Rewarding Research Brings Rewards

March 01, 2012

There aren't too many college students running around with topics like cardiac stimulation and ultrashort pulses and electroporation-induced currents bouncing around in their heads. For two ODU Engineering undergraduate students, Allison Joiner and Amanda Sokolsky, these topics could not be any more relevant in their daily lives as college students.

Joiner and Sokolsky, who pursue studies in electrical engineering and mechanical engineering, respectively, have been working on these topics in research with the assistance of mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Dr. Stephen Knisley to help better understand, and potentially uncover new, electrical therapies within the medical field. For their efforts, which culminated in a research project entitled "Effect of Ultrashort Pulses on Heart Stimulation," the judges of the 13th Annual Tidewater Student Research Poster Session at Christopher Newport University awarded the pair a first place finish in the Undergraduate Division of the competition.

This poster session is the highlight of the fall program of activities for the Tidewater Chapter of Sigma Xi, the scientific research society honoring excellence in scientific investigation and encouraging a sense of companionship and cooperation among researchers in all fields of science and engineering. Over the last three years, students from CNU, ODU, HU, EVMS, UVA and Virginia Tech have presented posters on their research across a wide array of domains.

This juried poster session was open to empirical research by graduate and undergraduate students in any area of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, and prizes were awarded for the 1st place, 2nd place, and Honorable Mention posters in the graduate and undergraduate divisions.