Digging Deeper: At Home and Abroad, Undergrads Research Diverse Topics

Kelly Fitzgerald ’15 became intrigued by the cultural significance of tattoos, especially among indigenous groups, through her extensive travels.

Before college, Fitzgerald, an international and cultural studies major with a double minor in history and English, lived in Thailand for a year as an AFS foreign exchange student. During her time at UT, Fitzgerald spent three-and-a-half-months on a solo backpacking trip through Southeast Asia in 2013 and has participated in three education abroad programs in Cuba, London and Nicaragua.

While in Thailand, she said she encountered numerous Buddhist monks who wear protective yantra tattoos and a Maori woman who wore a moko (tattoo) tattoo on her lips and chin to symbolize her grief at the death of a venerated elder.

“As a result of my research I have learned quite a bit about the history of tattooing and how much culture affects perspective on practices such as tattooing,” said Fitzgerald, who has been awarded a 2015-2016 Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) to Indonesia. “With my topic, everyone has their own opinions that are highly influenced by ingrained cultural biases. By comparing cultures, I have unearthed cultural biases held within my own culture that I did not recognize before.”

Fitzgerald is just one of the many students who will be presenting research April 23-27 in a series of events celebrating undergraduate research at UT, including the following:

Thursday, April 23: Celebrating Honors Day. Presentations begin at 4 p.m. on the 9th Floor of the Vaughn Center.
Friday, April 24: College of Natural and Health Sciences Undergraduate Research Symposium. The keynote presentation, “Chemicals, Contaminants and Toxins: Analytical Approaches to Solve Seafood Safety Challenges at the FDA” by Sara McGrath, a research chemist at the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, will be held in Sykes College of Business Room 131 from 2 to 3 p.m. Poster presentations will be held in Plant Hall’s Fletcher Lounge from 3 to 5 p.m.
Friday, April 24: Sykes College of Business Student Research Day. Poster presentations will be held in the Cass Gym from 3 to 5 p.m.
Wednesday, April 29: College of Social Sciences, Mathematics and Education Undergraduate Research Conference. The event will be held in Plant Hall’s Fletcher Lounge from 4 to 6 p.m.

In addition, the University hosted its annual Human Rights Day Conference on April 18. Organized by UT's Human Rights Think Tank, the conference is dedicated to the understanding, analysis and promotion of the global human rights movement.

The topics students have explored this past year are diverse, from seeking the viral causes for multiple sclerosis to working to discover a new catalyst for the Morita-Baylis-Hillman reaction to creating a documentary that explores the intersection of art and community using a UT applied dance program created for a local elderly population.

“Research projects are a preview to what is to be expected in the 'real world'. It prepares you to work with others toward a common goal,” said Erica Anderson ’15, a psychology major who investigated how embedding activities within a narrative enhances learning and memory at the Glazer Children’s Museum. “It enforces communication at multiple platforms and provides hands-on experience that combines classroom instruction with application.”

Ainsley Manley '17, a management and marketing double major with minors in entrepreneurship and business analytics, researched the cognitive de-skilling of humans by technology, an experience that brought her closer to her faculty mentor in an academic relationship she is sure will continue well beyond her days at UT. She said the topic of her research has had a tremendous impact on her learning.

"You see its application everywhere - real world examples of human de-skilling by technology that was once just in a supportive role, but is now in a replacement mode are everywhere," said Manley, of Key West, FL. "GPS and driverless vehicles are two common examples that require no human cognition to function, as we have already offloaded all of the human cognitive tasks related to that job onto the technology to do that job, therefore the human role becomes that of maintenance to the technology."

Jacob Mackey ’15, a double major in government and world affairs and history, examined political variables that predispose African nations to create anti-LGBTQ policies.

“I decided to choose something that impacted Africa because it is such a diverse continent with many conflicting views,” said Mackey, who is in Washington, D.C. this semester on a Washington Center internship. “Specifically, choosing what factors made African legislation more or less draconian towards homosexuals resonated with me on a personal and academic level. By identifying the variables which effect legislation, I am contributing towards efforts to help create equality throughout the nations of Africa.”

Mackey said he found nations colonized by the French were more likely to state an inhospitable environment for homosexuals compared with their English-colonized counterparts. The higher a nation’s GDP, the more hospitable a nation is toward homosexuals. However in regards to corruption and religion, he found no significance.

“I was able to take what I learned in the classroom and apply it to the real world issues that are occurring around me,” Mackey said. “Normally you deal with case studies in class or someone else’s data sets. You develop a personal connection to your work when you have to do all of the legwork, which makes every discovery so much more significant as you innovate your field and contribute to the research surrounding your topic.

“For most majors I believe that you should be required to do some type of independent research,” he said, “as it reasserted my passion for international affairs, and I believe it would do this for everyone.”

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