Research Opportunities

Project READERS is a large-scale experimental design response-to-intervention study that explores various forms of professional development for teachers in rural schools.

Undergraduate Research Assistants in the Project READERS lab will gain experience in coding video data, los and other documents for quantitative analysis. There is also an opportunity to code transcripts of interviews for qualitative analysis. This experience would be ideal for any education or social science major, especially someone interested in going to graduate school. This is a paid position. Contact Michelle Howell Smith for more information.

The laboratory of Dr. Rodrigo Franco of the Redox Biology Center at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences is looking for a UCARE student with an interest in Biomedical Research. The laboratory uses advanced cell biology, biochemistry and molecular biology approaches to understand the molecular mechanism involved in the etiology of diseases associated with neuronal cell death in the Central Nervous System. We are particularly interested in enthusiastic and committed students, which will learn a variety of experimental approaches during the first year to develop a more independent research project for the second year. The student will be also involved in other projects, bibliography discussion and seminars to develop the proper critical/analytical thinking of a researcher. It is expected that at the end, the student’s research will lead to at least 1-2 published research manuscripts (co-author) in respected journals in the field.

If interested, please contact Dr. Franco at (402)472-8547, rfrancocruz2@unl.edu.

You can check the website: http://www.unl.edu/RedoxBiologyCenter/faculty.shtml, for more information regarding research projects within the lab.

Participate in on-going pilot studies and new research examining the outcomes of a universal classroom management program to improve student academic and behavioral outcomes.

The Center for Child and Family Well-being conducts research aimed at understanding and improving outcomes for youth with and at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders served in educational and out-of home care settings.

Get involved in an ongoing randomized clinical trial examining the effectiveness of a new intervention to improve family functioning, parenting skills, and child behavior via services delivered in the families home over 12-16 weeks.

The Center for Child and Family Well-being conducts research aimed at understanding and improving outcomes for youth with and at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders served in educational and out-of home care settings.

Participate in an ongoing study evaluating the transition needs of youth with disabilities and their families as they transition into the home and community school settings following a stay in out-of-home care.

The Center for Child and Family Well-being conducts research aimed at understanding and improving outcomes for youth with and at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders served in educational and out-of home care settings.

I’m a sculptor and textile artist working on a multi-media project called Mapping Nebraska. Part of my project will travel to a number of communities all over Nebraska in 2013-2014 as part of the Sheldon Museum’s Statewide program. I am producing site-specific textile constructions for each of these Sheldon Statewide venues and conducting community outreach. You would be helping me with this project and working in my studio at 220 Richards Hall, City Campus. The same person could work both periods on a year-long assistantship, June 2013 to April 2014.

You would be sewing by hand and machine and stitching buttonholes and decorative bindings; stenciling designs onto fabric; preparing textile work for exhibition, shipping and archival storage; maintaining an art database and assisting with promotion and outreach; providing input on the design and development of textile art works, and conducting visual and material research.

Visit http://www.mappingnebraska.com to find out more about my project.

Assist in studies to monitor soybean stem borer in soybean to determine their seasonal occurrence. Will require travel to commercial soybean fields in south central Nebraska, and work outdoors during the summer. Work with M. S. student in Entomology on their thesis research project. Vehicle provided for work travel. There will be opportunity for student to develop studies which support the overall project. Variable work schedule, some work after 5 p.m. possible. Usually 40 hours per work, but schedule is negotiable.

We are interested in students who are interested in Active, Livable, Sustainable Community. The physical and social environment of a neighborhood significantly affects the quality of life of a resident. In order to make Lincoln’s communities healthier and more active by improving opportunities, this project provides the creative approaches to identify community needs and problems. This project also attempts to improve and strengthen communities by directly engaging citizens in a community assessment process that helps them set appropriate neighborhood improvement goals.

Students will participate in various research activities. Students who are interesting in community development, have good communication skills and analytic skills are encouraged to apply.

For more information please contact Dr. Yunwoo Nam, Associate Professor of Community and Regional Planning, at ynam2@unl.edu.

Work on NASA related projects for the Human Exploration Group. Projects include automated chest tube insertion and non-invasive intracranial pressure monitoring. Work includes data collection on lab experiments and prototype design, development and testing. Contact Dr. Hawks for more details if interested.

Working on the design and analysis of various food manufacturing processes. Research on the automation of various process. Computational fluid dynamics will be used to analyze prototype design and performance as well as laboratory testing.

Volcanic activities and fossil fuel usages release mercury into the environment. Mercury circulates the earth’s surface. The major chemical format of mercury in the environment is the mercury sulfide, which is stable (inactive). However, methyl mercury penetrates our bodies through food, especially via aqueous organisms. At low levels, mercury (Hg) has a little effect on human health. At high concentrations, mercury causes many problems.

It is because mercury possesses similar physical and chemical properties of biologically important metals such as copper and zinc. Uptake of mercury results significant metabolic disorders similar to those consequences from the uptake of cadmium (Cd) and selenium (Se). The systematic research of interactions between mercury and biological macromolecules is critical to both clinical understanding and nutrition concerns.

Heavy atoms, including mercury, give the phase information in protein crystallography. Many three-dimensional biological macromolecular structures involve metals in the Protein Data Bank (PDB). Using the metal-protein structural information as training data, I propose to develop methods to find metal-binding proteins from genomic information, including that from human.

Specific aims include: 1) identifying mechanisms of metal capturing in biological macromolecules at the atomic level using the Protein Data Bank; 2) developing methods for classifying metabolic metal proteins using genomic information from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI); and 3) reconstructing symbiotic systems to introduce interactive and non-interactive metabolism.

We do structural biology and bioinformatics approach to generate our working hypothesis and move to test that. This is a new study in the lab, you take the lead.

Prepare samples for stable carbon isotope analysis in labs at UNL. Samples are from ancient soils collected in Wyoming and New Mexico. The goal is to identify intervals of carbon cycle disturbance, which often coincide with climate change. Applicants should be geoscience majors or have a strong interest in geology.

Civil War Washington is an interdisciplinary project hosted in the Center for Research in the Digital Humanities. I work specifically on the medical history of the Civil War in the city. Students will transcribe data from photographed pages of hospital registers held in the National Archives and Records Administration. The data must be transcribed into Excel spreadsheets with dedicated attention to accuracy. This will be the first time that transcribed data from Civil War hospitals will be made available to the public.

Following transcription, the student will assist in analyzing the data, and seeing how they add to our understanding of the experiences of the sick and wounded in the capital. This data will also help us to grasp the enormity of the suffering in the city, at the same time that Congress met to deal with the war, and President Lincoln presided over the political future of our nation.

I am beginning a new research project that focuses on the so-called New Munich Group (NMG) of German filmmaking, which emerged in the mid-1960s. It is a group of filmmakers that made films reminiscent of the early films of the French New Wave, by whom the NMG was influenced. For a host of cultural, political, and film historical reasons, these filmmakers have been forgotten by (German) film history.

My project, in its most rudimentary form, is seeking to recover them for (German) film history as a means to both better understand German film history (of the 1960s but also subsequently, for their "disappearance" was not a total disappearance: their films had, and continue to have, a 'subterranean' life, exerting influence on German filmmakers up to this day) and reopen the issue of the "political" (of what counted/counts as "political film" as well as of what counted in the 1960s as "political").

The project, as I envision it, will have its roots in the films of the NMG but will eventually grow considerably beyond the more narrow purview of the films, and German film history itself, to becoming a cultural politics project. At this early stage, however, I am still in the process of creating my "database" and for this purpose I could use help.

REQUIREMENT: The student who would like to help me with this project under the umbrella of UCARE needs to have good German-language skills.

Our project focuses on the application of plastic materials/organic dyes to generate efficient energy harvesting devices such as solar cells, thermal energy harvester, and sensitive sensors such as photodetectors. You can learn more of our research in the group website:www.huanggroup.unl.edu.

We seek one to two undergraduate student researchers to help with all aspects of the research. Students with background in condensed matter physics, electric engineering or material chemistry are welcome to contact me to discuss your interest.

The student will transcribe missionary documents from the early 20th century. These documents are taken from The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM)- Country-Turkey- The student should be able to read handwritten letters and diaries in English.

The task of the student will be to scan hundreds of documents from the Aram Andonian archives pertaining to the eyewitness accounts during the Armenian genocide. In addition, the student will transcribe archival documents in English from the Armenian Genocide Archives of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem that is under my disposal.

The project would involve establishing the relationships between material density and processing functionalities of selected, plant based, food ingredients. Thermal properties of ingredients will be analyzed using a variety of analytical techniques, including instrumental and wet chemistry analyses. Prior laboratory experience, especially handling analytical instruments, is preferred but not essential. A very good knowledge in chemistry and physics is required.

This project will focus on assessing the effects of wind turbines on ground-dwelling and subterranean insects. The student will be involved in literature review and in field-based experiments in Southeastern Nebraska. Travel is required, as is a valid drivers license. We are primarily interested in the effects of low frequency vibration on soil-dwelling invertebrates.

This project will involve working with the research team on a national study to help patients with heart failure adhere to an exercise program. We are seeking a current, undergraduate UNL nursing student with an interest in research. Activities will include assessing patients’ exercise behavior, assisting with education classes for patients and families, preparing materials for use by exercise coaches, and assisting the research team in delivery of the intervention. Occasional travel to the exercise facility in south Lincoln may be required.

Patients with multiple chronic illnesses discharged from the hospital are frequently re-hospitalized within 1-3 months. Re-hospitalization puts a huge burden on the patients as well as the hospital.

This project will study patients with chronic illnesses and their care transition from hospital to home. This study will primarily focus on self-management skills for patients categorized by cognition and patient activation level. Students chosen will be actively involved in the research process to improve patient outcomes in this population. Duties may include literature synthesis, data collection, data entry, and attending team meetings. The research may lead to manuscript publication as co-author.

We are particularly interested in students considering an advanced degree in nursing. We are interested in individual or a team of students.

This is a project that is testing the feasibility of delivering a behavior change intervention in the area of physical activity via a cell phone. Outcome measures include both objective and subjective physical activity measures. Data collection is currently in progress. The student would have experience in all research areas, including literature review, working with EXCEL files, data entry, creative development of presentations etc.

The Toddler Sleep Project studies sleep and self-regulation behaviors in children 2 ½ - 3 ½ years of age. Research teams visit the children's homes and the children and parents come into the lab to engage in several tasks. Students helping in the lab have opportunities to observe children's and parents behaviors, assist with data collection, date reduction and data entry, and to work with the research team on interpretation of study findings, collection of research literature, and manuscript writing.

We are looking for someone who has experience working with children and families, is organized and responsible, interested in being involved in a research study, and who has flexible summer availability (days and evenings).

The objective of our project is to control the confinement and micro/nano-morphology of polymeric materials by using dynamic patterned surfaces of an elastic substrate. This research has potential applications in preparation of hierarchical micro/nano-structured materials and in the manufacture of responsive surfaces.

We seek an undergraduate student researcher with background in mechanical engineering, physics, or chemical engineering to assist with research. This work will have a strong experimental component. Interested students are encouraged to contact me to discuss further details.

Several projects are available and can be individually modified for interest and opportunity. Projects Funded by grant line:

1. Looking at the nuclei and how they change in the pathogen that caused the potato famine (methods include DNA isolation, genetic fingerprinting, flow cytometry, culturing on agar media, producing fruiting bodies, staining nuclei).

2. Determining the identification of new and known plant pathogenic fungi by DNA sequencing and computer software programs (methods include DNA extraction, reading DNA sequencing, working with DNA sequence on the web and with software, phylogenetic analysis, molecular genetics).

3. Identifying the water molds in the saline Salt Creek springs (methods-baiting, isolating and culturing fungi on selective media, DNA extraction, DNA sequencing, working with DNA sequence on the web and with software, phylogenetic analysis, molecular genetics).

These projects are designed such that a bright undergraduate student can be involved and included in preparing and submitting an article for publication in a science journal.

Research will involve using molecular and classical methods to characterize isolates of fungal pathogens (biotrophs & necrotrophs) to determine diversity in the populations. Using appropriate isolates to screen crop plant lines for resistance to the specific pathogen isolates. Molecular tools will be used to trace the movement of fungal pathogen isolates across states/countries. The lab has state, national and international goals to improve food security. Students, visiting scientists & technologists are from Brazil, Africa, Caribbean and the Americas.

The objective of our project is to develop microfluidic devices for cell mechanics research. This research includes fundamental experimental research on droplet-based channel devices and microfluidic device development for fabrication of hydrogel substrates with stiffness gradient.

We seek undergraduate student researchers with background in mechanical engineering, physics, chemical engineering or any relevant fields to help with all aspects of research. Responsibilities of the researchers will have components on microfluidic device fabrications and experiments. Interested students are encouraged to contact Dr. Ryu to discuss further details of the projects.

This project will explore the connection between participation in 4-H and recruitment to post-secondary education. A student will provide leadership to the development, facilitation and analysis of mixed methods assessment that will include a study of former 4-H participants at varying points in their post-secondary education experience, including measuring the impact of 4-H on their initial selection and the retained influence of their 4-H experience as they enter the work force.

Student will conduct research in Congressional Record and British Parliamentary debates, plus research in library and/or Eisenhower and Truman Library.

This research project explores the identity and diversity of soil organisms in native and agricultural plant communities across North America. We use light and scanning electron microscopy combined with DNA barcoding to characterize plant- parasitic nematodes. All research data associated with nematode species are added to a customized database, geographically mapped, and incorporated into our Plant and Insect Parasitic Nematode web site.

Student researchers will be involved all phases of the research, from field collection to DNA analysis. Applicants with GIS experience preferred.