Aerial view of Jerome M. Sachs Administrative Building (Building C)

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Northeastern Illinois University’s College of Graduate Studies and Research, together with the Research and Creative Activities Advisory Group, will wrap up the Graduate Dean’s Research and Creative Activities Assistantships for the 2015-16 academic year soon and is taking applications for the next academic year. The deadline is April 15, and the awards will be announced April 29. Awards will be contingent on available funding.

The goal of the awards is to give graduate students an extended opportunity to experience and participate in the conduct of a research or creative activity project with a Northeastern faculty member.

The students who are participating in the 2015-16 assistantships are:

Derek Barthel

With Caleb Gallemore, Geography and Environmental Studies
Barthel and Gallemore are pursuing a research project utilizing remote sensing coupled with statistical analysis to compare deforestation at the local level in the countries of Colombia, which has been characterized by considerable conflict, and Belize, which has not.

Alisa Burris

With Ryan Poll, English
With Poll, Burris is learning and executing editing and research techniques to aid in the publication of Poll’s latest book, “Worlds Made By Oil: Petrofictions from Moby-Dick to Globalization.” In addition, Burris is organizing and leading three seminars based on the editing techniques she is learning as Poll’s assistant.

Olivia Choi

With Sarah Orlofske, Biology
Choi and Orlofske are creating and verifying food web models across an urban land use gradient in northeastern Illinois, with a specific focus on the parasites of bird hosts.

Ashourina Hartoun

With Laura Tejada, Counselor Education
Hartoun and Tejada are conducting and analyzing a phenomenological study of the perceptions and experiences of individuals from Chicago’s Assyrian community regarding relational dynamics in their family of origin.

Konrad Pawelek

With Rose Sperrazza, Music
Pawelek and Sperrazza are illuminating and utilizing collaborative learning within a group of freshman and sophomore Music Education majors who are working together toward the common goal of presenting a concert at the end of the academic year.

Alejandro Sanchez Jr.

With Joseph Hibdon, Mathematics
Sanchez and Hibdon are studying diffusion flames (in which oxidizer and fuel are initially separated and come together via some external forces at the flame) in a closed chamber, with the goals of developing numerical simulations of recent models that predict flame location and flame extinctions.

David Chung

With Alison Dover, Educational Inquiry and Curriculum Studies
Chung and Dover examined how justice-oriented teachers and teacher candidates are navigating the philosophical and practical challenges of enacting justice in standards-driven, accountability-oriented educational settings. (Photo unavailable because assistantship was only one semester.)