2006-2007 Undergraduate Research Award Winners
Christopher Suprock and Kala Wolfe
Christopher Suprock will graduate in May 2007 with a bachelor of science degree in Mechanical Engineering. Chris began conducting research shortly after his arrival on campus as a freshman. His broad range of interests has led him to pursue research in myriad fields, including: mechanical engineering, mathematics, biology, and business. Chris has worked on a variety of projects, such as intelligent image compression techniques, academic image fraud detection, liquid drop computational fluid modeling, and market analysis and forecasting of exchange-traded funds. However, Chris' primary research area, conducted under Dr. John T. Roth, has focused on monitoring the condition of cutting tools for the prognosis of failure.
While pursuing his bachelor degree at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, Chris has published and presented his research at numerous conferences, including the 2006 ASME International Conference on Manufacturing Science & Engineering; the 2006 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition; the Penn State Behrend - Sigma Xi Undergraduate Student Research and Creative Accomplishment Conference in 2005, 2006, and 2007; and the 2007 North American Manufacturing Research Conference. At both the 2005 and 2006 Penn State Behrend - Sigma Xi conferences, Chris received an award for best oral presentation in mathematics. In 2006, Chris was given an honorary membership to Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society.
Chris has also authored multiple journal articles (three accepted, one under review) in the ASME Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Journal of Machining Science and Technology, and Transactions of the North American Manufacturing Research Institute of SME.
In addition to research activity, Chris works as a resident assistant in a First-Year Interest Group building, mentoring first-year engineering students.
In fall 2007 Chris will continue his education at the University of New Hampshire as a direct admit to the Ph.D. program in the area of signal processing. He has been awarded the highly prestigious CEPS/EOS Fellowship at UNH and plans to continue his tool wear modeling research. Chris is also in the process of developing marketable software for detecting fraud in academic images.
Kala Wolfe will graduate in May 2007 with a bachelor of science degree in Biology. Kala is an outstanding, highly motivated student who has participated in field research since the fall of her freshman year at Behrend. She has worked with Dr. Margaret Voss on several related projects, all focused on avian incubation behavior.
Her first presentation at a professional conference was in April 2004, the spring of her freshman year. She presented a poster on the effects of sound disturbance on Black-Capped Chickadee nesting behavior at the annual meeting of the Association of Field Ornithologists at Cornell University. During this meeting, she made arrangements to work with Dr. David Hussell of Bird Studies Canada, at the Long Point Ontario Bird Observatory. She was interested in the effects of ambient temperature and food supply on the incubation behavior of tree swallows. Kala has subsequently presented her data from that project at two professional ornithology meetings (Association of Field Ornithology; Wilson Society of Ornithologists) and five undergraduate research conferences, including the Penn State Behrend - Sigma Xi Undergraduate Student Research and Creative Accomplishment Conferences in 2004, 2005, and 2006 and the Beta Beta Beta District Research Conference in spring 2004. She has won several awards for this work and was inspired to not only continue her research on birds, but to take on a minor in international studies.
Kala's early success in research gave her the confidence to design her own project for summer 2005. She chose to travel to a remote site in Alaska to work on a conservation project with Black Brandt. Her focus was on incubation behavior and the significance of clutch size in these birds. She developed her experimental design, built much of her own equipment, and collected data for several long and isolated months. These data were the topic of her recent presentation at the 4th North American Ornithological Conference in Vera Cruz, Mexico. Her first peer-reviewed publication, which will be coauthored with Dr. Voss, Patrick Lemons, and Dr. James Sedinger of the University of Nevada-Reno, will be based on this research.
Kala is an experienced and excellent bird bander. In summer 2006, she was responsible for supervising all of the banding research on Dr. Voss' Behrend field sites. Kala is now in the process of combining data she collected while working at Behrend with data she collected her freshman year in Canada. This will result in a peer-reviewed publication, coauthored by Dr. Caren Cooper of Cornell University, Dr. David Hussell of Bird Studies Canada, and Dr. Voss. The paper will focus on the effects of temperature on incubation duration in several species of passerine birds.
Kala has been accepted into a graduate program in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University where she plans to pursue a master's degree in conservation ecology and policy. She would eventually like to earn an additional degree in international law. Her ultimate goal is to work with legal issues relating to international conservation.