Women in Science Share Research Projects

Women in Science at Harvard-Radcliffe (WISHR) held its second general meeting of the year last night, featuring research presentations by five undergraduates.

The students, concentrators in fields from chemistry to English, presented their projects in Ticknor Lounge in Boylston Hall.

WISHR organized the presentations to provide a forum for the students to share their research experiences with the community and to make others aware of the opportunities available to them.

"We held this presentation so women who are interested in research opportunities can learn how to get involved," said Christine M. Pui '99, the group's co-president.

Yun J. Lee '00, vice president of WISHR, said the opportunity to learn about others' research was welcome. "A lot of people do interesting work, and you don't always get a chance to hear about it," she said.

A crowd of nearly 20 people listened to the presentations.

Anne-Marie Oreskovich '99 spoke about her research in knot theory and the Unique Prime Decomposition of Knots Theorem, which states, "No matter how ugly a knot is, provided that it's tame, [it] can be decomposed into a product of prime knots."

Oreskovich, who is writing a senior thesis based on her research, also works on tiling research with a professor at MIT. She said she chose to write about knot theory because of its many practical applications.

"People are usually surprised to find out that there is an entire mathematical theory devoted to studying a commonplace object such as a knot," she said. "It was tough choice for me choosing whether to write about tilings or knots, but the Harvard math department has great mathematicians doing exciting knot theory research."

In addition to providing opportunities to work closely with some of Harvard's esteemed professors, students said, undergraduate research also allows students to investigate possible careers.

Elizabeth D. Wilcox '01, a pre-med student and English concentrator, used the method of forced preferential looking to trace the development of childhood vision at the School of Optometry at the University of California at Berkeley.

Wilcox, who said she is interested in becoming a pediatrician, said she "picked this particular [research opportunity] because it dealt with pediatrics, in a real hands-on manner."

Other students said they chose their research projects due in part to their relevance to current affairs.

Elizabeth D. Chao '01, a chemistry concentrator, worked with Stephen Caldewood and Joan Butterton at the Infectious Disease Division of Massachusetts General Hospital on the "Pathogenicity Island of Shigella Dystenteria." She said was supported by a grant from Radcliffe.

"I am primarily interested in Shigella not only because of its high mortality rate in developing countries, but also because of its recent outbreaks, surprisingly, in the U.S.," she wrote in an e-mail. "Developing more effective treatments against this devastating food-borne pathogen is fascinating to me not only at the microscopic level but also at the macroscopic level, where it becomes clear that cultural and social factors are just as important as the biological factors in causing the disease."

Jessica I. Chuang '00, a physical chemistry major, discussed her work on the mechanical properties of DNA duplex using chemical force microscopy.

And Noelle Eckley '00-'99, an environmental science and public policy concentrator, shared her investigation on the range of dispersion of "persistent organic pollutants."

Events sponsored by WISHR are open to both men and women interested in learning more about the sciences. WISHR will hold its next general meeting on Nov. 18, at which Cynthia Friend, Richards professor of chemistry, is scheduled to speak.