Student and Faculty Spotlights: Gervase Programs: Learning to Lead

We are excited to celebrate the achievements of a number of students and faculty who have engaged in research through GUROP.

Sarah Wappett (COL '06):

Ms. Wappett came to Georgetown as a Government and Biology double major with the purpose of becoming a federal criminal prosecutor with a background in forensic evidence. In her sophomore year she joined the Carroll Fellows and was faced with a project – write a research proposal for an independent project that you could conduct yourself. Sarah had no idea that in choosing to look into an old family story, she would end up changing my entire college plan. She submitted that first proposal, and even though it failed, one of the panelists became her mentor. Sarah began research on criminal prosecutions of the Sicilian and Neapolitan Mafias and then became a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Scholar. She expanded her work to terrorism and organized crime theory, went abroad to Italy to interview top law enforcement officials, and started publishing. Sarah was named to the USA Today All-Academic 3rd team, started a Carroll Cluster (mini-think tank), and did an internship for Homeland Security. She received a Raines grant for Summer 2005 and then entered the fellowship application process which challenged her to re-conceptualize her studies and future career. She was nominated for the Rhodes and the Mitchell Scholarships and eventually won the Mitchell to study at Dublin City University for a MA in International Security and Conflict. After that, Sarah will attend Georgetown University Law Center.

Chantal Grinderslev (SFS '07):

The various dimensions of international assistance – expertise, resources, funding – also function within the overlapping spheres of donor and recipient interest. Foundations, associations, government agencies and private citizens have been/are all active in funding and distributing aid to underdeveloped countries. Statistics show that there is often a tremendous disconnect between the amount of aid and the effectiveness of that aid within the target population, especially with regard to encouraging economic growth. This summer, Chantal hopes to examine the situation of economic policy and aid in Senegal as a case study of Africa’s participation in the global market.

Castle Sinicrope (COL '06):

Under the guidance of Professor Alison Mackey this spring, Ms. Sinicrope worked as part of a research team that investigated working memory and age in second language acquisition. The population consisted of elderly Spanish L1 learners of English, with the research focus on both their production of modified output and their development in terms of English question formation ability. Castle participated as a native speaker interlocutor where she worked with the learners to carry out communicative tasks and provide implicit corrective feedback on their linguistic errors. She also helped to transcribe and code the data as well as administer tests of working memory. Castle is a graduating senior in the College from Amherst, Massachusetts, majoring in German and minoring in Italian. At Georgetown, she co-founded the women's club Ultimate Frisbee team (Fall 2002). She has also worked as a research assistant in the German Department with Professor Heidi Byrnes (Spring 2003-2006). Next year, Castle will attend the University of Hawaii-Manoa where she will pursue an M.A. in second language studies.

Claire Nugent (COL '08):

Ms. Nugent was born in Arlington, Virginia, raised in Westport, Connecticut and now hails from St Louis, Missouri. She is majoring in Psychology with a minor in both Spanish and Philosophy and is also a member of Georgetown’s Swim Team, swimming the butterfly. Claire has always loved working with children and has worked with all types of children in a variety of environments. 

In January 2006, Claire started working with Dr. Rachel Barr at the Early Learning Project (ELP) as a volunteer research assistant. Dr. Barr invited her to join the parent-child interaction coding team for the Early Effects of Media Exposure on School Readiness Project.  Claire learned how to code child interactions during media exposure, in particular evaluating looking time, smiling, pointing, and interactive play during book reading, when playing computer games and watching television. During the summer of 2006, Claire will continue to code interactive behavior and extend her involvement in this project by accompanying graduate students on visits to preschoolers’ homes.

Kurt R. Jankowsky (Professor of German):

GUROP provides and, as a rule, keeps great promises. As a matter of fact, the one potential disappointment, that students do not live up to expectations, has never happened to Professor Jankowsky in all of his many GUROP years. And the other potential disappointment that students were somewhat mismatched with their assigned research topic and hence not exactly thrilled by their task, to his knowledge has not happened either. During the last four years Professor Jankowsky has launched two major projects where students were and are heavily involved. In one, as Biographies Section Editor for the 14-volume Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, he was responsible for selection, assigning, and editing of biographies for the “700 most prominent linguists past and present, world-wide.” Over 3 ½ years, four students contributed significantly to numerous aspects of the mammoth undertaking, e.g., by proof-reading the first drafts and by producing 50-word synopses of individual biographies. The encyclopedia was published in December 2005.

The current project is hardly less ambitious, though much smaller in scope. It involves an annotated bibliography of approximately 800 writings by and approximately 1000 titles on Friedrich Max Müller (1823-1900). Students search for new materials and prepare draft-versions of article synopses.

Rachel Barr (Director, Early Learning Project, Department of Psychology):

The Georgetown Early Learning Project seeks to better understand how infants learn and remember information in various social situations. As adults, it is very difficult for us to remember any specific event that occurred before three years of age. Nevertheless, at this age, infants have mastered many skills. In fact, infancy is a period of rapid growth, change, and learning. How does this rapid learning take place? What do infants remember of these experiences? Currently scholars with the Georgetown Early Learning Project are examining the role of media in learning during infancy. In their newest study, they examine whether infants can transfer information from a live object to a touch screen and vice versa. They show babies where to press wooden toys of a fire truck or a cow so as to produce a sound, such as a siren or a moo. Will babies be more likely to learn from a real-life demonstration than from visual media? For more information about the Georgetown Early Learning Project’s ongoing projects visit www.elp.georgetown.edu.

Brooks Holtom (Assistant Professor, McDonough School of Business):

While Professor Holtom has had the privilege of working with a number of excellent students through the GUROP program, his most recent project is particularly noteworthy. Michael Karamat and Michael Masterson were both students in his MGMT 201: Management and Organization class who expressed interest in being involved in management research. During Fall 2005, they researched the academic literature as well as the popular press to find real-world examples of tactics organizations use to increase employee retention. In addition to finding the examples, they suggested developing a searchable database for use in the current project as well as future projects. They created this resource from scratch. Professor Holtom found it extremely valuable in preparing the final manuscript. The article that resulted was accepted without requiring revision at Organizational Dynamics—a top researcher-practitioner bridge journal in management. The work done by Mike2 was critical to this successful outcome.

Bonnie B. C. Oh (Distinguished Professor of Korean Studies, University Ombuds Officer):

Professor Oh has been an active participant since the inception of the GUROP in 1997. It was one of those serendipitous events. As Professor Oh proposed an undergraduate research opportunities program responding to the call of Dr. William Cooper, the Provost at the time, for new initiatives, others on campus had similar thoughts. Professor Oh served as the selection committee of both the regular academic year and summer programs for GUROP. At the same time, she also participated in GUROP as the faculty researcher/sponsor. The GUROP assistance was essential in publishing two of her edited volumes, The Legacies of Comfort Women of WWII (2001) and Korea under the American Military Government, 1945-1948 (2002). A GUROP assistant for the latter volume won a summer GUROP stipend. Their research on the subject became a featured item in the welcoming speech for the freshmen by the former president, Rev. Leo O’Donovan, SJ, at the New Student Convocation. It was also an item in the president’s letter to the alumni later that fall. Last fall, Professor Oh had two students sharing one GUROP. This semester, she has one, Inho Kim, helping with a new book project, “The Murder of Empress Myongsong of Korea.”