From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on April 11, Northwestern College’s Celebration of Research took place in the Rowenhorst Student Center.
A plethora of panels and posters were set up all across the mall, and a wide variety of topics were discussed by a vast array of confidently passionate presenters.
Attendees were invited to walk past each station and listen to short presentations on the research done by both undergraduate and postgraduate NW students. Every so often, the room would be quieted as a talented musician would stand onstage and perform a song for everybody in attendance. This music ranged from opera to classical and even a few selections from the hit musical “Matilda”. The dichotomy of intellect in both research and art did not go unappreciated, and the performances were valued just as deeply as the presentations.
One stand-out presentation was the second-semester Genetics class which annotated bacteriophage genomes that have never before been dissected by anyone in the scientific community. It was pleasant to see NW students making important and practical contributions to the modern world.
Pratik Paudel, Mari Hirota and Hyunsung Jun decided to take on the intense task of analyzing the data emitted by quasars to determine the distance of these high-energy beams from our solar system while also looking at whether newer galaxies differ from the ones that have been around for a larger segment of the universe’s history.
Tirzah Wittenberg and Dr. Pam Hulstein took a look at how deaths of despair differ when it comes to rural populations and disproved many stigmas that American citizens have about the mental health of those who live in these rural communities.
Josiah Troutner presented the effects of Jewish liturgics on Christian worship and how Christians unintentionally appropriate these liturgics through their cursory understanding of the depth of these traditions.
Dr. Jennifer Feenstra, Jessica Nibbelink, Anneka Sterk, and David Grandel examined how mindset and testing affect one’s memory and the accuracy of their judgments. Nibbelink also did a solo project on the unseen sexism present in the hiring process for most occupations.
These students, their professors and others not included work tirelessly and regularly to contribute to humanity’s unending quest to understand our existence and how the world around us affects it, it is incredibly important to recognize these efforts by giving both our students and staff an environment in which they can openly speak about their passions. NW goes above and beyond in doing so by advertising this event to students as well as researchers in the surrounding area. This spreads the gift of knowledge from NW into the world. If you missed out on experiencing the annual Celebration of Research, be sure to catch next year so you can support the hard work students put into their education.
