Office of Student Scholarship Creative Activities and Research (OSCAR)

Mason research takes a SMART approach to tactical athlete fitness

Sarah Holland — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 20:31:59 +0000

Mason research takes a SMART approach to tactical athlete fitness Sarah Holland Tue, 04/09/2024 - 16:31

From dietitians to personal trainers, it takes a team of experts and specialists to keep professional athletes strong and healthy throughout their careers. But Joel Martin, associate professor of kinesiology in ��AV’s College of Education and Human Development, thinks there’s one group of athletes missing that same level of support: tactical athletes.

Joel Martin, right, tests ROTC cadet grip strength. Photo provided.

“Tactical athletes are those in professions where physical fitness is a critical component, but who aren’t sport athletes,” Martin explained. This includes military, law enforcement, and first responders. Through the Fit2Serve program, Martin hopes to give tactical athletes the support and resources they’re missing.

Fit2Serve began through an Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research (OSCAR) summer impact grant. Martin works with student researchers in Mason’s Sports Medicine Assessment Research and Testing (SMART) Lab on the SciTech Campus to provide fitness testing and wellness resources for tactical athletes and looks for solutions for their specific challenges.

“I think a lot of us know someone involved in military or emergency response,” Martin said, “and we don’t always appreciate the challenges those professions experience, both day-to-day and long term.”

Fitness, Martin said, is more than exercise—sleep, diet, mental wellness, and everyday physical activity all play a role. By improving overall fitness, Martin hopes to improve tactical athletes’ ability to complete occupational tasks and their health and longevity, as well as prevent injuries. For firefighters especially, there is a critical need for better resources, education, and research in these areas.

“Post-retirement mortality rates for firefighters are, on average, much higher than the rest of the population, due to the high physical demands of their jobs, high potential for injury, and consequences of poor sleep and wellness while on active duty,” Martin said. “We want to improve that statistic.”

His research team uses tools such as sleep surveys and real-time fitness monitoring during training exercises to make holistic recommendations for first responder wellness strategies.

“It’s useful for them to understand the physical demands of what they’re doing in order to make more informed decisions that will hopefully prevent extreme fatigue and injury in the long run,” Martin explained.

Their work is already making an impact. After a controlled burn training with the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department, for example—where Martin and his team examined the extreme physical load placed on the individuals setting up the burn using wearable biosensors—they were able to provide objective data to support a command decision by the fire department to reduce the length of the training from full days to half days. Martin hopes that an upcoming load monitoring study will lead to firefighter schedule adjustments to prevent extended sleep deprivation; many work 24-hour shifts, which leads to disrupted sleep cycles and degraded fitness. This study will be the dissertation for PhD student Mike Toczko.

Another arm of Martin’s work is closer to home—right on the Fairfax Campus, in fact: Mason’s Army ROTC program. He credits current PhD student Megan Sax van der Weyden for rebuilding the bridge between the SMART Lab and ROTC through their incorporation into the Fit2Serve program.

Sax van der Weyden applied for Mason’s PhD in Education with a specialization in kinesiology because of the department’s established research with tactical athletes. As both a former student-athlete and ROTC cadet, she hopes to reduce the disparities between the available resources for these groups.
“[As a student-athlete] I had dietitians, sports doctors, mental health counselors, and specialists creating our fitness plans and giving us pre- and post-workout routines,” she said. “For ROTC, you only had the upper-level cadets giving out whatever advice they had gotten from their upper-level cadets.” More formal education backed by research would help to prolong cadets’ military careers and reduce risk of injury, she said.

Megan Sax van der Weyden, seated on the bleachers, measures ROTC cadets' jump ability. Photo provided.

After graduating, Sax van der Weyden will serve in the Army, where she hopes to put this experience to use.

“It’s been a really good learning experience figuring out how to work with large groups of research subjects and even larger data sets. And it’s good practice for distilling complicated theories and information into digestible components for an uninformed audience,” said Sax van der Weyden.

Along with providing fitness testing and health surveys for the battalion each semester, Sax van der Weyden delivers presentations on the importance of diet, fitness, and sleep, and is currently working on an online learning database for tactical athletes that she hopes will last long beyond her time at Mason.

Martin said many students find the Fit2Serve program provides them with a new outlook on how they can make an impact.

“I see a lot of students come into the kinesiology program thinking they want to do sports medicine, and then transition to tactical athlete research after working with emergency responders,” Martin said.

“It makes me smile watching them learn that they can make a difference in this field.”

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Mason anthropology professor receives NSF grant to excavate Israeli cave site

Shayla Brown — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 19:31:19 +0000

Mason anthropology professor receives NSF grant to excavate Israeli cave site Shayla Brown Wed, 10/04/2023 - 15:31

��AV anthropologist Jamie Clark and two undergraduate students spent part of the summer on an archaeological expedition in Sefunim Cave, Israel.

Clark, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, received a grant of $44,745 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to conduct research at the site. The grant goes through early 2025.

The research team in the Sefunim Caves. Photo provided.

“Getting this grant to focus on the analysis was important, and it's so exciting to have three years of funding,” said Clark. “We've had several excavation seasons since 2013, and with archeology you oftentimes spend more time doing analysis in the lab than you do in the field."

The research for this expedition focuses on the transition from the Neanderthals, which is associated with the Middle Paleolithic period, to modern humans, which is associated with the Upper Paleolithic, and the role of climate change throughout, she said.

Clark's NSF funded research is in collaboration with Gideon Hartman at the University of Connecticut. The excavations were led by Andrew Kandel of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, University of Tübingen and Ron Shimelmitz of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa.

The site they are excavating has deposits going back about 70,000-21,000 years ago, essentially the height of the very last ice age when glaciers were at their greatest extent, Clark said.

“During the last glacial maximum, there's also extreme variability in climate, which is something else we're seeing today with climate change,” said Clark.

Two undergraduate anthropology students who work alongside Clark in the zoo archeology lab in David King Hall were also able to work on the dig.

Jamie Clark (left) and Jett Liska doing field work. Photo provided.

“One of the things that is most important to me is giving undergraduates paid research opportunities, so the grant also pays for the work that I'm having students do,” said Clark.

She said there is a potential barrier to entering the archaeology field for students of limited means. The jobs on digs are often volunteer or unpaid, which isn’t possible for many students.

“It's very hands-on, which is especially cool if you're still an undergrad. Not a lot of students can say that they have that kind of experience,” said Kelly Wilkerson, a senior anthropology major and one of Clark’s lab assistants. “We would be up early to hike one or two kilometers to get to the site around 7 a.m. We dug through the sediment that we uncovered and carried it down [to the lab] at the end of the day.”

Jett Liska, another one of Clark’s lab assistants, received an Undergraduate Research Scholars program grant from Mason’s Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research (OSCAR) program, which helped him participate in the expedition.

“The best part to me was really taking pride in my work and realizing that I was knowledgeable enough about the site to help incredibly smart people,” Liska said.

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^{“One of the things that is most important to me is giving undergraduates paid research opportunities, so the grant also pays for the work that I'm having students do.”}

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Undergraduate research conference energizes attendees

Colleen Rich — Wed, 10 May 2023 17:22:17 +0000

Undergraduate research conference energizes attendees Colleen Rich Wed, 05/10/2023 - 13:22

There was something different about this year’s National Conference on Undergraduate Research, and it had nothing to do with the quality of the presentations, which, as always, was high.

Forensic science major Haruka Mori presenting her research at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. Photo provided

It was, though, the first time since 2019 that the conference was held in person, after its cancellation in 2020 because of the pandemic and two subsequent years as a virtual event.

“The energy at the conference was pretty high,” said Karen T. Lee, assistant director of ��AV’s Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research (OSCAR). “The students seemed really enthusiastic.”

Thirty-nine Mason students attended the April conference at University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, where they made new friends, networked, and gained experiences that will help them in their studies and careers.

The annual conference is a valuable addition to the rich research environment at Mason that allows students to follow their life ambitions.

“It was pretty great,” said senior biology major Gwendolyne Fields, a member of Mason's Honors College who presented her research into the growth rates of Namibian and Somaliland cheetah cubs. “Definitely a lot going on, and so many people. It was cool to see all these other incredible projects that people were doing.”

The word “great” was used by several Mason students to describe the event, including Kayleigh Newman, a junior kinesiology major, and Haruka Mori, a senior forensic science major.

“The conference is interdisciplinary, and I was able to see a lot of different presentations in a lot of different fields,” Mori said. “I feel like if I know a lot of different information from different fields, I can also use that for my research. It makes it possible to see it from a different perspective.”

Added Newman: “I was surprised how much I liked looking at the posters outside my major. It also was interesting to hear the keynote speakers and hear what they were talking about in terms of their research and professional experience.”

Mori’s research, turning centrosymmetric compounds into non-centrosymmetric compounds, was extraordinary, said Mason chemistry professor Xiaoyan Tan.

Non-centrosymmetric materials are crucial for non-linear optics and spintronics, but are much less prevalent than centrosymmetric materials. So when Mori changed a centrosymmetric barium-iridium-oxide compound to non-centrosymmetric by replacing half of the iridium with titanium, it was worth lauding.

“She did more than great,” said Tan, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “Most undergraduates cannot make this. She has very high standards. She was very careful and a good scientist.”

Kinesiology major Kayleigh Newman with her poster. Photo provided

Mori said she enjoyed the give-and-take with her audience during her presentation.

“The audience was specifically from the chemistry field, so the questions they asked were specific to the field,” she said. “It wasn’t general questions. It was why did you use this method instead of this? I was able to see where those questions were coming from and use that for future research.”

Newman’s research was to analyze data from a recent three-year period in which fire department personnel engaged in a mandatory fitness program. The result: personnel made gains in pushups, pull-ups, and curl-ups, but did not gain much in cardiovascular fitness.

“We recommended that cardiovascular fitness be focused on more, and then we let the fire department look at the data and interpret that to maybe make some changes,” Newman said.

Add Fields’ research that showed Namibian cheetah cubs have a higher growth rate than Somaliland cheetah cubs, and you have an idea of the breadth of research at the conference and at Mason, Virginia’s largest and most innovative public university.

“It’s a chance to see what other students are doing at other places, the sense of community,” Lee said of the conference. “Even if it’s different subjects, they’re all doing the same thing you’re doing.”

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Graduate can’t deny an animal attraction

Colleen Rich — Mon, 08 May 2023 18:40:52 +0000

Graduate can’t deny an animal attraction Colleen Rich Mon, 05/08/2023 - 14:40

Gwendolyne Fields will have many career options once she graduates from ��AV.

During the summer of 2022, Gwendolyne Fields interned at the Cheetah Conservation Fund outside the town of Otjiwarongo in Namibia. Photo provided

Should she go for her master’s degree and PhD? Should she go to veterinary school and work with endangered species? Should she work with wildlife at a zoo?

“I don’t know, I’m still figuring it out,” said Fields, a senior biology major and member of Mason’s Honors College who is set to graduate this month. “But I do know I want to work with animals, and specifically conservation.”

Fields has a great head start, having just finished an internship at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C., where she did behavioral analysis of two Asian elephants. She has also lined up a summer internship at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom as a conservation education presenter.

But closest to Fields’ heart was her internship during the summer of 2022 at the Cheetah Conservation Fund outside the town of Otjiwarongo in Namibia. That’s where she worked with the animal that has been her favorite since age 5, comparing the growth rates of Namibian and Somaliland cheetah cubs.

Fields recently presented her data from that internship at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. It was the cap to a Mason experience that not only fed her interests but gave her the hands-on experiences she needs to take her next steps.

Mason was there with funding for her internships through the Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research. Fields also attended the Endangered Species Conservation program at the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation in Front Royal, Virginia.

“I’m so grateful I came here,” Fields said of Mason. “I learned so much and made so many connections with people; great friends and memories.”

“She’s motivated, she’s self-reliant, she is naturally curious, and interested in exploring the world around her, in every sense of it,” said David Luther, assistant professor in Mason’s Biology Department and Fields’ mentor. “And she actually knows when to ask the right questions. That’s important for not stopping progress in whatever she is trying to achieve.”

Fields is from Arlington, Virginia, but with her dad constantly on the move at the State Department, the family also lived in Ethiopia, Argentina, Nepal, Luxembourg, and Germany. Fields speaks fluent French, is conversational in German, and can speak some Spanish.

Her love of cheetahs began when a wildlife veterinarian with whom her father worked in Ethiopia showed her some rescued animals. Fields called the Cheetah Conservation Fund herself to set up her internship. Though her research focused on monitoring and analyzing the growth rate of cubs up to 6 months old, Fields also worked with cheetahs throughout the facility, feeding them, cleaning their enclosures, and giving talks to tourists.

The baseline result that Namibian cheetah cubs had better growth rates than Somaliland cubs is important, Fields said, because “some cubs don’t have their mothers or the skills to survive in the world. So it’s important for zoos and other places that have cheetahs to really take care of them as best as possible. How much food should we give them at a certain age or weight? And if they are at a certain weight, we can estimate their age.”

Fields said she worked with about 30 cheetahs and learned they have personalities much like people.

“Some might seem a little grumpy,” she said. “Others are all lovey-dovey and want to come up to you to get your attention. Every day I was reminded how beautiful and majestic they are. I’d love to go back eventually and finish the research.”

Count it as another of her career options.

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Graduate’s best advice: ‘Take advantage of as many opportunities as you can’

Colleen Rich — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 16:09:07 +0000

Graduate’s best advice: ‘Take advantage of as many opportunities as you can’ Colleen Rich Mon, 12/12/2022 - 11:09

Emily Synoski has had an interest in the medical field since high school. She said she chose to be part of a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) program, and now works in a rehabilitation center, where she also has the opportunity to shadow doctors.

Emily Synoski. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

The Honors College student from Dover, Delaware, who graduates this month from ��AV with a biology degree, has also participated in Georgetown University’s competitive CORE pre-med program, where she and her team pitched an idea to deliver opioid overdose treatment to houseless populations via drones.

At Mason, she participated in Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research’s Undergraduate Research Scholars Program and Associate Professor Ramin Hakami’s Biomedical Research Lab to research Yersinia pestis, the pathogen that causes the plague. Synoski has also been a College of Science learning assistant for Calculus II.

What is your best memory from your time at Mason? It was a culmination of things. I’ve met so many good people and have so many friends and fond memories here. I’m so happy that I applied for the Honors College. They’re just really interesting classes and you get a whole other layer of support with your advisor, and with the opportunity to live in the Honors College learning community.

How have you grown while at Mason? Mason has helped me grow a lot. Career-wise, I feel like I'm actually really prepared to go into the real world. Even though I’m going to leave Mason, I know I can still connect with the [University Career Services], and with faculty. It almost feels like you have lifelong support if you need it, and you make connections that really help you. Not a lot of schools would you be able to reach out to a professor and ask to do research in their lab and they’ll actually respond. That’s one of the things I liked about Mason so much.

What is your best piece of advice for incoming students? Take advantage of as many opportunities as you can. Of course, going into it you can't do everything. You could do a little bit at a time, a semester at a time, but just take advantage whether it’s trying your hand at research, student organizations.

What's next for you? I’m going to keep working as a CNA to get clinic hours for my application to medical school. I want to keep shadowing doctors and retake the MCAT. I’ve been studying for that every single day.

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Office of Student Scholarship Creative Activities and Research (OSCAR)

Off the Clock: Karen Lee, singing bass in a barbershop chorus for more than 30 years

Colleen Rich — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 13:27:42 +0000

Off the Clock: Karen Lee, singing bass in a barbershop chorus for more than 30 years Colleen Rich Thu, 11/17/2022 - 08:27

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Life is much more than time spent on the clock. In this series, we highlight the unique hobbies and volunteer activities of Mason's talented faculty and staff.

Karen Lee performing in New Orleans in 2019. Photo provided

Karen Lee, assistant director of the Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research (OSCAR) at ��AV, helps coordinate funding for undergraduates to conduct research or explore creative projects. Working one-on-one with Mason students, Lee connects them with mentors and opportunities.

Outside of work, Lee sings bass in a women’s barbershop chorus called the Vienna-Falls Chorus, a chapter of Sweet Adelines International. She has been a part of the Sweet Adelines since 1991 and has performed with the Vienna-Falls Chorus at events and competitions for six years, since arriving at Mason.

How did you first get started singing in a women’s barbershop chorus? What made you get into this hobby?

My last year of graduate school, I was looking for something to do besides writing my thesis and job hunting, to get a break from all that. I saw an ad in the paper for a small women’s barbershop chorus looking for singers. I had done some singing in college and played in the high school band. Barbershop sounded like just what I was looking for. I have a pretty low singing voice for a woman, and I love harmonizing, so the bass part in women’s barbershop is perfect for me.

I joined the Island Grove Chorus of Sweet Adelines International in fall of 1991 and have been a member of Sweet Adelines ever since.

What is the time commitment? Does it vary at different times of the year?

The joke is that it’s only one night a week. We rehearse once a week, but we don’t hold music, so we spend some time outside of rehearsal learning the music on our own. If we are preparing for a show or contest, we might have an extra rehearsal here and there, and some times of the year we have more performances than other times. In December, we have several holiday performances, and in the summer, we often sing for Honor Flights. We have weekend-long retreats once or twice a year and regional education weekends, which are voluntary. If you’re in a quartet as well as a chorus, then you have separate commitments for quartet.

What has been the most meaningful or memorable experience you’ve had singing for a barbershop chorus?

There are so many. One year, my former chorus, the Greater Harrisburg Chorus, qualified for the Sweet Adelines International contest in Honolulu, and we spent 10 days in Hawaii.

We also competed at World Choir Games in Cincinnati. It was the first time barbershop was included. We decided to give it a try, and we won the category. They set up the awards ceremony like the Olympics and even played the national anthem. We met singers from all over the world. One of the children’s choirs from China ended up having lunch near us a couple of times and insisted on taking a picture with us on the last day.

And, singing for Honor Flights with Vienna-Falls is a great honor and privilege.

What lessons have you learned through this experience?

That you must have something in your life that is not an obligation, that allows you to be “you” away from work and other responsibilities. Some of the best friends you’ll ever make are when you share a hobby. I have so many friends who I sang with that I would never have met if it wasn’t for Sweet Adelines. It has kept music in my life and given me a place to call home every time I have changed locations for a new job. I have been in six choruses over my 31 years as a barbershopper, and having a chorus nearby is a requirement whenever I think about a move.

Do you have a favorite song you enjoy performing?

I have many songs that I really like, but it would be kind of like asking people who is their favorite child or favorite friend, to ask me to pick just one. I like songs for a variety of reasons. But a melodic bass line in the meat of my range, or a song with a great message, often rise to the top for me, especially if it’s well suited to the chorus. The joy of making music as an ensemble is the point.

What else do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

I walk a lot, travel (especially to the beach), make jewelry, and watch way too much TV.

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Finding middle ground across the sea

Colleen Rich — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 16:54:26 +0000

Finding middle ground across the sea Colleen Rich Mon, 10/03/2022 - 12:54

Mason student Nadya Steare recently completed a two-month residency at the Akureyri Art Museum in Iceland where she worked full time on a new series. Photo provided

At only 20 years old, artist Nadya Steare has held her first solo exhibition abroad.

Steare, nicknamed Bella in her department, is in her senior year at ��AV’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. She recently completed a two-month residency at the Akureyri Art Museum in Iceland where she worked full time on a new series.

“Much of my artwork focuses on human interaction with the natural world,” said Steare. “I work with a mix of recycled, natural and manufactured objects in the realms of painting and small-scale installation.”

“Working with these materials has sparked several questions on the relevance of found objects and earth-based media in the contemporary art field as well as its place in coming to terms with globalization and inevitable environmental change,” she said.

Steare, a self-proclaimed environmental enthusiast and activist, traveled to Akureyri after discovering its proximity to one of Iceland’s most successful reforestation projects, Kjarnaskogur. The body of work Steare created explores the influence of reforestation on distance perception and landscape identity.

“I would like to use my skills to help with the development of more sustainable practices in the visual arts industry,” said Steare.

At the end of her residency, Steare had a solo exhibition at the Deiglan Gallery in Akureyri titled Middle Ground. Photo provided

At the end of her residency, she had a solo exhibition at the Deiglan Gallery in Akureyri. Her exhibit was titled Middle Ground to “reflect the exploration of landscape identity and depth perception in the work,” she said. “It was briefly fulfilling to see all of the paintings displayed together and how well they were received by the community.”

Steare said that her Mason professor and mentor, Erik Sandberg, guided her through the residency experience.

“His straightforwardness and sincerity when discussing artwork consistently challenged me to grow as a critical thinker and has always motivated me to advance in my studies and personal investigations,” she said.

Steare has taken many classes with Sandberg including Figurative Painting this fall.

“My main objective is to help students refine their technical skills and to encourage better paths to expressing their ideas,” said Sandberg, who is an adjunct professor in Mason’s School of Art. “I think that being able to manage both form and content in your work as an artist is essential.”

“Bella is quite talented and has a gift of aesthetic sensibilities and maturity. She is one of the most driven students I have encountered in some time,” he said. “Bella is way ahead of the curve in terms of artistic experiences, and she shows no sign of slowing.”

Steare’s residency was sponsored by Mason’s Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research (OSCAR).

“We have six programs through our office,” said Karen T. Lee, assistant director of OSCAR. “The Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) fit Nadya’s interest the best.”

After graduating with her BFA in art and visual technology, Steare plans to pursue an interdisciplinary master’s degree in art and ecology. “In addition to continuing my exploration of landscape identity, hopefully involving a return to Iceland, I’d also like to further investigate natural alternatives to manufactured artist products.”

A second and more elaborate version of Steare’s exhibition, re-titled Víðsýni, will be displayed on the lower-level gallery of the Art and Design Building on the Fairfax Campus from October 31–November 13.

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From Capitol Hill to Quebec, Molly Izer Makes Policy Research International

Wasiq Muhammad Muhammad Ali — Fri, 16 Sep 2022 17:10:29 +0000

From Capitol Hill to Quebec, Molly Izer Makes Policy Research International Wasiq Muhammad… Fri, 09/16/2022 - 13:10

Molly Izer’s political curiosity knows no bounds. As a second-year student in the Honors College, Izer has already explored a range of political advocacy spheres. From her high school origins in grassroots organizing in Oregon to her freshman-year congressional internships in Washington, D.C., Izer is now taking the next step with policy research at ��AV and beyond.

Merging her interests in policy advocacy and research, Izer spent this past summer as both a legislative affairs intern for the Executive Office’s Council on Environmental Quality and as an Undergraduate Research Scholar with Mason’s Office of Student Scholarships, Creative Activities, and Research (OSCAR). Between both roles, Izer developed her understanding of the internal dynamics of and interactions among Congress and the White House, an area she was encouraged to explore through her first-year research course, HNRS 110: Principles of Research and Inquiry.

“In my [HNRS 110] classes…we were taught to not only look for differences that we could see on the outside, but also look at why they happen that way,” Izer recalls from the course, a first-semester requirement for all Honors College students.

Izer found that her Honors College background in research greatly shaped her success with the summer internships. “[Y]our job [as a congressional and White House intern] is to produce information and compound it in a way that people can consume it quickly, understand it very clearly, and they can apply immediately.”

Practicing collecting, analyzing, and synthesizing information through HNRS 110 also prepared Izer for her summer OSCAR project. Mentored by Schar School of Policy and Government professor Dr. Jennifer Victor, she investigated the informal dynamics that occur within the House of Representatives through congressional caucuses, seeking to understand how the interactions influence various types of legislative behaviors. In September, Izer looks forward to sharing her current findings at the 2022 American Political Science Annual Meeting. Hosted by the leading organization for the study of political science, the meeting convenes in Montreal, Quebec this year. Izer is eager to present her work before similarly motivated distinguished scholars, an opportunity to which she notes few if any undergraduate students are invited.

However, she is no stranger to academic conferences. In Spring 2022, Izer participated in the Midwest Political Science Association’s 2022 conference, presenting her HNRS 110 project "Misinformation: Gone Viral.” Sharing the product of her work widely beyond the Mason community is especially important. On research communication and applicability outside of academia, Izer believes it is important “to [transform research] into something that other people can gain from and something that other people can see and learn from.”

She attributes her preparation for this task to her training in the Honors College: “The Honors College in particular teaches how to not just learn but to be teachers, and producing research gives us an avenue to be a teacher.”

Looking forward, Izer plans to publish her summer research project with Dr. Victor. Her HNRS 110 paper is also forthcoming in the George Mason Review journal. She encourages Honors College students looking to further their research or get involved in political advocacy to put themselves out there and ask for help; her experiences prove to her that reaching out to the professor or applying for the position that interests you can lead to impactful experiences.

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Schar School of Policy and Government

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Mason researchers partner with Indigenous nations to promote environmental resilience

Mariam Aburdeineh — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 20:29:47 +0000

Mason researchers partner with Indigenous nations to promote environmental resilience Mariam Aburdeineh Fri, 09/02/2022 - 16:29

In This Story

Thomas Wood

It’s common to think of Indigenous peoples as living in the past. We may think of them around Thanksgiving or in old films and books. But Native Americans are very much here and now, said Jeremy Campbell, and after decades of struggle, that’s starting to be recognized.

Dancing at an Upper Mattaponi Powwow in May 2022.

In 2018, U.S. legislation granted federal recognition to six tribes in Virginia. A ��AV team has been partnering with two of them, the Upper Mattaponi and Chickahominy nations, as they embark on being sovereign nations.

“What really has been an honor to be a part of is building the capacity and the sovereignty of native tribes,” said Campbell, a College of Science professor co-leading the Mason team with School of Integrated Studies professor Tom Wood. “This is a wonderful opportunity for us, as a university, to build a sustainable and respectful relationship that has the potential to last for decades.”

Supporting Tribal Sovereignty

When tribes become sovereign nations, they must set up governments and structures to communicate with the U.S. government, said Campbell, associate director for strategic engagement at Mason’s Institute for a Sustainable Earth. That includes a department of environmental management, which both tribes are setting up.

That’s where Mason comes in.

Over the summer, Campbell and Wood led a multidisciplinary team of 10 undergraduates and two graduate researchers to collect environmental data in partnership with tribal governments as part of a Summer Impact Project. Their research will support tribes in making informed decisions for their communities when it comes to conservation, restoration, and environmental matters.

Chickahominy Connections

George Mason student Sara Jefferson is a member of the Chickahominy Tribe. Photo provided.

For junior psychology major Sara Jefferson, the project hits home.

“My favorite part about working on this project is being able to teach others about my culture and my people, while also learning about the natural world around me,” said Jefferson, a member of the Chickahominy Tribe and of Mason’s Native American and Indigenous Alliance.

Jefferson is part of three groups supporting the Chickahominy tribe in food security, wildlife assessment, and digital mapping.

“In the food security group, we’re researching the accessibility to different food sources in the surrounding Charles City area, and assisting the beginning process of community gardens within the tribe,” she said.

Jefferson is also part of a wildlife assessment group that’s identifying wildlife commonly found in the area and declining species. This involves expeditions along the Powhatan (James) River at dawn—when animals are most likely to be out—and recording where and when animals are discovered.

“This project has been very valuable to the Chickahominy Tribe, as it’s helped us establish a baseline of information about our tribal lands and waters that will help us as we make decisions going forward,” said Dana Adkins, tribal environmental director of the Chickahominy Indian Tribe. “As we work to strengthen our community’s role as stewards of our ancestral lands, it’s been great to partner with the students and learn from them as they learn from us.”

The team during a wildlife assessment. From left to right: Brian Jiménez, Olga Cheltsova, Maiya Justice, Dominique Hannon, Dana Adkins (Chickahominy Tribal Environmental Director), Dr. Tom Wood, Guadalupe Meza-Negrete.

Uncovering What Was Lost

In the wildlife assessments, the teams are also tracking what they didn’t find, such as native plant species being pushed out by invasives, Campbell said. Talking with their Indigenous partners helps them understand what the ecosystem should look like.

Collaborating with the tribes is of utmost importance for upholding tribal sovereignty, and for expanding students’ understanding.

“Leading with humility is really important, especially when you’re working with a group that’s been historically marginalized,” said senior sociology major James Condo. “Understanding that you’re going to be a student of everyone else around you is really important to keep in mind for research and in life.”

That mindset can be powerful, Campbell said, especially as the system most people are used to has ignored or marginalized Indigenous ways of knowing.

“If we connect with those ways of knowing and relationships, it can enrich our personal lives, and our ability to perceive and interact with nonhumans, and other communities, in a way that leads to more profound awareness.”

Prof. Tom Wood, Brian Jiménez and Mason team members using a spotting scope during a wildlife assessment.

Going Digital

The Mason team is also training tribal members in how to create geospatial information systems (GIS) databases. These include information about landscape changes, and air and water quality.

“We pull it into a system like ArcGIS, and overlay culturally significant points,” Campbell said. “We’re working with the tribes to train them, so that, if we’re successful, we can stand back and just stand ready for the new kinds of questions and challenges that might come up.”

Students also benefit.

“This has started to get me versed in GIS, and geospatial data is on the cutting edge of a lot of social science fields,” Condo said. “It’s really a great access point for a lot of interdisciplinary spaces.”

Mason students working with Chickahominy participants in a GIS skills building workshop.

Protecting Indigenous Data

“Tribal sovereignty is at the heart of this partnership, which is necessary and important,” said Leigh Mitchell, environmental and cultural protection director of the Upper Mattaponi Indian tribe. “Indigenous priorities have led the way in this research.”

For the Upper Mattaponi, who recently took land into trust, one of those priorities includes documenting how their landscape—which borders on the edge of urban expansion—has changed over the past 50 years, and how people are interacting with the land.

The Mason team is also constructing protocols to ensure that Indigenous people have control of their data in accordance with the principles of Indigenous Data Sovereignty—the right of a tribal nation to govern the collection, ownership, and application of its own data.

“[Indigenous Data Sovereignty] encourages us to think of data as another kind of valuable resource that people need, use and care for, the way we might think of natural resources,” Campbell said. “As Virginia’s tribal nations reassert their sovereignty, it is important that their control over information pertaining to their communities, landscapes, and waterways be securely and affirmatively under their control.”

One of the team’s next steps, Campbell said, is to create a digital environment where tribes can grant tiers of access to non-native collaborators.

Research in Dialogue

Learning directly with the tribes has been a major draw, Jefferson and Condo agreed.

In addition to providing tribes with information needed to make informed environmental decisions, relationship building has been at the project’s center.

“It’s very much a dialogue,” Campbell said.

From left to right: Adam Edwards, Olga Cheltsova, James Condo, Patricia Troup, Elizabeth Schierbeek, Dr. Jeremy Campbell, Upper Mattaponi Chief Frank Adams.

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Mason students build digital archive for victims of China’s mid 20th century Anti-‘Rightist’ Campaign

Colleen Rich — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 19:23:05 +0000

Mason students build digital archive for victims of China’s mid 20th century Anti-‘Rightist’ Campaign Colleen Rich Thu, 09/01/2022 - 15:23

In This Story

Myeong Lee

Learn more about the Summer Impact Projects

This summer, ��AV students designed and developed a pilot web-based archival application to organize documents relating to the victims of China’s Anti-“Rightist” Campaign in the 1950s.

The student team brainstorming ideas. Photo provided

Six undergraduate students and one doctoral student participated in a Summer Team Impact Project to build the online platform. Using the pilot application, researchers will be able to search extensive archives relating to names, birth and death dates, and biographies of individuals labeled “Rightists.”

“The documentation hasn’t been easily searchable, “said Myeong Lee, assistant professor in the Department of Information Sciences and Technology who co-supervised the project. “This online platform will allow people the ability not only to search through the archive, but also to contribute to it as more information is tracked down.”

Predating China’s Cultural Revolution, the Anti-“Rightist” Campaign was launched by Chairman Mao Zedong to purge “Rightists” from the Chinese Communist Party and the entire country.

Beginning in 1957 and lasting for about two years, the campaign may have affected between 500,000 and 2 million individuals. Targeted individuals were reeducated, humiliated, relocated, or executed. The main focus was on “intellectuals,” which tended to mean professors, artists teachers, writers and doctors.

“There are very few people alive from that time who can tell us about what happened, so it is urgent that we document who the ‘Rightists’ were along with their experiences,” said Shanshan Cui, associate professor specializing in design in Mason’s School of Art who supervised the project with Lee.

The student researchers presented the results of their summer efforts online in August. In the presentation, the students describe how their goal was to research and create an online archive that was easy to navigate, beginning with 40,000 documents.

“I am definitely glad I participated in the project,” said Weilon Price, a senior majoring in computer science. “I learned a lot about web framework and analyzing large amounts of data. I also learned a lot about teamwork and communicating effectively with my team.”

The student researchers, who had prior experience and interest in software design and development, received training in the areas of data analysis, computational methods for processing large amounts of information, and software development.

“Working on the project was a good way to spend my summer,” said Joel Adeniji, a senior majoring in computer science. “I got a chance to help make sure this part of history is never forgotten.”

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Office of Student Scholarship Creative Activities and Research (OSCAR)

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Mason students build digital archive for victims of China’s mid 20th century Anti-‘Rightist’ Campaign

In This Story

Learn more about the Summer Impact Projects

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