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Pursuing an academic passion

University students work on off-Grounds research projects over the summer

<p>Rising fourth-year College student Elizabeth Duffield conducts summer research on sustainable tourism development in Fortaleza, Brazil.</p>

Rising fourth-year College student Elizabeth Duffield conducts summer research on sustainable tourism development in Fortaleza, Brazil.

While some students leave Grounds after finals ready to put classes and schoolwork behind them, others, like rising fourth-year College students Grace Finley, Elizabeth Duffield and Emma Kitchen, are using the summer months to further their academic pursuits with University-funded research projects.

Both Finley and Duffield are conducting research funded by Harrison Undergraduate Research Awards in South America this summer.

“[Summer research] is an exciting way to firsthand explore something I’m interested in and give all my attention to it,” Finley said. “I also do research during the semester, but I can’t be as involved with it as I am with [summer research] because I have to also focus on my classes during the semester.”

Finley’s research project investigates short-term medical clinics in Iquitos, Peru. With the NGO People of Peru Project, Finley is examining the clinics’ benefits and detriments for the Iquitos community and their functions as two-sided markets. She interviews members of the community and patients in the clinics to collect data.

“Development aid can have both positive and negative effects, so it is critical to, as best you can, understand what impact your development aid is making,” Finley said.

Duffield, who started research in 2013 while studying abroad, is exploring sustainable tourism development in Fortaleza, Brazil through interviews with government officials, professors and other members of the community.

“It was a requirement of the [study abroad] program to complete a month long research project and conduct interviews, be on the ground, conduct field work and really get to know an aspect of sustainable development in this area,” Duffield said. “I had a really positive experience with my research, so when I got back to U.Va. for my third year, I decided that I wanted to apply for a grant to go back and continue my research and use it as my fourth-year thesis for my interdisciplinary major.”

Duffield said her summer research has unexpectedly exposed parallel developmental issues in both Brazil and the United States.

“Social justice and development issues in Brazil are much more similar to things happening in the United States than I had initially realized,” Duffield said. “Brazil, still essentially a developing country, has more intense and more obvious development issues. But, when you really think about it, so much of what I saw really exists in the U.S., but more hidden and less acute.”

A little closer to home, Kitchen is conducting archival research in Boston and Philadelphia. Kitchen’s project on Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz explores the interaction between the American public and science during the 19th century.

“You feel almost as if you are a detective, you have your question that you pose and then it’s completely up to you to dig up these voices from the past and see what’s there,” Kitchen said.

Through her research on Louis Agassiz, Kitchen said she anticipates learning more about the public’s perception of evolutionary biology during the period between 1846 and 1876.

“I think it’s really interesting to use Louis Agassiz as a case study into how the broader public viewed a science, especially something like comparative zoology, that wasn’t obviously practical or useful in terms of ‘Oh how can we make money off of this,’” Kitchen said. “Today I think the intersection between science and society on things controversial like evolution…is a good way to look at how those ideas formed and how the public has always viewed science.”

The three students said their research projects help them explore an academic interest which could turn into a career. Duffield and Kitchen’s summer research will contribute to their major theses in Global Environments and Sustainability and History, respectively, while Finley’s summer research gives her surveying experience she plans to use in a future career.

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