HUCE announces undergraduate research awards:

The Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE) has announced its undergraduate summer research awards for 2003.

“Supporting student research to allow undergraduates to pursue intellectual interests beyond the classroom to the laboratory or the field strengthens their educational experience at Harvard,” said Michael B. McElroy, director of the HUCE and Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies. “These research projects teach students to apply the skills and knowledge gained from course work to a range of interesting environmental issues.”

The awards are funded by a grant from the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation.

The research award recipients follow:

Iris Ahronowitz ’03, a social studies concentrator, will be conducting a comparative study of two Massachusetts nonprofit organizations working on urban agriculture.

Adeline Boatin ’04, an environmental science and public policy concentrator, will travel to Africa to study the effects of the 1994 Rwandan genocide on agricultural practices.

Herng-Yu Sucie Chang ’03, an environmental science and public policy concentrator, will examine the efficacy of youth involvement in Roxbury urban asthma issues, and will examine how lessons learned from community outdoor campaigns can be applied to reduce indoor air pollutants.

Caitlin Frame ’04, a biology concentrator, will pursue the Isolation of Form IA RubisCO from E. coli transformed with cyanobacterial DNA.

Mervyn Han ’03, an environmental science and public policy concentrator, will examine the political dynamics of an American Indian community in northern Canada, the Pimicikamak Cree Nation, which recently decided to ally with environmental organizations in a campaign against hydroelectric development.

Zachary Liscow ’04, an environmental science and public policy concentrator, will evaluate how the impact of a selective harvest on the above-ground carbon storage pools in a northern temperate forest changes with time, with broader implications for U.S. carbon budgets.

Shanshan Mou ’04, a biology concentrator, will study the characterization of a distinctive Form II RubisCO in a vesicomyid-chemoautoroph symbiosis.

Gregory Santoni ’04, a chemistry and physics concentrator, will study landscape-level forest demography in the Brazilian Amazon Basin.

Katharine Widland ’04, an environmental studies special concentrator, will look at the incentive programs that the federal government has created to encourage the privatization of endangered species work, as well as those private individuals who become involved without public aid.