Undergraduate Research at Moravian College

Medieval Studies

Moravian students Christopher A. Lucca '09 and Sean Mason '09 demonstrate the 15th century trumpet they created for Moravian’s Medieval and Early Modern conference.

Moravian College hosted its first-ever Undergraduate Conference in Medieval and Early Modern Studies in December 2006. The event featured a rich exchange of scholarly ideas with 28 presentations by undergraduate students from various colleges and over 200 attendees representing 25 schools. More ...

Participation in academic conferences is another valuable learning experience for students at Moravian.

Conference Sampling:

Students in Kelly Denton-Borhaug's Religion and Politics course presented at "The Future of Democracy: Faith, Fear and Freedom," an undergraduate conference at Lebanon Valley College in Spring 2007. "Assessing American Empire: Comparison and Contrast of Two Recent Religious/Political Manifestos" was presented by Emily Berry '09, Amy DiJenno '08, Leon Edelman '09, Kyle Lavigne '09, Greg Niehoff '08, Dan Polles '09, Simon Tabchi '08, and Brad Wanhewicz '08. "Reading Bellah’s The Broken Covenant: From Vietnam to Iraq" was presented by Josh Collis '08, Dan Edleman '08, Sarah Hopkins '08, Kyle Keller '07, Mike Peck '08, Keri Traficante '08, and Katie Wyant '08.

Debra Evans '09, LeeAnna Roberts '07, and Peter Slivka '07 presented research at the 2007 Northeast District 2 Convention of Beta Beta Beta, the national honor society for majors in the biological sciences. LeeAnna was awarded the John C. Johnson Award for Excellence in Student Research for her project, "Community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) among Division III football players at Moravian College."

A research paper by Cecilia Fox, assistant professor of biology, and co-authors Sarah Mueller '06 and Melissa Drost '05. was presented at the International Brain Conference in Orlando, Florida, in January 2007. The study, titled "Dietary and Intraperitoneal Administration of Selenium Provide Comparable Protection in the 6-Hydroxydopamine Lesion Rat Model of Parkinson’s Disease," was published in Impulse: An International Undergraduate Journal in Neuroscience in April 2007.

Daniel Jasper, assistant professor in sociology, presented a paper titled "Common Sense History and the Transcending of Social Divisions: The Case of Shivaji Commemoration in Pune, India" at the 77th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society, in March 2007. At the same meeting, sociology student Danielle Corvacchioli presented her paper from her summer 2006 SOAR project: "Ice Cube and Racism: Culture Clash and Social Implications of Hip-Hop."

Joanne McKeown, associate professor of French, presented a paper at the North American Christian Foreign Language Association's 17th annual conference in March 2007. The paper was titled "Feminine Witnesses to the Power of the Soul Over the Mind: Three Novels of Enlightenment France."

Michelle Schmidt, associate professor of psychology, presented two posters at the 2007 meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association: "Victimized Girls' Perceptions of Popularity," co-authored with Lydia Zarella '08, and "Social and Academic Competence in School-Aged Children," co-authored with Stefanie Risko '07. Both students worked with her on SOAR grants. Michelle also presented a paper titled "Does Friendship Quality Moderate the Association Between Peer Victimization and Internalizing Distress?" at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research on Child Development in Boston the weekend of March 2007. The paper presented data from her short-term longitudinal study of about 800 third, fourth, and fifth graders in the Bethlehem Pennsylvania Area School District.