Meet Paul. He is a History major and a current Undergraduate Research Award (URA) scholar. His research focuses on Russian Civil War propaganda posters and their effects on Cold-War and post-Cold War history.

How did you find your mentor for year research project?
I had a class with Dr. Kate Brown. 

How did you know this was the project you wanted to do?
I have been interested in the Soviet Union since I was six. For a very long time, I have wanted to do in-depth research on the Russian Civil War.

Is this your first independent research project?
I have completed two other pieces of research on my other interest, which is China’s rise. I have already written a 75-page paper on the People’s Liberation Army-Navy, and a paper on the Sino-Australian relationship.

Do you get course credit for this work? How much time do you put into it?
This URA also doubles as a History honors thesis. During the summer I lived in DC, and I went to the Library of Congress on a weekly basis. I also am reading books for my research for a significant portion of my day.

How did you hear about the Undergraduate Research Award (URA) program?
Through the Sondheim Scholars program.

What academic background did you have before you applied for the URA?
I have taken a few years of Russian and I have taken most of the Russian history courses offered at UMBC.

Was the application difficult to do?
It was moderately hard. Coming up with a research question that is doable in one year is very challenging. My mentor was very helpful in the process of writing the proposal.

What has been the hardest part about your research? What was the most unexpected thing?
The hardest part was finding materials that deal with this issue. The most unexpected was finding out how many religious symbols that the supposedly atheist Communist Party used in its propaganda.

What else are you involved in on campus?
Debate Team, Model UN Team, History Student Council, Jewish Student Union and trying to manage two other majors, one minor, and two certificate programs.

What is your advice to other students about getting involved in research?
Finding a good mentor is critical. If you want to get a good mentor, stand out in a class that the mentor teaches and take it from there. Additionally, it would help if your mentor is your major adviser. 

Read his abstract here...

The INDS Photo Contest is a monthly competition that aims to create a collection of images illustrating the diverse activities of our program. This collection will be used to promote the INDS program at future events and published materials, including various web-based platforms.

Prize: Each month the winning photo will receive a prize of $25 placed on the campus card of the student who submitted that entry.

Judging: Judging will take place during the first week of every month as INDS staff gather to review each photo submitted during the previous calendar month. The judges will be looking for a photo that illustrates something within the broad range of activities covered by the INDS program. These activities include coursework, fieldwork, research, independent study, internships, INDS events, and anything else that relates to your degree/the program in general. In future months, we may announce a “theme of the month” (e.g. Foreign Travel) but for now (and until posted otherwise) we invite pictures from any and all aspects of INDS. Remember, our primary aim is to create a large body of up-to-date images that we can go on to use in our promotion and outreach materials: we are looking for images that engage their viewer in a deeper sense of the rich opportunities afforded by INDS.

Rules:

• Submit images through Instagram* with at least 3 tags (e.g. research, field work…) as well as #INDSumbc
• Provide a caption of 25 words or less (what, where, how it relates to INDS)
• The competition is open to INDS majors and non-majors – it is only the subject matter that must relate directly to the INDS program
• Each month’s winner will be contacted at the beginning of the next month – i.e. our first winner, for October’s photos, will be announced in the first week of November.
• The purpose of the contest is to build a library of images to promote INDS. We therefore ask that each entry is made available for our later use for brochures, posters, reports etc. For this reasonby submitting an image you are agreeing to UMBC’s Terms and Permissions.

* You will need an Instagram account. It is an easy and free app to download on your smartphone. Contact us if you need further help

The history of science collections held in the Center for the History of Microbiology and the Center for Biological Sciences Archives are the focus of this year's Archives Month festivities at UMBC. Jeff Karr, the archivist for the Center for the History of Microbiology and American Society for Microbiology (ASM) library and archives, has curated a small exhibit in the Library about famed microbiologist Dr. Cornelis B. van Niel.

CORNELIS B. VAN NIEL (1897-1985): Bringing the Delft School to America

Shortly after arriving at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station (HMS) in Pacific Grove, CA from his native Delft, Cornelis B. van Niel fundamentally redefined the process of photosynthesis, suggesting that it was water, not carbon dioxide, which was the source of oxygen released in this process. Based on analogy from the metabolism of the purple sulfur bacteria, his insight offered an early example of the value of using microorganisms to illuminate larger biological processes. His suggestion that green plant photosynthesis was only a specific instance of a more generalized metabolic process helped demonstrate the "Unity in Biochemistry" which had been posited by his mentor in Delft, Albert Jan Kluyver.

van Niel was also an admired teacher. From 1930 until 1962 his short summer course in "General Microbiology" drew increasing numbers of scientists from a wide variety of disciplines who were enthralled by his animated lecture style and his broad knowledge of the bacteria.

In 2004 the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) designated the Loeb Laboratory at HMS as a Milestones in Microbiology site based on van Niel's contributions to the microbiological sciences. ASM maintains its archival and historical collections in the Center for the History of Microbiology in the Albin O. Kuhn Library, and materials from these collections illustrating van Niel's life and work have been put on display in the Library Rotunda. The exhibit will remain in the Rotunda through the end of the semester.

For more about the Center for the History of Microbiology visit www.asm.org/choma

For more information about Archives Month at UMBC, visit the website at: http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/specoll/archivesmonth

You can also LIKE the Center for Biological Sciences Archives and the American Society for Microbiology on Facebook!

After graduating from undergraduate studies, I plan on going straight to graduate school for a master’s and a Ph.D.

Read her abstract here...

EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is making the government database ERIC available during the government shutdown.

ERIC, the Education Resource Information Center, is typically available through the government website (http://eric.ed.gov/) as well as via EBSCO’s EBSCOhost® research platform.

Because of the shutdown, access to the full text of articles and other materials will not be available but researchers will have access to the full set of records on EBSCOhost.