Five from Ivan Allen Receive Presidents Undergraduate Research Awards (PURA)

Posted January 3, 2020

Five Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts students – two majoring in computational media, two in literature, media, and communication, and one in applied languages and intercultural studies – were recipients of President’s Undergraduate Research Awards (PURA) this year.

PURAs are competitive awards that support research or that fund travel to present research at a professional conference.

The following students received $1,500 stipends to work on their research as research assistants:

Fall 2019
Ashley Alton (CM) for “Transgender Narratives in Science Fiction.”  Mentor: Professor Lisa Yaszek, Literature, Media, and Communication.

Julia Clendenin (LMC) for “Identifying Best Sound Practices for Radio Drama and Podcast Production.”  Mentor: Professor Lisa Yaszek, Literature, Media, and Communication.

Spring 2020
Nina Qin (CM) for “Increasing Efficacy of Education Technology through Hip-Hop-Based Pedagogical Affordances.”  Mentor: Assistant Professor Joycelyn Wilson, Literature, Media, and Communication.

The following students received $500 travel stipends, enabling them to present their research at a conference:

Fall 2019
Rocio Soto (LMC) to present “Exhibiting Identity” at the IWCA-NCPTW 2019 Conference.  Mentor: Brandy Blake, Director of the Helen H. Naugle CommLab.

Spring 2020
Samuel Weiss-Cowie (ALIS) to present “Hyper-articulation in Korean glides by heritage language learners” at the Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting. Mentor: Seung-Eun Chang, lecturer, Modern Languages. Read more about Samuel. 

Ivan Allen College faculty also mentored PURA winners from non-liberal arts disciplines on campus.

Nunn School Assistant Professor Neha Kumar mentored computational science major Maya Holikatti, who presented “Learning to Airbnb by Engaging in Online Communities of Practice” at the 2019 ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

CommLab Director Brandy Blake mentored civil engineering student Natalie Zukerman, who presented "Exhibiting Identity" at the 2019 IWCA-NCPTW 2019 Conference.