The Summer Researchers Program and first ever Virtual Summer Research Symposium were a huge success. Nearly 70 students gave presentations on their virtual research activities this summer (including work conducted with 11 institutions outside of CSUMB). Thank you to all the students, faculty, and staff who worked hard to make this summer a successful one.

Even as the campus community continues to deal with challenges associated with the pandemic -- and more recently, wildfires -- UROC remains committed to providing the same level of academic and support services to the college community. Please continue encouraging students to seek out the campus resources available to them.

Go Otters!

Dr. John Banks

UROC Director

The shift from what would have included international and domestic travel to participate in competitive REUs, fieldwork, and other cool experiences to what our UROC students actually experienced was nothing short of challenging. Nevertheless, whatever the setting or new setup, CSUMB students persisted. They have rolled with the punches of a global pandemic and redefined the scope and benefits of a summer research experience.

So as our summer comes to an end, we asked a few of our UROC Researchers to reflect back on their summer experience and write about it. Please enjoy their stories.

This summer has been a doozy, but an exciting doozy to say the least! I started the beginning of summer feeling pretty bummed about missing out on several planned research opportunities. The treatment I'm currently undergoing for my autoimmune disease is severely immuno-compromising, which means that during a pandemic I'm pretty much studeck at home. It's pretty boring, actually. But then I got accepted into UROC's remote Summer Research Program and it turns out my summer was anything but boring!

For the last two months, I have been studying the relationship between bat and insect activity -- cool, right? While I'm usually out in the field catching bats until 1am, this summer I got to spend time on the more technical part of bat research by focusing on acoustic identification and insect identification. All in all, this was probably some of the most valuable research I've had to do in my entire research career. Before this, I never had to learn how to navigate Sonat software so efficiently, nor had I ever looked at insets in relation to bat foraging -- two really important facts of bat research. Most importantly, this summer I really learned how to be an independent researcher. In the past, all other research I've done has been assisting others with their own projects. This time itwas it was my own project and I was responsible for designing it. There were tseveral times I found myself asking other, "Okay, what do I do next?" I was so used to following someone else's path instead of creating my own. This summer, I finally broke that barrier, and with the help of my amazing research mentor, Dr. Jennifer Duggan, and peers, I feel much more confident in my ability to conduct independent research -- something that has really helped to prepare for grad school!

This summer, I explored finding a general formula for the cardinality of the set SYT(ƛ) alongside Dr. Lipika Deka. While exploring, we came up with a conjecture for the cardinality of the set SYT(ƛ) when taking the partition of a prime number. The great thing about mathematics research is that math can be done anywhere. This meant that I never had the issues other researchers would have by not being able to meet in person.

When I was a graduate student many years ago, a very established professor in social psychology told the story of how his Yiddish grandmother asked what he was researching. When he explained his work to her, she said, “It took you 8 years to figure out that?” Why didn’t you just ask me? He called this “Bubbeh psychology,” or explaining what seems obvious when it is articulated well. I have always carried this with me, recognizing and naming this phenomenon frequently in my own research. So it was only fitting that during our summer research, one mentee observed that, “it seems like we are stating the obvious.” This felt like a victory because this comment is really insightful into what I try to accomplish through research with students. It reflects both a normalization of research and a comfort with the process. When I reflect on the accomplishments and successes of the summer research with three students working on two projects, there are many, most frequently articulated through outcomes such as presentations and papers. And yet, when I asked students what they got from the summer, it was the less tangible aspects of research that they valued. Primary among these was a greater understanding of what research actually looks like. Having served as a field research “grunt” for most of my summers as an undergraduate, I knew that I learned a lot from collecting data and being part of a team, but research still remained a mystery to me, a black box for experts. My approach as a mentor and colleague with my students is to reveal the thinking behind research, and engage students in all steps of the process. Over the summer students expressed a variety of ways they were learning about research that they had never experienced before and felt greater ownership and interest as a result. Students gained an understanding of how nuanced research can be and at the same time an understanding that research contributes to knowledge when we can construct it together, generating something that “fits” such that it comes to seem obvious. Summer success for me has been achieving some of those “Bubbeh psychology” moments, together.

Dr. Victoria Derr is an Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Environmental Science

The global pandemic has made continuing to conduct research unwieldy for some and downright impossible for others. The two projects I was working on with UROC Researchers Natassia Aleman-Teweles, Brandon Garcia, and UROC Scholar Cameron Battersby were at the writing stage, and writing is one of the research tasks that is relatively easier during this time. Although, academic parents might find the current moment to be an even more difficult time to write than other periods before covid. As a parent myself I have experienced my share of moments where I just wanted to quit any and all work requiring deep concentration. Yet, it was exactly these moments that gave me the opportunity to practice some of the skills I have been working on with students, and honestly, with myself. Here they are:

Dr. Jennifer Dyer-Seymour is a Professor in the Psychology Department

It's hard to envision how a pandemic such as the COVID-19 can have a creative effect on a research project. Yet, that's precisely what happened for CSUMB's Summer 2020 UROC student researcher Xenia Enriquez, and to me, Dr. Lorenzo Covarrubias, who have the pleasure of co-mentoring her, along with Dr. Angie Tran. With social distancing strictly enforced and face-to-face interaction not an option -- the hallmark of social science research -- we three decided that Xenia's summer experience was to be exciting, effective, and fulfilling. We turned to social media, published interviews, previous reports, past field notes, print and online media, texting, phone calls and her intuition...and by the time the 2020 Summer Research Symposium came along, I beamed when I saw Xenia present and handle questions like a seasoned student researcher. Equally telling, was how she integrated the COVID-19 virus pandemic into her research topic, adding an element of anthropology/sociology of health to her description and analysis of the challenging working and living conditions that agricultural H2A guest workers -- temporary workers from Mexico with a special visa and who come to work in the Salinas Valley. Mentoring is both a joy and a challenge: we want to mentor effectively, yet we only know if it was so, during an event such as the Summer Symposium. All students were motivated, and among them, was this young and aspiring student researcher as one more example of how creativity can save the day.

Dr. Lorenzo Covarrubias is a Lecturer and Dr. Angie Tran is a Professor both for the School of Social, Behavioral & Global Studies

Every year, the California Pre-Doctoral Program recognizes and awards funds to students selected as Sally Casanova Pre-Doctoral Scholars in order to allow them to explore and prepare for success in a doctoral program in their chosen field of study. This program is designed to increase the pool of potential faculty by supporting the doctoral aspirations of California State University students who have experienced economic and educational disadvantages. The program places a special emphasis on increasing the number of CSU students who enter doctoral programs at one of the University of California institutions.

We are proud to announce that UROC McNair Scholar Selina Espinoza has been named as a 2020 Sally Casanova Pre-Doctoral Scholar. Espinoza will receive an award of $3,000 to support graduate school and professional development endeavors for the upcoming 2020-21 year.

Meanwhile, UROC McNair Scholar Mariana Duarte was recognized by the pre-doctoral program in the honorable mention category. Duarte was one of four juniors selected from the 21 honorable mentions selected, composed of mostly masters students.

Read the full story here.

Since that day, UROC staff have met several times to facilitate a virtual dialogue around racial justice and research with our Summer Researchers Program participants. There were optional events, but nearly half the summer group join in the conversation. On July 1st, we broke into small groups affording everyone the opportunity to share their perspectives, if they chose to so, concerning intersections between research and social (in)justice. We concluded the day, by brainstorming concrete actions that UROC could support or facilitate -- particularly for BIPOC (Black Indigenous, People of Color) scholars -- within our classrooms, studios, laboratories, departments, or disciplines.

UROC remains committed to the efforts to build more just and equitable communities and in response to our discussion with students we have come up with the following action items:

The first step in taking charge of your academic development begins by utilizing the various academic success resources below and attending events that may suit your needs. Visit our workshops page for dates and times.

It's all about "The Ask": Contacting Prospective Graduate Research Faculty Before Applying

Don't Hit SEND Just Yet!: 5 Tips for Professional Communication