Profiles

CLAS students pursue diverse interests in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences on campus and around the world. Creating new knowledge through interdisciplinary study and sharing it through outreach to the community are among the College's goals.

Double major pursues pandemics

“It’s a lot like Minority Report,” Philip Gorecki said, referring to the Tom Cruise movie where police officers of the future were able to stop crimes before they occurred. This is what Gorecki works on in the lab in the Biology/Physics building -- stopping diseases in their tracks before they become a pandemic.

Gorecki, CLAS ’10, who double majors in molecular and cellular biology (MCB) and economics, is using his unusual combined major for his University Scholar research on the outbreaks of three diseases, the most prominent being foot and mouth disease.

Gorecki, who was born in Krakow, Poland and moved to New Britain, CT in 1989, wasn’t always enthralled by science. While attending New Britain High School he wanted to be an engineer. He spent three years enrolled in Project Lead the Way, a non-profit program that helped pre-engineering students prepare for college classes.

In the 11th grade Gorecki found himself leaning toward the medical field after volunteering at the New Britain Hospital.

“I found that the power of assisting somebody with their most precious possession, their life, is something that appealed to me,” Gorecki said. “It also helped to satisfy my desire for intellectual challenges.”

For his University Scholar final project, Gorecki enlisted the help of advisers Michael Lynes, professor of MCB; Prof. Larry Silbart, head of the Department of Allied Health Sciences; and Dennis Heffley, professor of economics. His advisers played important roles in helping Gorecki structure his project around both of his majors.

His MCB component will include his research using microarray technology. This tool is used to detect the symptoms of a disease before physical signs appear on the animal. Gorecki’s goal is to rapidly and very early diagnose agriculture disease among farm animals, more specifically swine.

The economic component to Gorecki’s research will compare foot and mouth pandemics in the UK (2001) and Taiwan. Taiwan had previously been among the top 15 pork producers in the world. During a 1997 outbreak over 3.8 million swine were destroyed, costing the country $6.5 billion. If the microarray technology proves to be effective, Gorecki can calculate how much money countries like the US can save if a pandemic of such a disease is avoided.

Gorecki said that controlling food is a source of power and the starting point of tremendous social and economic ripple effects. His tool would serve to help prevent potential riots and food shortages all over the world.

Gorecki also drew from the influence of his Polish background when it came to formulating his research.

“I’m a big proponent of global citizenship,” Gorecki said. “The world is very interconnected and with that in mind my research plays a crucial role in the safety of the globe.”

Gorecki was been an active student during his entire undergraduate career. The Leadership Legacy program helped him to prepare for his position as president of the Honors Council. He served as WOW Leader and worked for Community Outreach as director of the UConn Homelessness Project.

After graduation, Gorecki plans to delve further into both science and business. He is applying to the MD/MBA programs of UConn and several Ivy League schools with the hope of graduating with both a Doctor of Medicine and an MBA degree in five years. – by Eunice Omega, CLAS ‘10

Science leads him to history

Last fall, Joseph Pomianowski, CLAS ’09, was awarded $1,000 Humanities Institute grant to travel to Poland, where he uncovered new information about the history of famed mathematician Stefan Banach.

In doing so he has added to the immense history that he has created for himself.

While taking a history of mathematics class with Professor William Abikoff, the applied mathematics and molecular cell biology major was given an assignment to choose any mathematician and complete an independent study on his subject.

During his research he found Stefan Banach, a Polish mathematician and founder of the modern functional analysis and the Lwow School of Mathematics in western Ukraine.

"I guess my academic journey began there," Pomianowski said.

In his research Pomianowski came across the only official existing biography about the mathematician, but he wasn’t completely satisfied with what he read.

"When I read the biography I saw there were a lot of gaps within it. I wondered why his theories are so well known and widely used but there was no information as to who the man was," Pomianowski said.

Pomianowski flew to Poland for 10 days to delve into archives and conduct interviews with people who knew Banach.

"This was all new to me as a science major," Pomianowski said. "I learned how to conduct oral histories and access archives at the Poland Academic Archives. I really wanted to piece together the life of Stefan Banach."

Because of his frequent family trips to Poland, Pomianowski was able to communicate with friends of Banach and gather the information he needed in a short amount of time.

His article on Banach has not been completed yet but he plans to return to Poland to complete his article before he enters Harvard in the fall to study for his master’s degree in the history of science.

Pomianowski thanks his grant supervisors, Prof. Stuart Sidney of the math department and Joan Richards, history professor at Brown University, for their contribution to his research.

When asked where he saw himself in 10 years, Pomianowski paused to consider before answering, "I know I will follow my passion to the fullest and that’s obtaining a degree in the History of Science. I definitely will have finished my PhD." - Eunice Omega, CLAS ‘10

Bat studies earn her a Fulbright

But fourth-year doctoral student Amanda Wendt will tell you that bats also play an important role in the regeneration of forests in the tropics.

Wendt is currently participating in a large field study at La Selva Biological Station in northern Costa Rica where her research into the roosting behavior, foraging behavior and seed dispersal habits of a particular bat species recently earned her a Fulbright Scholarship.

Macrobats like the large fruit bats eat ripe fruits as part of their diet. As they eat the pulp off the fruit, the seeds drop to the ground below them. These seeds are then either eaten or moved by other animals which spread them around the forest floor creating new saplings and new growth forest. A fruit bat can disperse thousands of seeds to help replace the forest that they live in.

Wendt is examining a group of fruit-eating bats called “tent bats” that roost or nest in the leaves of palms. While the bats’ tendency to disperse seeds for a wide variety of mature forest trees is well-established, little is known about what factors influence where they roost and what happens to the seeds once they are dropped below the roost.

Wendt has spent much of the past three years catching bats in nets, mapping forest areas and tracking seedlings. As part of her Fulbright work, Wendt will be expanding her research into an analysis of how local communities interact with their regional forest areas and the bat populations that live there.

“I am especially curious to get an idea about what the land owners and neighboring communities know about the mammal community of the forest patches – what animals they see there, and if they are seeing more or less animals than before,” Wendt says.

Robin Chazdon, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology who works closely with Wendt, calls her “an amazing field biologist.”

“Amanda …has strong interests in bat conservation and in enhancing public understanding regarding bats and their ecological interactions with trees,” Chazdon says.

“She …has taught undergraduates all the basics about studying bats, finding bat tents, and mapping bat-dispersed seedlings,” Chazdon says. “Her love for natural history is infectious and she is yearning to do more public education. She enjoys teaching people of all ages and backgrounds about tropical forests and its astounding diversity of creatures.” – Colin Poitras

A daughter of Haiti returns

Glenda Lezeau, CLAS '11, looked out the window and watched the haze melt the image of the swaying palm trees as her plane taxied on the tarmac. As she walked toward the terminal, a colorful band of guitarists and steel drum players welcomed her to Port au Prince, Haiti.

Lezeau, a communications disorders major whose family is from Haiti, has always had the desire to visit there. So when she found out that her church in Storrs, St. Thomas Aquinas, offered a trip to the island over the winter break, Lezeau jumped at the opportunity to go.

Lezeau and five other students landed in the country's capital and were taken to the village of Petionville, where they stayed at the Norwich Mission House.

“It was five girls to one room,” Lezeau said as she described the house. “There were a lot of open walls revealing the yard. It's weird to say we were living like an average Haitian because we did have servants and a cook.”

The students were in Haiti as a part of St. Thomas Aquinas's Haitian Immersion Experience, a 10-day missionary program that includes visiting Arc-En-Ciel, an orphanage for HIV-positive children, one of the first stops on the trip.

Lezeau grew up in a home where her parents spoke Creole, one of the official languages of the country along with French. But while in Haiti, Lezeau was apprehensive about using the language.

“I thought my Creole was decent, but they wouldn't respond,” Lezeau said with a shrug of her shoulders. “Maybe it was them being children.”

Even with her background, Lezeau found the trip was as jarring as it was to the other students on the trip.

“It wasn't the Haiti my parents used to talk about,” Lezeau said. Lezeau's parents came to America 20 years ago. Haiti has since then grown poorer.

“Even though the country wasn't rich then, poor people still had food to eat and opportunities were still available to people as opposed to now,” Lezeau said.

The group visited Mother Teresa's Home for the Sick and Dying and brought bottles of lotion to give the patients massages. In another trip, to Mother Teresa's Children's Hospital, the group fed undernourished children.

“There were children there who were two years old but looked like they were five months old,” Lezeau said. When the food appeared, the children swarmed the volunteers in order to get their share.

“The child I was carrying was getting frustrated,” Lezeau said as she demonstrated how the child reached her arms out to get food. “She hit me because I couldn't get her the food.”

Lezeau, top right, with students from the Haitian Immersion Experience and the Haitian Education Leadership Program.

Known as one of the most impoverished nations in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti also has the highest rate of AIDS cases, malnutrition and infant mortality in the Caribbean. To cope with the intensity of the experience, the students would meet and discuss what they witnessed.

“We tried hard to make sense of everything,” Lezeau said. “I'm sure a lot of people in the US are aware of the situation (in Haiti) and I knew about it, but seeing it was different. I couldn't make sense of it. I still can't verbalize it.”

One of the more uplifting moments that Lezeau experienced was meeting students from the Haitian Education Leadership program (H.E.L.P). Lezeau said she was surprised by how much the students knew about America and its current issues.

“They asked us questions about the economy and President Barack Obama,” Lezeau said. “They even asked me how it feels to live in America as an African American.”

Although Lezeau thought her background would be an advantage, it turned out that she was treated no differently than any of the other students. The people called her blanc , the French word for white, but to them, it meant foreigner.

“I guess I expected a connection but I didn't receive it right away. At the very last minute I accepted the country for what it was,” Lezeau said.

Being in Haiti taught Lezeau not to take things for granted and even gave her motivation to work harder at school.

“I learned to treasure time in a sense,” Lezeau said. “It's the idea of living in the present and understanding what's going on right now and not what you're doing next.” -- Eunice Omega, CLAS ‘10

Growing green grads

Environmentalism has been a way of life for graduate student Karolina Fucikova since she was a little girl growing up in the Czech Republic.

“ I was raised in a very environmentally aware family and I was always interested in nature, biodiversity, and the impact of human activities on the environment,” says the ecology and evolutionary biology PhD student .

Now studying botany and writing a dissertation on the molecular systematics of green algae, Fucikova is making an impact on the UConn campus and hoping to leave a green thumbprint behind her.

“The society I grew up in always emphasized energy and water conservation, and overall frugality. That has changed in the Czech Republic in the past two decades, but it had definitely shaped my personality in that respect.”

Since arriving on the UConn campus after receiving her undergraduate degree from University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice in 2004 and an MS from John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio in 2006, Fucikova has been working to promote green behavior on the Storrs campus.

As president of Green Grads, a program for graduate students to get involved in environmental initiatives, she partnered with the EcoHusky program and Residential Life on projects to make UConn more environmentally friendly.

Some projects on the Green Grads' agenda include waste reduction during move-out week, the use of public transportation, conservation of energy, and composting.

Fucikova is pleased with the progress that has been made but acknowledges that there is much more work to be done.

“Overall, [the environmental programs] are getting better, more effective and more frequent,” she said.

“I feel that things are changing for the better, as far as environmental awareness is concerned. Ideally, all students will be on board with this eventually. However, we are still far from that.”

Fucikova hopes to carry her environmental experiences at UConn with her after she completes her degree.

“I think whatever impact and improvement we can make on the UConn campus, can be applied anywhere - anywhere I may continue my career,” she says. “I'm hoping to stay involved and active beyond my grad student years.”

She also hopes to serve as a mentor to undergraduate students in her department and inspire them to pursue their interests.

“I had a wonderful mentor as undergrad. He got me excited about algae and research in general, and continues to be a great source of knowledge and inspiration for me. I would be very happy if I could do the same thing for undergraduates I happen to teach or mentor myself.”

When asked what she thinks students can do in their everyday lives to benefit the environment, Fucikova acknowledge that change is more complex than just small actions.

“Although every pro-environmental action counts, in my opinion it is not about attending a “green” event, recycling a plastic bottle, or buying an organic apple,” she says

Twirlers play with fire

Alyssa Kane, CLAS '10, and Alyssa McLaughlin, CLAS '09, prove that baton twirling is not just pretty sequined outfits and broad smiles that grace their faces with every acrobatic twist and turn -- not when the routine includes throwing flaming batons into the air and catching them.

“Twirling is a very physical activity. You set goals for yourself, you work as a team, and it's everything football or basketball is,” says McLaughlin.

Since their freshman year, McLaughlin and Kane have twirled their batons in the UConn Marching Band (UCMB) at all the football games and even a few basketball games, too.

“I started fire twirling when I was 12,” McLaughlin says. “The older girls that we looked up to encouraged us to start young. At first I said, ‘I'm never going to twirl fire,' (until) one day they told me to just take it and twirl.”

The band went seven years without a feature twirler before McLaughlin and Kane joined. Kane believes that twirling flaming batons keeps their performances interesting besides keeping their hands warm during football weather.

“It definitely makes the audience think twice about taking that bathroom break,” Kane says.

Both twirlers found their passion at the tender age of four. McLaughlin, a math and psychology major, started twirling with her home team, the Red Stars of Derry, NH.

Kane, a pre-communications major with English and business minors, was destined to twirl because her mom and aunt used to do it back home in Weston, Mass.

“I held my first baton in a parade when I was two. I didn't make it all the way through,” Kane says with a laugh. “It's awesome to twirl here. It's something I want to preserve.”

Twirling flaming batons in front of thousands of screaming football fans may seem intimidating, if not dangerous, but both girls have suffered few injuries, aside from melted (fake) ponytails and a few singed arm hairs.

“I've been performing for so long, I don't get nervous anymore. It's a huge rush being in front of all the people. It's so wonderful being part of a huge school that shows a lot of school spirit,” McLaughlin says.

After graduation Kane hopes to have a career in public relations. She may judge twirling competitions or even coach part time in the future.

McLaughlin's plans are to pursue a graduate degree and teach math in high school. After establishing her career in education, McLaughlin plans to coach for the Red Stars back at home.

Even after completing a season the duo are working on future acts and finding was to make it even hotter by twirling three fire batons.

When asked how they will manage this feat, Kane shrugs her shoulders and says, “Just keep juggling.” – Eunice Omega, CLAS ‘10

To see a WTNH Channel 8 video and story about the twirlers, go to http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/sports/sports_wtnh_twirl_success_200903022318_rev1

Diversity is her commitment

Ashley Louis-Charles, CLAS '10, remembers being the only black student graduating from Sacred Heart Academy in Hamden, Conn. But that didn't seem to bother her; it only served to mold her into a merit scholar.

Upon opening her acceptance letter for UConn, Louis-Charles discovered that she had received the Leadership Scholarship, a merit scholarship that is given to students who not only excel academically but demonstrate a commitment to multicultural programs in their high schools.

“It was an honor that the school recognized my efforts,” said Louis-Charles, a communications disorder and human development and family studies double major.

Attending a majority white private high school didn't stop Louis-Charles from expressing herself, and letting people know that she wasn't that much different from everybody else.

“I tried not to think about (my skin color) but it gave me fire to make sure everybody was open to different cultures. The first thing I let anybody know is not only am I black, but that I'm Haitian.”

To help her on her mission, she not only became a member, but held offices in organizations such as the Unity French Club, Peer Connection and the Key Club. Through them Louis-Charles was part of many projects that helped to diversify her school. She recalled how one year, she helped set up an experiment where students had to sit at an assigned lunch tables, mixing up where they sat in order to open communication lines within the school.

“I definitely saw a couple of friendships being formed that day,” Louis-Charles said. “It just shows that as long as you're accepting and open to the unknown, it's better for everybody.”

The Leadership Scholarship, which pays for four years of tuition for Louis-Charles, made UConn a contender compared with some other universities she applied to.

“It definitely sweetened the deal; I know my father was happy about it,” she said.

Since freshman year, Louis-Charles has shown her academic excellence by consistently making the CLAS Dean's list. After graduation her plans are to attend graduate school and eventually work with children as a speech and language pathologist.

On campus she continues her efforts to promote diversity. Currently she is the treasure for AHEAD, an organization that raises tuition money for Haitian university students. But she wishes she had time to do more.

“I'm not involved to the extent that I was in high school. My focus is academics.” Louis-Charles said. “But I still have those ideals on a microscopic level in terms of class and group projects.”

“I still want to be involved,” Louis-Charles said. “That's something I've always been passionate about.” ---Eunice Omega, CLAS ‘10

Profiles Archives

Click here to see more profiles.