Undergraduate research and scholarly activity are alive and well on the SUNY Oswego campus. Since the introduction of Student Scholarly and Creative Activities (SCAC) Awards in 1996, much needed monies have been provided to fund a variety of activities both on and off campus.
Jarod Miller, a junior zoology major, is our most visible recent awardee. He is currently working on a behavioral study of dwarf lemurs at Burnett Park Zoo. Jarod is an accomplished handler of wild and endangered animals. He has appeared in this capacity on the NBC Today Show, the Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Live with Regis and Kathy Lee and Good Morning America. In addition, Jarod was a creative consultant for the show "Zoboomafoo" which premiered in early January 1999 on PBS. During the winter break, he did promotions for the Columbus Zoo in Ohio and booked an upcoming appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
The Environmental Research Center located on the SUNY Oswego campus is on the cutting edge of environmental cleanup. Its work has covered a wide range of projects from landfill to lake trout contamination. An important component of its successful program has been the involvement of undergraduate researchers who are funded through the Undergraduate Environmental Fellowships Program. For example, Sara Karl and Tom Ryan, both chemistry majors, and Laura Diemel, a zoology major, worked on projects involving chlorinated organic compounds and their effects on the environment. Sara's project investigated the build-up and metabolism of polychlorinated terphenyls in an industrially contaminated food web at a site adjacent to Lake Ontario. Tom analyzed the offspring of rats that were fed varying amounts of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and found that these compounds are transferred during gestation and postnatally through nursing. Laura collected water, sediment and biota samples from sites along the Oswego River and analyzed them for PCB contamination. Finally, Laura Williamson, a zoology major, studied snapping turtle eggs as a biological monitor of environmental contamination. All of these studies address important aspects of environmental pollution in the Oswego area.
The Department of Psychology at SUNY Oswego houses the Center for Neurobehavioral Effects of Environmental Toxics. The Center uses a two-pronged approach to the investigation of the effects of prenatal exposure to persistent environmental pollutants on behavioral and cognitive development, combining experimental animal research with a longitudinal epidemiological study of exposed human children. The Oswego Newborn and Infant Development Project is measuring three cohorts of children recruited between 1991 and 1994 for the effects of exposure. Christina Rosato and Michele Hall are working on a qualitative analysis of assessment visit summaries submitted by the Project's Behavioral Assessment Team. When completed, this study will provide valuable information on the behavior of children in the Project during the assessment sessions. In addition to her participation in this aspect of the research, Christina has also been assisting the Behavioral Assessment Team in the field since the spring of 1998.
Students in the Center's Neurobehavioral Toxicology Laboratory are involved in multiple projects aimed at determining the effects in rats of maternal consumption of contaminated Great Lakes fish on learning and memory in the offspring of rats, as well as the specific contaminants responsible for these effects. The three students currently involved are Dan Wheeler, Betty Dunsmoor, and Amy Aucompaugh. Dan and Betty, "senior " students in the lab, are both involved in independent projects funded by Student SCAC awards. Dan's work examines the relative impact of pre- and post-natal exposure to fish-born-toxics on short term memory, as well as examining the construct validity of so-called "simpler" measures of short-term memory in the rat (e.g., unbaited tunnel maze performance). Betty, a student who received the Student SCAC award and the Psychology Department's Helen Bohmer Daly Award will investigate the pre- and post-natal exposure to fish-born contaminants on emotional behavior in the rat. Specifically, she will conduct an experimental study of the effects of exposure on avoidance of negative stimuli in conflict tasks. Amy is involved in the development of her independent study project and submitting a research proposal which was funded under the Helen Bohmer Daly Award in Spring 1999.