Five Trinity students made their way to South Bend, Indiana for the 18th annual ACC Meeting of the Minds conference in April.
Thang Lian, Sasha Bacot, Julia Davis, Abby Cortez and Trisha Santanam were selected to represent Duke and Trinity College of Arts & Sciences in the annual research conference celebrating undergraduate research and creative inquiry. Hosted this year by the University of Notre Dame, the Meeting of the Minds invites students from the 15 Atlantic Coast Conference member schools to participate by giving presentations that span numerous disciplines.
Lian, a junior majoring in History (Race & Ethnicity) and International Comparative Studies, started off Duke’s presentations with his project “Even in Grief, We Remain Beautiful: Chin Refugees’ Reflections and Lamentations on Grief.” He focused on Chin refugees and their history of forced displacement and resettlement from Myanmar to the United States to both narrate the history of the Chin people and think about what kind of politics Chin refugeehood offers us.
Bacot, a junior majoring in Biology and Computer Science, and Cortez, a junior majoring in Biology, were next up with their poster presentations. Bacot presented on “Mitochondrial Responses to mtDNA Damage: Mitophagy and Extracellular mtDNA Release.” She investigated uncharacterized mechanisms of transgenerational mitochondrial DNA quality control and germline mitochondrial dynamics using C. elegans (a small, worm model organism).
Cortez followed right after Bacot that afternoon. Her project “Investigating the Right Open Reading Frame Kinase — Nuclear Factor Kappa-light-chain-enhancer Interaction in Prostate Cancer,” focused on studying a novel interaction between two proteins (NFkB and RIOK2). She studies in a Duke School of Medicine lab that aims to characterize this interaction and determine if disrupting it impacts tumor proliferation.
After the presentations, students were able to take a break and mingle with other peers and presenters at the conference before the next group of students presented their research.
“It was very enlightening for me to see both the fascinating research done in fields similar to mine as well as completely different ones,” Cortez said. “I hadn't had much exposure to research in the humanities so getting to listen to other students doing excellent research in those communities gave me a new perspective on research.”
Later in the day, Davis, a senior majoring in Neuroscience, gave her research talk on “The Influence of Harsh Parenting and Maternal Depression on Executive Function in Early Childhood.” She focused on the way that the family context and parent experience shape early neurodevelopment.
“I am specifically interested in how harsh parenting behaviors and maternal depression relate to a child’s attention and inhibitory control skills in early life,” Davis said. She learned that harsh parenting and maternal depression are associated with lower child executive function outcomes a year later.
“I also enjoyed giving an oral presentation and hearing the questions that other students and professors had for me—challenging me to see my research from a different perspective,” Davis said.
Santanam a sophomore majoring in English, finished out the conference for Duke with her presentation “Sonic Curation and Blues Aesthetics in American Plays.”
Her research focused on how music extends the bounds of written language, transmitting information through both lyrics and what can be intuitively felt and understood by way of musical attunement. Santanam looked at how music enhances American plays by engaging with the concept of sonic curation, a method of arranging music that is informed by the afterlives of social, political, and geographical histories.
With all the presentations complete, the students were able to relax and take in all the other projects that were shared at the conference. Students said they gained valuable experience through presenting their research, connecting with other researchers and learning more about disciplines they are not typically exposed to.
“Overall, my experience was great,” said Lian. “Presenting at MoM was wonderful. I am very grateful to have presented about the Chin people and share with the rest of the attendees what critical refugee studies offers us.”
“I had a wonderful time meeting the student researchers from the other ACC schools,” said Santanam. “I also enjoyed getting to know the four other students who attended the conference from Duke.”
Department of Psychology & Neuroscience