CMU student researching worms for Honors project
Editor’s note: This is the first story following a student working on their Honors senior project.
Freeland senior Mariah Hanson cannot get away with last-minute studying or blowing off research for this project.
She is in the beginning stages of semester-long research for her Honors Senior Research Project.
There are 160 students per semester in various steps of the Honors senior project, whether it be the proposal stage or working on the actual project, said Honors Program Director James Hill.
“Ninety students a year on average complete projects,” Hill said.
Hanson’s project, “Immunocytochemistry of several RNP granule components in an inx-14 mutant strain of caenorhabditis elegans,” was her topic of choice.
Although the title in itself is a lot to digest for people outside the science field, Hanson is working to see if ribonucleoprotein granules found in the eggs of microscopic worms called caenorhabditis elegans help sustain viability in the worm’s egg when a delay in fertilization occurs.
Hanson said the worms are an ideal model to conduct research on because the C.Elegans and humans eggs react similarly to aging.
By the end of Hanson’s project, she hopes to understand more about viability of human eggs as a woman gets older.
Hanson has been long planning out and preparing for her project.
“When I was a freshman, they did introduce it in the HON 100 class, which is what everyone has to take as an Honors student,” Hanson said.
Since entering CMU’s Honors Program, each student has to keep in mind that without the completion of an Honors project, student do not graduate with honors recognition.
“(The Honors Program does) send you periodic e-mails to remind you that you need to complete this in order to maintain your status within the honors program,” Hanson said.
Honors Program students get an opportunity that about 90 percent of the student body does not, Hill said. Making sure students have the building blocks to advance or continue their research after graduation is the purpose of the Honors project, he said.
Taking baby steps
There are several steps students must take before jumping into their projects.
One is finding a project adviser — a faculty member within the student’s department of study.
“You really have to find a good adviser to work with, who’s going to mentor your project,” Hanson said.
As a biomedical science major, Hanson has been working with associate professor of biology Jennifer Schisa for her research project.
The next step is writing a proposal, Hanson said.
Working with an adviser to comprise a clear and concise project proposal is important. Without this, there is no moving ahead with a project.
If it gets denied, students can make revisions, and the program will tell them specifically what those revisions have to be, and then it can be resubmitted, Hanson said.
