit, breathing mask, hairnet, plastic gloves and disposable boots, Carton blends in well at UA’s Micro-Fabrication Facility, where he works as an undergraduate research assistant. Also called the clean room, this is the lab where UA researchers create tiny structures needed for solar cells, semiconductor chips, computer disk drives, advanced memory and various nanosensors and detectors. “The scale of the devices we work with is so small that any dust or particulate can completely destroy them,” Carton said. Even for a task as simple as note taking, researchers must use the lab’s specially made notebooks, which are designed to resist dust particles.

Carton, a senior from San Diego, California, studying metallurgical and materials engineering, works alongside graduate students in the lab to produce thin films. To make the films, lab workers deposit a series of metals and compounds onto a blank silicon disk – a thin circular slice of semi-conductor material that looks like a tiny vinyl record. The order and thickness of the compounds deposited determines the function of the films. Afterward, the data collected by the graduate students is used by companies like Samsung to produce faster, more efficient electronic devices. “Basically any of your hard drives on your computer, or more likely in your phone, are made out of thin films devices,” he said. “Our group, especially, focuses on the read and write heads that record information and read the data once it’s been written.” He has worked in the clean room for two years, but he said he hasn’t always been as comfortable with the process. Carton didn’t know much about thin films when he stayed after class to speak with Dr. Subhadra Gupta, professor of metallurgical and materials engineering and director of the facility, about signing up to work in the clean room after she mentioned the position during her lecture. He’d interned with an air-conditioner manufacturing company the previous summer.

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“A lot of the work was with sheet metal,” he said. “We were trying to bundle as many parts as possible on each sheet of metal in order to make it work efficiently. I didn’t mind the work, but it wasn’t a research job, and that’s what I really wanted to do.” After being hired in the clean room, Carton signed up for a course on thin films. Between his coursework and working in the lab, he said he’s come a long way. “I know how to do everything here, but I don’t always know why I’m doing it,” he explained. “I can make the whole device from start to finish; I just wouldn’t know what to put on it because I don’t know the theory behind it. But every week I can tell that I’m learning more and more. I didn’t think I would get to do so much hands-on stuff by myself. That’s what makes it exciting.”

the wafer. Carton’s job is to isolate a pattern out of the deposits by preparing the wafer for an etching machine that removes compounds not in a pattern. “There’s not much visible difference, but there’s a chemical difference when you take it out of the machine,” Carton said, holding up the thin film for the two new student workers to examine. Recently, Carton was hired for a summer internship researching the corrosion resistance of metals for Exxon Mobil Corp. “I know for a fact that this experience working in the clean room helped me get my internship,” Carton said. “If I go to graduate school, it will be because this job has given me good experience.”

He knows enough now to train new students coming to work. In a station in the far right corner of the lab, two new workers observed as Carton picked up a plastic box and took out a wafer.

Of course, he hasn’t decided about graduate school yet. He said he’s keen on the idea, but he’d be tempted if he were offered a research job like his summer position with Exxon Mobil after graduation.

By this stage in the process, graduate students have already deposited their carefully chosen patterns of metals onto

Until then, school and work will occupy most of his time, and when he’s not doing those things – baseball.

“The scale of the devices we work with is so small that any dust or particulate can completely destroy them.” — Michael Carton

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FOR SOME, ADVANCED CHEMISTRY STUDIES AND PROFESSIONAL DANCE ASPIRATIONS MIGHT SEEM LIKE AN ODD PAIR. FOR SAVANNAH REACH, THEY’RE A NATURAL FIT. B Y B O B B Y M AT H E W S

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s a young girl, UA senior Savannah Reach would often sit for hours with a puzzle in front of her, turning the pieces and placing them just so. She loved to see how everything fit together – how the small pieces came together to create something larger than the sum of its parts. It’s a fitting activity, since Reach, 21, is a bit of a puzzle herself. On one hand, she’s earned a bachelor’s degree in dance. But she’s also pursuing a second bachelor’s degree, this one in chemistry, while simultaneously earning a master’s in organic chemistry through the University Scholars Program. (She’s on track to graduate with both chemistry degrees in May 2015.) But on the other hand, she’s going to continue dancing, hopefully in a professional capacity. “I had an appreciation of puzzles when I was a child,” Reach said. “I loved the thousand-piece puzzles, which seemed impossible. Putting those puzzle pieces together was like creating order out of chaos. I also saw that kind of order in ballet when I started putting all the pieces together in the studio.”

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Savannah Reach leads young students through a ballet class in UA's Clark Hall.

“Most people when they’re dancing focus on the competitive aspect. But I encourage my students to be their best, and not to compare themselves to anyone else. I really want my students to realize that their potential is unlimited. It comes down to how bad you want to do it.”

– Savannah Reach Reach took the principles she learned through dance – how some steps lead to other steps, how movement and passion flow together – and now uses those concepts as she’s finishing her work in chemistry. “Savannah has been able to make a connection between the art of dance and science of chemistry that both involve complex motions; in chemistry, a dance of atoms and molecules on the atomic scale,” said Dr. Silas Blackstock, professor of chemistry at the University. “She has choreographed dances that reflect the chemical processes she is studying in the lab.” Blackstock has seen Reach grow and change over the past three years as she’s achieved a balance between art

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and science. And the two majors can have more in common than one would think. “There’s a reason why majors like dance and chemistry are both in the College of Arts and Sciences,” Blackstock said. “Savannah is obviously very engaged at the University, and very engaged in two majors that, on the surface, may seem different. But both share a measure of creativity and imagination and an appreciation of beauty of form that crosses boundaries between science and art.” Reach didn’t necessarily plan to get multiple degrees from UA – it’s just the way things worked out. “My original plan was to pursue a degree in chemistry,” she said. “But I didn’t realize how much I was going to love the dance program here at UA. I added the dance major when departmental director Cornelius Carter gave me a foundation scholarship as a freshman. I feel very blessed to have caring professors, who motivate me to be the best

Reach took the principles she learned through dance – how some steps lead to other steps, how movement and passion flow together – and now uses those concepts as she’s finishing her work in chemistry.

student not only on the stage, but also in the classroom.” Reach is all about making the most of her opportunities. As a student, she’s maintained a laser-like focus to accomplish her goals. “I’m very goal-driven. I’m always reaching for something,” she said. “Outside of class, I am also involved in extracurricular activities in both departments. I perform and choreograph for Dance Alabama and Alabama Repertory Dance Theater. In chemistry, I am vice president of Gamma Sigma Epsilon and treasurer of the ACS National Committee. I never want a part of my day to go unused.” That focus and commitment to service has paid off for Reach, who has received the University’s Distinguished Undergraduate Scholar award. As a dance instructor herself, Reach reminds her young students that their goals are within their grasp, as well. “Most people when they’re dancing focus on the competitive aspect,” she said. “But I encourage my students to be their best, and not to compare themselves to anyone else. I really 28

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want my students to realize that their potential is unlimited. It comes down to how bad you want to do it.” Reach teaches dance through the Boys and Girls Club, as well as other dance schools in Tuscaloosa. She also travels on the weekends to help teach at dance conventions nationwide. As busy as Reach is, if there’s one thing that enables her to keep her focus, it’s her family. She maintains a close relationship with her parents and her younger sister, Vivian. While her sister is two years younger, the pair made a lifelong dream come true when they both graduated with degrees in dance at the same time. “That was something that was really special for both of us,” Reach said. “Vivian and I are so close, not just in age, but in everything we do. A lot of times we don’t even have to talk to communicate. We can just give one another a look, and we know what the other is thinking.” And if Reach can dance professionally, she wants her sister right by her side. “I would love to continue dancing with Vivian,” Reach said. “It wouldn’t be the same without her.”

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THREE HIGH SCHOOL FRIENDS BECOME R E S E A R C H PA R T N E R S AT U A A N D C R E AT E A SMARTPHONE APP AIMED TOWARD HELPING CHILDREN WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS. BY JUDAH MARTIN

assidy Lamm met Lauren Lambert in her high school freshman English class in Huntsville, Alabama. The two became fast friends, taking most of the same classes and even taking leadership roles in one of the school’s service organizations. Then they became friends with Joshua Wolfe, a grade below them. All three planned to attend The University of Alabama. This story may not sound extraordinary, but what happened once they arrived at UA is. “It just happened to work out that we were best friends who got to work on research together,” said Lamm, though they never would have thought it. During high school Lambert volunteered for Dance Your Dreams, a performing arts center for children with special needs. She was interested in childhood development and decided to study psychology at UA. Lamm, on the other hand, had long been interested in math and science, so she chose computer science. Not long after they started classes at the University, Lamm and Lambert received an email inviting them to join the Emerging

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“Children with autism spectrum disorders generally have trouble recognizing facial expressions and emotions in others. The basic assumption is that you learn emotions from the people around you but, with autism, you’re not interacting socially in the same way, so your visual patterns don’t focus on the same places.”

– Lauren Lambert

Scholars program, which provides research opportunities to eligible freshman students. They were both eager to gain research experience, but, with their career interests so radically different, they didn’t think they’d be able to work together. It seemed that, for the first time since high school, their work would separate them. After signing up for the program, they each chose to work with a professor whose research interests mirrored their own. Lamm signed on to work with Dr. Jeff Gray, a professor of computer science who researches software modeling, domain-specific languages and mobile computing. Gray, who also works with United Cerebral Palsy in Birmingham, suggested that Lamm begin her research by helping develop a smartphone application for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Meanwhile, Lambert had signed on to work with Dr. Angela Barber, assistant professor of communicative disorders. Barber’s research focuses specifically on early intervention methods for children with ASD. When Dr. Ann Webb, director of the Emerging Scholars Program, found out about Lamm’s app-building project for children with autism, she immediately thought of pairing the students together. “Lauren has a passion to help children with special needs, and her mentor, Dr. Angela Barber, agreed that we should work together as a team,” Lamm said.

The following year, Wolfe started classes at UA and signed on to join Emerging Scholars too. Since he also studies computer science with an interest in mobile-app development, he was able to join the pair. By that time, Lambert had taken several psychology courses on early childhood development. Her coursework encouraged her to figure out a way to help children with ASD recognize emotions in others. The team agreed to pursue the goal for their app project. “Children with autism spectrum disorders generally have trouble recognizing facial expressions and emotions in others,” Lambert said. “The basic assumption is that you learn emotions from the people around you but, with autism, you’re not interacting socially in the same way, so your visual patterns don’t focus on the same places. It’s kind of random and disorganized.” The students began developing a smartphone app targeted toward children around kindergarten age. They wanted the app to have an interactive learning style, so they organized it into three phases. First, the child is presented with an image of a facial expression. “It may be a picture of someone expressing a happy emotion or smiling, and then it will say the word ‘happy,’” Lambert explained.

“I saw the announcement for a specific call for book chapters in the same area as this app and thought ‘this is the perfect fit.’ Very rarely do you get that kind of gift handed to you, so I just knew we had to go through this.” – Dr. Jeff Gray, professor of computer science T H E

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From left to right: Cassidy Lamm, Joshua Wolfe and Lauren Lambert put their smartphone app through a test run.

GET INVOLVED: The UA Emerging Scholars Program UA’s Emerging Scholars Program provides freshman students with the opportunity to create research partnerships with UA faculty. Students from all UA colleges can participate in the program. Grades and test scores are considered, but the most important qualifications for admission to Emerging Scholars are strong interest, enthusiasm and willingness to work hard. Find out more at emergingscholars. ua.edu.

The app features an audio option and, after either reading or listening to the name of the corresponding emotion, the child is asked to match the emotion expressed in the image with its correct name. Afterward, the child can participate in an interactive, charades phase. “The ideal setting to use this app would be in a support group, like in a kindergarten or preschool classroom, so the teacher facilitates the charades phase,” Lambert said. In this phase, each child takes a turn and shows an emotion to the group. The other children guess what emotion is being demonstrated. Based on Barber’s own research studies, the students’ project follows a growing trend of using social media technology in developmental intervention. Last year, Gray received information about an academic publication on the role of technology in autism intervention. “I saw the announcement for a specific call for book chapters in the same area as this app and thought ‘this is the perfect fit,’” Gray said. “Very rarely do you get that

kind of gift handed to you, so I just knew we had to go through this.” According to Gray, it is rare for undergraduate students to publish at this level. “I have PhD students who would love to have a book chapter in their publications list,” he said. “This is atypical for undergrads to be writing book chapters.” The book chapter, titled “Improving Socialization and Emotion Recognition for Children with Autism Using a Smartphone App,” is written in collaboration with Barber, Gray and Dr. Gary Edwards, executive director of United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Birmingham. The chapter was published in “Innovative Technologies to Benefit Children on the Autism Spectrum” by Nava Silton, assistant professor of psychology at Marymount Manhattan College. The book was released in spring 2014. “I think people are really excited to use technology to help their kids,” Lambert said. “Anybody who has small children wants them to have the most advantage that they can, so they’re going to be looking for this.” T H E

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Glimpsing

Histo

FROM ANCIENT FOSSILS TO WWI GAS MASKS, THE UA MUSEUMS STUDENT VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE INSTILLED IN ELIZABETH S C H W E E R S A P A S S I O N F O R P R E S E R V I N G H I S T O R Y. BY TERRI ROBERTSON

xploring the archives of The University of Alabama Museum Collections is a bit like perusing the wares of a well-organized oddities shop. Close to the entrance, a large animal skull peers ominously from a low shelf, while an 1800s high-wheeled bicycle hides at the end of the same row. The metal shelving units are outfitted with cranks that, when turned, create or eliminate aisles between rows, maximizing storage space and accessibility. The first time Elizabeth Schweers caught a glimpse of the collections, tucked away on the third floor of UA’s Mary Harmon Bryant Hall, she was awestruck. “This is the coolest thing,” she remembers thinking. “It’s just rows of history.” Walking along those rows of history, she took a left and headed toward an assemblage of nondescript boxes. “This is where I spent the majority of last semester, down this little aisle,” she said. “It’s a really neat collection that contains just about a little of everything. We have stuff from World War I and World War II. We have William Gorgas’ graduation cap and gas masks. But we also have ladies’ hats, lace handkerchiefs and curtains, and those sorts of things.” These relics once belonged to the family of Josiah Gorgas, the University’s seventh president, and his wife, Amelia Gayle Gorgas, the former UA librarian for whom the University’s current main library is named. Family possessions that are not on public display in the Gorgas House (the family’s former on-campus home-turned-museum) are stored here. The owner of the graduation cap and gas mask, the Gorgases’ son William, served as Surgeon General of the Army during WWI.

Schweers’ experience with the UA Museum Collections has taught her a lot, especially about the technical side of how things are preserved. But she also learned that it’s the little things that can be the most important. T H E

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Schweers, a May 2014 graduate, worked extensively with the Gorgas House collection as student volunteer, primarily helping re-accession items.

more on the cultural geography aspect of the discipline. She also began volunteering for UA Museums events and educational outreach programs.

“Everything in a museum has a specific number that tells you when it was brought into the collection, and it helps you be able to find it when you go back later,” explained Schweers. “A while ago they were moving some of the stuff out of the Gorgas House and taking a full inventory, and they gave everything temporary accession numbers. So we had to go through and put permanent ones with them.”

When her honors paleontology professor, Dr. Dana Ehret, invited his students to volunteer for the paleontology department’s collections, she started working with the collections stored in Mary Harmon Bryant Hall.

This work will help museum curators access items for future exhibits at the Gorgas House, such as an exhibit on the family’s silver or Civil War memorabilia. Schweers discovered her interest in museum work somewhat by chance. One day between classes, she came upon three posters highlighting career options for each of the three geography concentrations. “One (of the posters) said you could be a curator and go into museum work. I had never thought of that as a job,” she said. That poster eventually led her to major in geography with a concentration in regional and urban planning, focusing

Clockwise from left:

William Gorgas’ WWI gas

mask, silver pitcher, family photo album, lace doily

and silver bowl from the

Gorgas House collection.

“I happened to have a free day during my week, so I would go in the morning to volunteer with the Museum Collections, and then in the afternoon I would go back to volunteer in the paleontology collections,” she said. Her first project with the paleontology collection was cleaning the fossil of a Pachyrhizodus, a bony fish from the Cretaceous Period. “I would just sit there for a couple of hours once a week scraping away with a toothbrush and a dental pick. After that I switched to photographing the Museums’ shark tooth collection.” Later, Schweers, along with other volunteers, helped the paleontology lab prepare an elasmosaur specimen for its big reveal at the Alabama Museum of Natural History, located in UA’s Smith Hall. The fossilized remains of this particular elasmosaur, a large marine reptile that lived 80 million

When Schweers and other student volunteers handle items from the Gorgas House collection, proper procedures, such as wearing gloves, must be followed to ensure the items’ long-term preservation.

years ago, were discovered by a middle school student during a UA-hosted expedition in rural Greene County, Alabama. Schweers used an air scribe (or pen) for the delicate task of uncovering fossilized vertebrae embedded in chalk sediment. From re-accessioning Gorgas family relics to the meticulous work of preparing prehistoric fossils, the variety of tasks of a museum volunteer appealed to Schweers. “It’s really kind of neat because I never know what I’m going to be doing when I go in,” she said. Schweers’ experience with the UA Museum Collections has taught her a lot, especially about the technical side of how things are preserved. But she also learned that it’s the little things that can be the most important, such as the lock of Amelia Gayle Gorgas’ hair in the Gorgas House collection. “That’s just really neat to see,” she said, “because you might think, ‘Oh, someone’s hair,’ but this is the woman who has the library named after her.”

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The first time Elizabeth Schweers caught a glimpse of the collections, tucked away on the third floor of UA’s Mary Harmon Bryant Hall, she was awestruck. “This is the coolest thing,” she remembers thinking. “It’s just rows of history.”

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Cultivating

Kindness INSPIRED BY A FRIEND’S RANDOM

ACT OF KINDNESS TOWARD A

STRANGER, JENNIFER HODNETT SET OUT TO SPREAD MIRTH AND C O M PA S S I O N A C R O S S C A M P U S . BY RICHARD LECOMTE

ne day in spring 2014, students wending their way across the UA Quad found a bunch of their peers brandishing large signs. Was it a protest? Yes – but not the kind you see on the news. These students wielded signs protesting isolation, angst, worries, self-loathing and bad moods. Their signs read, “You’re beautiful.” “Don’t give up.” “Keep going.” Students who found their spirits lifted, however briefly, by these signs may want to thank Jennifer Hodnett. Hodnett founded Crimson Kindness, a group that seeks to bring a bit of mirth or compassion to random students at UA. “When you experience it, give kindness or receive kindness, there’s this human connection you don’t get in other ways,” said Hodnett, a May 2014 graduate from Bozeman, Montana. “We want to encourage fellow students to brighten people’s day, make people happy and be a positive light on campus.” 42

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Crimson Kindness now counts about 100 members. During each semester, the group breaks into small teams of four or five students who stage events or activities, including the inspirational signs, finals week care packages delivered to students in the library, thank-you notes to support staff and – why not? – a ball pit. “We call them random acts of kindness, but they’re pretty intentional and planned,” Hodnett said. “We put on different events. We work to form friendships on campus and create a family atmosphere.” Hodnett came up with the idea for Crimson Kindness on a Thursday in February 2013 when she read about a friend buying lunch for the next person in line at a campus dining area. She saw her friend’s act as a way to make someone else’s life a tad easier and as a way to break down the barriers people put up around themselves.

For the event “Stick ’Em With Kindness,” Crimson Kindness members wrote encouraging messages on sticky notes and posted them around campus.

Jennifer Hodnett greets students as they sign in at the Crimson Kindness event “Dive Into Friendship,” featuring a ball pit as an icebreaker.

“When you experience it, give kindness or receive kindness, there’s this human connection you don’t get in other ways.”

– Jennifer Hodnett

“Our generation is very connected to devices all the time,” said Hodnett, a human development and family studies major. “I’m walking around and I’m not going to look at anyone, I’m not going to talk to anyone. It’s very easy to get sucked into that world because you feel safe. People are on their phone and they’re not reaching out to the people next to them.” Inspired by her friend’s random act, Hodnett started searching the Web for any kind of random kindness program. She found one – the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, which had some information on starting groups 44

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on college campuses. But she found no program like it at UA. Off she went. “The first thing I did was launch a Facebook page just to see if anyone was interested or if it was just me,” Hodnett said. “I got my first ‘like,’ and I thought, ‘Hey, people like this idea.’ Then it started picking up and going and going and going, until I got 16 people. I thought it was so huge.” She assembled a core leadership team, who then began bringing in other students, and then the ideas began to fly. The group acquired two sponsors – Courtney McGahey, assistant professor of consumer sciences at UA, and Mary Alice Porter, coordinator of the First Year Experience and Parent Programs. The rapid rise of Crimson Kindness testifies to Hodnett’s unusual skills as a leader. “She’s just an amazing young woman,” McGahey said. “It really stands out when you see a student like that. She’s a genuine leader, and she has great character.” Hodnett, of course, had a bunch of ideas, but she didn’t want Crimson Kindness to be all about her – she wanted ideas to come up from the ranks as well. “We’ve had two events per month in addition to our small groups, which meet twice a month as well,” Hodnett said. “Our groups became like close-knit families. They can do

She saw her friend’s act as a way to make someone else’s life a tad easier and as a way to break down the barriers people put up around themselves. their own acts of kindness as part of that small group. Then we all come together in a larger group for bigger events.” Nicole Perez, an operations management major from Columbus, Georgia, was one of the people swept up in Hodnett’s net. “She’s one of those people you run into who automatically makes you want to be a better person,” Perez said. “People can relate to her. She has a lot of initiatives, but she gets everything done. When she talks about Crimson Kindness, you can see the passion in her eyes.” Reactions to these not-really-random-at-all acts of kindness have varied. Ellen Benes, a secondary education mathematics major from Coppell, Texas, got some tangible feedback for brandishing a sign that said, “One little smile goes a mile.” “One of my favorite activities was the posters of kindness,” she said. “I’ve done it both semesters. I love to see all the smiles on the faces of students. I actually had a person buy me a Chick-fil-A sandwich to say thanks. She said, ‘I’ve had a tough week and it’s exactly what I needed.’” In addition to the signs, Crimson Kindness teams formed a phalanx of students who came to the aid of crammers at Gorgas Library late one night during finals. The packages included energy drinks and candy donated by local sponsors. “Basically, we ask people to donate goods,” Hodnett said. “We put snacks and candy in there as well as some inspirational messages, like ‘You’re going to get through this.’ We put them in a gift bag, walk around and give 46

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it to people as they’re studying. They’re really excited about it. We’ve got a variety of reactions from them – everything from, ‘Yeah, sure, that’s great’ to ‘I’m about to die here, I don’t know how I’m going to get through this, this means so much.’” And then, of course, the ball pit. Toward the end of the spring 2014 semester, Hodnett and company set up an inflatable wading pool on the Quad and filled it with plastic balls that had icebreaker questions written on them. Then they invited passers-by to “Dive Into Friendship” by getting to know the students hanging out in the pit. “The students in the pit could read the questions on the balls and start a conversation with others in the pit,” Hodnett said. “We were really excited about how well it went. People did not want to get out. People said they felt like kids again and felt totally carefree, like you’re in a McDonald’s PlayPlace. Students were meeting each other, sharing this experience and having a conversation. It was a very interesting dynamic that emerged from that.” Hodnett and other founders were graduating in 2014, so she picked some successors, led by incoming president Audrey Gunn, a psychology major from Carthage, Mississippi. So the UA campus can expect a lot more from Crimson Kindness in the coming years. As simple and even corny as some of these activities seem, they represent Hodnett’s legacy at UA. Students may long remember the brief moment of positive feeling Crimson Kindness gave them. “It is a little bit cheesy,” Hodnett said. “But sometimes you need cheesy.

GET INVOLVED: Student Organizations at UA Hundreds of student organizations operate on The University of Alabama campus, offering opportunities for leadership, community and involvement. UA also encourages creativity and the expression of new ideas through the establishment of new student organizations. Just as Jennifer Hodnett began Crimson Kindness, any enrolled UA student can initiate the creation of a student organization. Learn more at thesource.ua.edu.

in it By David Miller

aron Brazelton remembers a time when he wasn’t fulfilling his true potential. It was 2011 and he was a freshman at The University of Alabama, his dream school. But he wasn’t getting good grades and wasn’t involved in student activities on campus. That kind of adjustment period is typical for many freshmen, but Brazelton entered UA with a reputation for service, leadership and academic achievement. As a high school senior, he was named the 2011 Youth of the Year by the Boys and Girls Club of North Alabama. And before he stepped foot on campus, he’d made two trips to Serbia to teach English through the U.S. State Department. Faculty and administrators 48

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noticed Brazelton’s decline and began to mentor the Madison County, Alabama, native. One of those administrators was Dr. Robert Witt, current University of Alabama System chancellor and UA president at that time. “Dr. Witt personally reached out to me and got me involved to keep me going here,” said Brazelton. “It was important at the time because, while I had enough resources to get to (UA), I don’t think I had enough resources to continue and succeed.” Brazelton’s one-year scholarship from the Boys and Girls Club left him with a nearly $2,000 deficit at UA. With his new support team behind him, a plan was ironed out for him to become a residence hall adviser, which

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Top: Brazelton (pictured on campus) received an International Exchange Alumni Award from the U.S. State Department for spearheading the Serbia Fellowship Experience. Bottom: UA junior Justin Pendleton interacts with his Serbian host siblings before a cultural celebration sponsored by the municipality of Blace.

would help alleviate the burden of student loans. “Given his maturity – remarkable for a young person – getting him into being an RA alleviated some of the costs and reduced some work he had to do,” Witt said. “And as the spring progressed, he connected with a tutor in Honors College who helped him adjust and improve his grades.” Brazelton, energized and encouraged, spearheaded the creation of the Serbia Fellowship Experience, an educational and social partnership between The University of Alabama Honors College, The University of Novi Sad and the municipality of Blace, Serbia. The Serbia Fellowship Experience is funded and supported by the UA Honors College, the College of Education and the Division of Student Affairs. The group had its first trip to Serbia in 2013, when it helped implement an anti-bullying curriculum from the Heritage Panel, a program started by the YMCA. Brazelton helped start a UA branch of the Heritage Panel, which selected 12 students from the Honors College to work with students at Salisbury High School in North Carolina to implement a curriculum that “addresses the negative behaviors of bullying, cliques and exclusion.” “My mom always told me that to whom much is given, much is expected,” Brazelton said. “When Dr. Witt left campus, he introduced me to Dr. (Mark) Nelson (who was then vice president for student affairs and vice provost for academic affairs). And President (Judy) Bonner has been so supportive in the projects. They go out of their way to make sure we have the resources we need. “All that said, when you have all of these people pouring resources into you, it’d be a waste if I didn’t do the same for others.”

Following the success of the first Serbia Fellowship Experience, Brazelton returned to Serbia in May 2014 with 19 students and three faculty members from UA.

“My mom always told me that to whom much is given, much is expected. … When you have all of these people pouring resources into you, it’d be a waste if I didn’t do the same for others.” – Aaron Brazelton During this trip, Brazelton and UA representatives met with nongovernmental organizations and split into groups in three different cities, where they delivered presentations about UA, issues facing students in the United States and solutions that address those issues. The idea, he said, was to find parallels between what youth in Alabama and Serbia experience and to build bridges to share ideas and resources to help people look past differences in culture. “Serbia is a diverse country,” Brazelton explained. “There are Albanians, Serbians, Muslims … since the country has gone through war, there are a lot of identification issues. Some people consider themselves Yugoslavians, and there are a lot of tensions between Muslims and Serbians.” The Serbian Fellowship Experience collaborations were successful, and several students were featured on a Serbian news channel, Brazelton said. The most T H E

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UA and Serbian students walk through the center of a rural Serbian village, receiving a history lesson focused on the Kosovo conflict.

eye-opening moment, signaling the trip’s positive impact on UA students, came during a flood in Belgrade. Many residents were displaced, but the city banded together to provide fresh water and lodging.

During summer 2014, he taught eighthgrade language arts in Miami as part of the Breakthrough Collaborative, which offers summer programs to low-income middle school students.

“Our students were worried about our Serbian friends, and to see the concern let me know we were building real relationships there that will pay off when we return next year,” he said. “It was really special.”

“People in Serbia love Aaron’s openness and kindness, his willingness to make the world a better place for everyone.”

Sanja Smiljkovic, program coordinator at Blace Elementary School in Serbia, has known Brazelton since his initial exchange trip to Serbia in 2007. She said she was impressed with Brazelton’s zeal and willingness to include a smaller Serbian town in the program, which motivated her to organize Serbia’s half of the fellowship, the first student-led initiative in the country. She’s hopeful the program will inspire more volunteerism among students in Serbia. “Ever since he brought up the idea of the Serbia Fellowship Experience we have been in continuous contact,” she said. “(Brazelton) is an amazing and highly reliable friend who I am honored to cooperate with. People in Serbia love Aaron’s openness and kindness, his willingness to make the world a better place for everyone. “He was so unselfishly passionate about sharing his own experience of Serbia to his peers that he managed to create a program to bring them here and closely work with Serbian youth.” For his efforts in Serbia, Brazelton received an International Exchange Alumni Award in February 2014 from the Alumni Affairs division of the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. He also continues to find ways to serve others closer to home. T H E

– Sanja Smiljkovic Now he is working on a new project: a community-based initiative to recruit students from the Black Belt area of the state to UA. The program will be student-led through UA’s Office of Admissions and will provide information about financial aid and the ACT, as well as organize campus tours. Brazelton said that the new initiative is about more than getting students from the Black Belt enrolled at UA: “We want to pair them with faculty mentors, help them find scholarship opportunities that will help keep them here. It’s one thing to get them here; it’s another to retain them.” It’s a challenge that Brazelton – a leader who understands firsthand the struggles some students face when transitioning to college life – is ideally suited to tackle.

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eaching Up and Reaching Out H AV I N G O V E R C O M E FA M I LY T R A G E D Y A N D A N U N S TA B L E CHILDHOOD, SOCIAL WORK MAJOR MICHAELA SANDERSON H E L P S O T H E R S F I N D A WAY T H R O U G H . B Y D AV I D M I L L E R

espite haunting memories and new life challenges, Michaela Sanderson hasn’t wavered since enrolling at The University of Alabama.

well documented: A former foster child herself, she has been keen to share her experiences to help other foster children realize they can succeed.

The senior social work major began an internship in summer 2014 at the Youth Services Institute in Tuscaloosa, whose employees counsel juvenile sex offenders. She’s also volunteered with Big Brothers and Big Sisters, mentoring at-risk youth, and has volunteered with senior citizens.

Statistics show that once youth are old enough to leave foster care, only 2 to 3 percent complete a college degree, said Jameka Hartley, coordinator of Alabama REACH, a campus organization that helps foster children and emancipated youth transition to college life. Sanderson, an Alabama REACH Scholar and a Horatio Alger Scholar, demonstrates it’s possible to beat those odds.

There was a time, though, when a future – much less a path to a promising career in social work – was not guaranteed. Sanderson’s story of overcoming family tragedy and instability is

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parents’ drug abuse, the loss of her sister or watching her mother attempt suicide. She recalled a time when her family went without running water, food or heat in the winter. Their house didn’t feel like a home, Sanderson said. Following her mother’s suicide attempt, Sanderson and her twin sister, Danielle, were placed into foster care at the Alabama Baptist Children’s Home in Gardendale. Sanderson and her sister later lived with her mother’s cousin, who took foster parent training courses to be able to keep them in her home, she said. Sanderson, for the first time in her life, had a regular schedule and

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Statistics show that once youth are old enough to leave foster care, only 2 to 3 percent complete a college degree. To address this statistic, the campus organization Alabama REACH helps foster children and emancipated youth transition to college life.

“My passion for people started out so young and has only grown since then,” Sanderson said. “My parents, as well as most of my siblings and extended family, have all abused drugs, alcohol or both. So these types of people are very close to my heart. I have a burning desire to help them overcome the struggle of addiction.” – Michaela Sanderson was encouraged to go to school and reach her goals. “Ironically, that kind of stabilized things for me,” said Sanderson, who’d previously been removed from her mother’s custody. It was then Sanderson started to cultivate her selfless spirit and passion to inspire other foster children. “My passion for people started out so young and has only grown since then,” Sanderson said. “My parents, as well as most of my siblings and extended family, have all abused drugs, alcohol or both. So these types of people are very close to my heart. I have a burning desire to help them overcome the struggle of addiction.” Sanderson considers herself a success story, particularly as many foster youth struggle to adapt to adulthood. She lauds the people and organizations that have helped her at UA, particularly Alabama REACH. Her affiliation with Alabama REACH has led to numerous volunteer opportunities and avenues to share her story

and inspire others. In 2013, she was one of six young adults who, through Richard Branson’s Virgin Unite and the Horatio Alger Scholarship Program, attended “Surviving and Thriving.” During this four-day leadership conference in the Virgin Islands, Sanderson and her peers each shared their unique stories of overcoming daunting life obstacles. “Anything we offer, she takes full advantage of,” said Hartley. “She’s been willing to share her story through several outlets. She’s participated in student panels for high school students. She’s been a great advocate of foster youth by sharing her story and encouraging others to share theirs.” Sanderson, who is set to graduate in May 2015, plans to enter the Master of Social Work Program at UA. She plans to take on more responsibility at Youth Services Institute as her internship continues. But Sanderson has a new challenge in her life, one she speculated she’s been battling for the last two years. In February of this year, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a neurological disorder that can cause loss of feeling in extremities, pain and muscle weakness. Sanderson said she is “making the best of it” and is receiving treatments, which she said have helped her regain the strength of the right side of her body. “After a month and a half of being on the medication, things seem to be looking good. My right side is now equal with my left side, so it means the medicine is working,” said Sanderson. Like Sanderson’s response to past challenges, she attacked the news of her diagnosis by thinking of others. She created a team with Walk MS of Tuscaloosa and helped raise $2,500, more than any other team, she said. “I quickly realized sitting in my tears was not the way to be,” Sanderson said. “Having gone through adversity before has probably helped me realize things are okay. I can continue toward all of my goals.”

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G N I L L A C L A B GLO FOR NURSING STUDENT L I N D S AY G H I R O L I , A M E D I C A L M I S S I O N T R I P T O C O S TA R I C A C O N F I R M E D W H AT S H E H A S A LWAY S K N O W N A B O U T HER FUTURE CAREER. BY TERRI ROBERTSON

indsay Ghiroli has always known her calling. Her mother is a nurse, and her father, who received a heart transplant in 2013, struggled with health issues throughout her childhood and adolescence. “I spent a lot of time in the hospital, and I spent a lot of time around my parents,” said Ghiroli, a senior nursing major from San Diego. “So I always knew I wanted to be a nurse.” As she grew up and learned that there are so many people around the world who are less fortunate, her calling evolved. She became determined to become a nurse for Doctors Without Borders so that she could help them. When it came time to select a college to pursue her nursing degree, she was not sure where she wanted to go and applied to 11 schools. But all uncertainty disappeared when she visited the Capstone College of Nursing at The University of Alabama. “This campus just sells itself. Everything is so pretty. The nursing program here is unlike a lot of other nursing programs. It’s very competitive. It’s very tough,” said Ghiroli, who welcomes the challenging curriculum because she knows it will make her a better nurse. There’s something else about the nursing program at UA that is particularly valuable to someone on Ghiroli’s chosen career path: “What they offer here – the ability for nursing students to go abroad – is an important thing,” she said,

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explaining that taking nursing classes outside the United States is usually not an option for American students. Last semester, she received a UA Serve Away scholarship to travel to Costa Rica for Alternative Spring Break 2014 and got her first taste of what her future career might be like. For the trip, two UA nursing faculty members and a group of 10 nursing students, including Ghiroli, set up clinics in the Upala district of Costa Rica, a very poor area of the country near the Nicaragua border. Over four days, the team held four clinics in four different areas. “We kind of bounced around so it was easier for people to come see us,” said Ghiroli. “I worked in triage, I worked in pharmacy, I worked with the doctors, and then we also did vision screening. So we not only gave them medical care, but if they were having problems seeing, we were able to provide them with glasses to help them.” The other students in the group were seniors, which meant that Ghiroli, then a junior in her second semester of the nursing program, was the least experienced and had the most to learn – and she embraced every minute of it. “I had to learn quickly because the clinic was always really busy, and we had a tremendous turnout. I think in four days, we saw at least 500 people. It was a great

As she grew up and learned that there are so many people around the world who are less fortunate, she became determined to become a nurse for Doctors Without Borders so that she could help them.

About UA Away Scholarships

The UA Away initiative at The University of Alabama enables scholarships recipients to experience new cultures and environments while studying (Study Away), serving others (Serve Away) or benefiting from on-the-job training (Work Away). The UA Division of Student Affairs awards a limited number of UA Away scholarships based on need. November 1 is the application deadline for students participating in a spring experience. March 1 is the application deadline for interim, summer or fall experiences. To learn more, visit the Student Affairs website at sa.ua.edu and open the “Students” tab.

experience for me because it was really hands-on learning,” she said. Though still a student, she discovered the value of her knowledge and training in a place where access to medical care is limited. “For that week of spring break, I actually felt like I really was helping people and that what I knew was affecting someone else,” she said. The experience confirmed what she already knew – that she was meant to spend her career helping people in need all around the globe – and that confirmation ignited a fire in her. As soon as she left Costa Rica, she was already thinking, “When can I come back? What can I do next?” “You get obsessed,” she said. Next summer, she hopes to go abroad for another Capstone College of Nursing medical mission trip, possibly to Africa. She would have gone this summer, but, she said with a smile, “I made a deal with my parents – only one trip a year.”

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After graduation, she plans to return home to California to work in a hospital before applying to Doctors Without Borders, as the organization requires nursing applicants to have two years of experience as a practicing registered nurse. “I do like the idea of working here (the United States) for two years, so I will be practicing and I will be very comfortable. But then after that, I don’t plan on working in the United States for the rest of my career,” she said. “My goal in life is to make the most impact I possibly can, and I feel I can make more of an impact outside of the country.” Ghiroli is very thankful that Capstone College of Nursing has given her the opportunity to pursue her passion for serving abroad as an undergraduate. “That’s why this is so great,” she said. “We got class credit, but we learned hands on, which is perfect for our field. You’re actually getting something out of it, and I learned a lot. And that was only in a week.”

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K A S A N A G O T T U T O D I S TA N C E HIMSELF FROM DIABETES, HE TOOK ACTION. B Y C H R I S B R YA N T

oushik Kasanagottu moved from India to Tuscaloosa, but diabetes followed him.

The May 2014 University of Alabama graduate does not have the disease, but it has been a part of his life for as long as he remembers.

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“Three out of my four grandparents have diabetes,” Kasanagottu said. “That increases the likelihood that my parents are going to have it, as well as me.” As a child, he remembers watching his grandparents take frequent injections. “As I grew up, I realized those were insulin shots.” Fast-forward from the time he moved to Chicago at age 8 to his freshman year at The University of Alabama. Kasanagottu said he thought he had long ago left diabetes behind in his native India. But, while taking an internship at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, he learned that one in nine Alabamians has diabetes. “That was staggering to me,” Kasanagottu said. “I thought this was a disorder that affected other countries, not us. This is the land of opportunity.” He soon found an opportunity to help. With the help of other students, including Austin Hardaway, Kasanagottu founded the organization DIET, or the Diabetes Education Team, at UA. This community outreach student organization, over which he presided for the last three years, educates and encourages people with diabetes in Tuscaloosa, Greene, Pickens, Perry and Hale counties.

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During the hour-long sessions hosted by the DIET organization in Alabama communities, participants and the student organizers discussed things like diet, stress management, wound care and exercise. The group, which logged more than 600 service hours over the past two years, is advised by Dr. Pamela Payne-Foster, a physician who serves as deputy director of UA’s Rural Health Institute and an assistant professor of community rural medicine; and Dr. Rebecca Kelly, director of UA’s Health, Promotion and Wellness program. “I have watched Koushik develop and grow into the kind of colleague that I would like to have in a future physician,” said Payne-Foster. “He first spent a lot of time in the Black Belt talking to residents and gaining a deep understanding of how their environment

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and their social and historical context play such an important role in how clinicians can improve their health-care status. I saw that he really had a passion for the community. I think this will help make him a better clinician one-on-one with his patients. “But beyond the strengthening of the individual relationship with patients, I also think that Koushik spent a lot of time developing his leadership skills, which allowed him to organize other students and multiply the efforts that he could do on his own. I think the combination of his passion and leadership skills will translate into improving the health of entire populations in the future.” Kasanagottu and the organization’s 13 other officers, along with a core group of about 60 student volunteers, conducted a series of information sessions within the aforementioned communities. During these hour-long sessions, participants and the student organizers discussed things like diet, stress management, wound care and exercise. “It’s more of a conversation,” Kasanagottu said of the sessions. “We would like for them to talk more than us. They know more about their community than us. We help facilitate the discussion.” On average, eight to 12 community members attended each session. “Even if there is one person there, we make some sort of impact, and we feel successful,” he said. “These sessions are extremely interactive. They love talking. It’s about 60 percent resources and about 40 percent

just listening to their problems. That seems to alleviate their stress levels and, in turn, help their health.” There are multiple reasons why the state’s Black Belt area – an impoverished area in Central Alabama named for its rich, dark soil – faces high levels of diabetes. “It’s not that these community members don’t want to be healthy,” said Kasanagottu. “They want to be healthy.” Shortages of financial resources, information, access to healthy food, and interstate access are all factors in the higher-than-average rates. “As students, we decided education is something we can help with. We can’t really give out money or make sure there is a supermarket built close by, but we can provide materials and resources.” The students also partnered with community organizations to offer health screenings where nurses provide blood pressure and glucose monitoring, and counseling is made available. The need was evident. “Greene County, for example, has a 20 to 25 percent diabetes rate,” Kasanagottu said. “The national average is about 8 percent. Greene County has the highest percentage of obesity in the country for counties.” The students also worked to raise diabetes awareness among the campus community, arranging for special events, for example, during annual World Diabetes Awareness days. During his time at UA, Kasanagottu elevated the student standard, Payne-Foster said. “I think that Koushik exemplifies what we, in our College, hope for from our students,” she said. A biology major while at UA, Kasanagottu has no plans to leave community health care behind just because his UA experience is complete. He started medical school at the UAB in July. Upon completion, he expects to work in primary care/ internal medicine. There’s a reason for that choice. “I don’t want to just practice,” Kasanagottu said. “I want to work in underserved areas and work with organizations and develop projects to improve the health of communities. It’s kind of hard to do that as a specialist.”

“I don’t want to just practice. I want to work in underserved areas and work with organizations and develop projects to improve the health of communities.” – Koushik Kasanagottu

The young med-school student appreciates the opportunities The University of Alabama and its Honors College provided him to explore his interests. “UA has shaped my life,” Kasanagottu said. “There is one factor that really distinguishes UA and the Honors College from other universities – the flexibility they give students to actually execute their ideas. That’s what really attracted me to come here.” And what attracted Kasanagottu toward medicine, in part, were childhood memories he couldn’t leave behind, no matter the distance traveled.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;By taking part in research, service, leadership opportunities and study abroad, our students push their limits and, in the process, discover their strengths, their passions and their potential.â&#x20AC;? Judy Bonner, President