URSP Student Jacob Simkovitz Deconstructs Plea Agreements in Federal Court

My first semester at Mason I took University 100; a one credit course designed to orient freshman to university resources and programs.  One of the components was a presentation by the OSCAR office about the idea of undergraduate research, and what programs Mason had to offer. I laughed and said that’s not for me. A year later I was taking a Criminology course with Dr. Reiter and she told me about her upcoming research project and offered me a position as a research assistant, after some hesitation I accepted. The project is called “The Anatomy of a Plea Bargain” and is looking at the components and individual congestions offered in plea bargains. Unlike most of the current research it is not looking at the ethics or the benefit verses the detriment to the justice system. Initially I was hesitant but after giving it some thought I decided to give research a try.  Much to my surprise I liked it and I was able to take the project in new directions infect in November I will be traveling to San Francisco to present at the American Society of Criminology annual meeting.

After graduation I plan to pursue a law degree and then hopefully becoming a Federal Agent. Working on this project for even such a short period of time has given me a view into our legal system that most students don’t get to experience. This project has thought me more about prosecution or crimes then I ever expected to learn as an undergraduate. This project will with out a doubt give me insights will help me analyze the plea bargaining debate and other aspects of law and criminal procedure in law school.

Week to week and day-to-day my project is to code plea bargain in Qualitative Data Analysis Software. This will allow us to review the individual data points instead of looking at the plea bargain as a hole. At that end of the project the recorded data well be analyzed for its frequency and variations between prosecutors in phrasing.

This week was very busy and learning time management is becoming more and more important. Mastering time management is a constant learning process and it makes it possible for me to complete my research and my other studies. I think that is one of the most important things that I have learned thought this process; not only will it help me with this project but future projects and anything that I choose to do.

URSP Student Chelsea Mohindroo Investigates Immigration Policies through Social Dynamics Modeling of Illegal Immigrants

The United States is currently facing an overwhelming influx of illegal immigrants, mainly from Central America, through the border between Mexico and the United States.  This controversial issue interested me, after realizing that it could be applied to a mathematical social dynamics model, and help project future undocumented immigration population numbers.  Weidlich and Haag’s previously derived social dynamics model that is used for this research, accounts for the movement of two populations between two regions.  After analyzing this particular social scenario, my mentors and I soon noticed that the model would have to be expanded in order to properly represent this situation.  Much of my research has consisted of expanding this model so that it can account for the movement of two populations between three regions.  Our expanded model better describes the current immigration situation as the two populations represent children and adults, while the three regions include the United States, Mexico, and a third region created by the grouping Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador into its own region.  Legislation is represented by regulatory parameters that are added to the end of the model. In the long run, I hope to be able to create dynamic functions that properly represent legislative proposals concerning undocumented immigration, and use them as the regulatory parameters.  My long-term goal is to introduce this research to legislators so that it can be used as a tool to help accurately predict the outcomes of proposed legislations.

My weekly schedule involves analyzing the expanded model to see how it fits into the changing undocumented immigration situation.  As new laws are implemented and migration incentives change, it is important to understand how the model can represent these changes.  Since I have been regularly presenting this information, it is crucial to study the expanded model on a regular basis.  I have found that I learn more about the math behind this model every time I prepare to present it.  The deeper understanding I have of the mathematics behind this model helps me provide a stronger explanation when presenting this research.

URSP Student Rebecca Wahls Aims to Make Dido, Queen of Carthage Accessible to Both Contemporary Actors and Audiences

I want to be a theatrical director. A strange career goal, perhaps, but one that I am honestly passionate about.

The world of theater is constantly at war with itself. It’s a battle of new versus old— do we put on an edgy new play about sexually frustrated teenagers with rock show lighting…or just do A Midsummer Night’s Dream (again)?

I personally believe that you can do both at the same time. This drew me to Christopher Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage, a play published in 1594 that tells the mythological story of the Queen’s tragic love affair with Trojan warrior Aeneas. This is a great, classic story that still deserves to be told today; my goal is to make this text, written entirely in iambic pentameter, accessible to both contemporary actors and audiences. My adaptation will be tested with the School of Theater’s performance of the play in November.

I have spent countless hours over the weeks reading the text, making cuts, marking unfamiliar words and phrases, researching classical references…I have so far cut out twenty pages’ worth of material, including two entire scenes. It’s a delicate process. I must constantly be aware of the play as an entity. I could (and almost have) accidentally omitted moments that are integral to character arcs later on. A single strike of the “delete” key could alter a character’s entire being.

Just this morning, I met with the production lighting designer. We discussed how to create a forest with light in a non-literal way. After much thought, it hit me—the massive columns on the set could easily be trees when lit a certain way. The collaborative nature of theater allows for constant, often daily, discovery.

URSP Student Peter Kleine Researches Sports Effects on Societal Issues in D.C.

The project I am currently working on is an oral history project that looks at racial and other societal issues from the Washington D.C. area and how sports have effected these issues. Originally, when I came to college, I had no idea that Sports History was even a field of study. Sophomore year, I took History 341, History of Sports in the United States with Professor Chris Elzey, to meet one of my history degree requirements. After the first class, I knew I was immediately in love with the subject of Sport History. I ended up taking Professor Elzey’s Basketball and the American Experience class the following semester too. After class one day last spring, I asked Professor Elzey what I could do to learn more and stay involved in the topic. Professor Elzey told me about some of his current research he was working on, and suggested applying to OSCAR to do similar types of research. Luckily, I got accepted into OSCAR’s URSP program, and I am working on alongside Dr. Elzey this semester.

Earlier in the semester, I did a lot of background research on the city, and took notes on how it grew, and how the movements in the city. My notes are from eight different books that Professor Elzey and I picked out before the semester began. Since my reading has been done, I, with help of my mentor, created a list of potential candidates to interview. Thus far, the majority of my time has been surfing the web trying to find contact information for people I want to interview. Honestly, this process has been very frustrating for me, as finding contact information of athletes of old high school athletes, to former professional athletes. One of the things that I’ve definitely learned this week, is that following up with people only once is never enough, and that if you really want something,  you need to follow up with people to the point that you wonder whether or not you are being annoying.

I’m not exactly sure what I want to do after I graduate, but education has always been on the table. One of the reasons I wanted the URSP opportunity desperately was because I wanted to be able to tell some of my students about my experiences doing research in college, and would hopefully be able to help them out progress as a student in their years of education. This project is also unique in the sense it helps me work on my communication skills, and possibly may open the door to a career in reporting or in the media in some way.

URSP Student Caroline Benzel Researches Undergrad Research

What had initially gotten me interested in this project was a lack of opportunities for undergraduates to do research. It seemed like it was a vicious cycle because many times teachers wanted you to have research experience to be involved in their projects, yet one couldn’t get the experience without actually doing research. Further, if one had an opportunity to do research, many times trying to balance a full school schedule, work, and a personal life became quite challenging. But, not doing some type of research and gaining that experience is not an option for many students looking to go to graduate or medical school. Even if the schools do not directly say they want to see research experience on your resume, most of the time they still expect you to have some.

Research is an important resource for students because it gives them a fantastic way to build their resume for graduate schools or other forms of continuing education. But, what is wonderful about what we are trying to create is lets them do that while still gaining credits towards their degrees. As a student hoping to get into a competitive medical school, having something like this on your resume is a priceless tool that can not only give you an upper hand on paper, but makes you grow as an individual and teaches you independent study and time management while also providing you with stories if you were to be interviewed. It is possibly one of the best things for a student to have who is looking to move onto higher education after their undergrad in a competitive world where a even a great GPA and entrance exam score might not be enough. When my friend and fellow peer, Lindsey Cundra, and I had explained all of these things to my former professor, Dr. Reid Schwebach, he had told us of his idea to create an ongoing summer-intensive research opportunity for Mason undergraduates.

Every week Lindsey and I have a meeting with Dr. Schwebach to go over what we have done, where we are at with the project, and what needs to be done by the time of the meeting the following week. Once we have established what we have to do for the next meeting with Dr. Schwebach, Lindsey and I get together and work collaboratively on the project. Though the foundation of what we do for this project is generally looking up past literature or writing about the science or the curriculum, the specific details of what we are looking up or writing changes week to week. Dr. Schwebach, Lindsey and I are in constant contact with each other, whether through email or text. But, this makes it so we always know what is going on or what needs to be done to help push the project along.

This week, the workload was no different. We just were looking up past literature on mycobacteriophage and were looking up curriculums of other schools that have created ongoing research opportunities for students. Further, we created a rough outline of what our curriculum might look like based on a 5-week long semester.