UO undergraduate researchers and scholars examining everything from food sovereignty in Puerto Rico to procedural barriers to health care in Oregon to migration and assimilation among Chinese Indonesian communities have received fall 2019 Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program mini-grant awards.

“These awards are designed to support and celebrate the work of the university’s undergraduate scholars,” said Karl Reasoner, a senior program manager who oversees the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program. “The breadth of research being done by undergraduates across campus is quite impressive, and these awardees demonstrate the unique contributions undergraduates can make to their respective disciplines.”

Mini-grant awards are distributed three times per academic year by the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program in the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation. Designed to stimulate promising research and scholarly activity, the awards support scholarship, creative projects and quantitative or qualitative research from all disciplinary backgrounds.

Awards went to researchers and scholars in journalism, political science, anthropology, linguistics, human physiology and other fields.

Undergraduate scholars receive up to $1,000 for research expenses during the coming fiscal year, including travel, equipment, supplies and contractual services.

The fall 2019 mini-grant research award recipients are:

• Shelby Saper, anthropology, “Assessing Typology of Pre-Mazama Corner-notched Points in the Northern Great Basin,” faculty mentor: Dennis Jenkins.
• Zack Demars, journalism, “From 1960 to Now: Beginning a Pen Pal Program Between Oregon and Russia,” faculty mentor: Peter Laufer.
• Momo Wilms-Crowe, political science, “Cultivating Self-Determination: Food Sovereignty as a Challenge to Coloniality in Puerto Rico,” faculty mentor: Daniel Tichenor.
• Kezia Setyawan, journalism, “Where Do You Belong: Cultural Values and Identity Shifts in Chinese Indonesian Communities Through Migration and Assimilation,” faculty mentor: Sung Park.
• Chasen Afghani, linguistics, “The Effects of Incentivization in Perception of Non-Native Speech,” faculty mentor: Melissa Baese-Berk.
• Harrison Jensen, planning, public policy and management, “Procedural Barriers to Health Care: Applying for Coverage through the Oregon Health Plan,” faculty mentor: Nicole Ngo.
• Maurisa Rapp, human physiology, “Intergenerational Effects of Western Style Diet on Mitochondrial Reactive Oxygen Species Production and DNA Damage,” faculty mentor: Carrie McCurdy.