Two School of Education and Social Policy seniors have been awarded 2010 Summer Undergraduate Research Grants from the Office of the Provost. Talia Seidman and Kate Stephensen are pursuing research projects related to their majors this summer.
The Undergraduate Research Grants Program, funded by the Office of the Provost, encourages students to immerse themselves in scholarly research with faculty supervision. Students may apply for summer grants of $3,000 to support independent research projects.
Seidman's research is on the topic of "Parental Depression and Temperamental Emotionality in Children." She is majoring in human development and psychological services and psychology, and her research adviser is Catherine Durbin, an assistant professor of psychology in Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.
Stephensen, who is majoring in history and pursuing a teaching certificate in secondary education through SESP, is researching "Persecution and Expulsion of Loyalists in Maine During the Lead Up to and Early Years of the American Revolution." Her research adviser is history professor Timothy Breen.
"Currently, there continue to be many unknowns about the predispositions and precursors for depression," notes Seidman. Although there is evidence that low levels of positive emotionality increase the likelihood of depression, longitudinal studies are lacking on whether a child's temperament predicts the later development of depression, according to Seidman.She is conducting an eight-week study in the Durbin Lab on campus, examining the relationship between temperamental emotionality in preschool-aged children and the history of mood disorders in their parents. She is using parents' responses to a depression questionnaire and coding previously recorded laboratory assessments of child temperament. "I hope that the proposed study will further the current understanding of depression's etiology," she says.
During her sophomore year when she received her first Undergraduate Research Grant, she spent spring break in Halifax, Nova Scotia, reading the personal papers of Reverend Jacob Bailey, a loyalist who was forced to flee Maine during the early years of the American Revolution. This summer, she is continuing that research in Evanston.
"It is my ultimate goal is to go beyond the popular version of the American Revolution as documented by the victorious revolutionaries to study the era as experienced and recorded by the silenced loyalists," says Stephensen. "I hope to discover any commonalities in their treatment at the hands of the rebels and their reactions to the rebellion. By looking at both loyalists who fled to Nova Scotia and those who remained in Maine, I hope to get a broader sense of loyalist life in the era (1773 to 1777)."
In addition to the summer grants, the Office of the Provost offers Undergraduate Research Grants during the academic year to cover independent research expenses of up to $1,000. In addition, Conference Travel Grants of up to $500 are available to students who will present creative productions or research findings at an academic meeting. Information about application deadlines for all types of Undergraduate Research Grants is available at http://www.northwestern.edu/undergrad-research/.
Photos: (Top) Talia Seidman, (bottom) Kate Stephensen