Dynamic Duos

27. Apr, 2012 0 Comments

This spring, 15 student-faculty pairs stood before fellow students, faculty, and staff on the New York City and Pleasantville campuses to present the findings of their year-long research projects and showcase the success of Pace’s new Undergraduate Student-Faculty Research Initiative. Commissioned by Interim Provost Harriet R. Feldman, PhD, RN, FAAN, last fall, the Initiative was developed to bring students and faculty together to investigate interesting new topics, build strong one-on-one relationships, and prepare students for research on a professional level. The outcome? Success.

The pairs, comprised of students and faculty from various disciplines, developed 15 unique and academically challenging research projects (see below). At the Research Showcases, the pairs presented their projects and findings and one winner from each campus was awarded $1,000 toward attending a national conference of their choice.

But the success stories didn’t end there. Not only did students—and faculty—share stories of learning new skills, breaking new ground, and enhancing their passions for their fields, other outcomes included one pair being invited to present at a conference in Europe, another student publishing a chapter in a book alongside noted historians, and an undergraduate finding her calling and picking a new path for graduate school.

“My journey with ATC Online has allowed me to understand society’s interaction with assistive technology and the individuals who use it,” says Seidenberg student Marc Kowtko ‘14, who along with Seidenberg Professor Jean Coppola, PhD, won the Pleasantville award for their research into assistive technology called Open Source Technology Website and Application Development (ATC Online). “It will take time for ATC to expand and produce resources for providing open source programs for older adults and people with disabilities. However, the base has been developed and the research has been conducted,” adds Kowtko.

At the Showcase in New York City, Seidenberg Professor Christelle Scharff, PhD, and Dyson psychology student Meghan Kenny ‘14 showed the strength of interdisciplinary collaboration, winning for their research in Mobile Technology for Greener Cities. The project, which explored mobile applications, websites, SMS, and voice solutions to educate users about anything related to going green, resulted in the development of their own application for the Android marketplace, ‘Go Green’, which educates users about the consequences of non-renewable energy sources and the opportunities for clean energy alternatives. “What was interesting about this job was being able to collaborate with computer science students,” says Kenny. “Here, everybody could discover that developing a mobile application is truly an interdisciplinary endeavor.”

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