By Timothy R. Olsen ’09, M.B.A. ’18

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Under the microscope, research is interesting, but for many the word itself often isn’t. While research may conjure up images of microscopes, beakers, and white lab coats, its scope is infinitely broader.

Each year, hundreds of Utah State University students participate in undergraduate research. These students hail from each of USU’s colleges, come from different walks of life, and have myriad educational and career goals and aspirations.

A Different Point of View

In March of 2011 a massive tsunami wave surged through the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on the east coast of Japan, disabling the power supply and cooling function of three of the plant’s reactors. This caused the nuclear fuel on those reactors to overheat and partially melt the reactor cores.

That disaster, caused by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, led to the evacuation of more than 150,000 people. It wasn’t until nine months later the reactors were declared to be in cold shutdown condition, meaning the reactor coolant system had finally dropped below 200 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s estimated complete decontamination of the site could take 40 years.

When it comes to nuclear energy, there are extreme forces — like heat and radiation — at work. While great strides have been made since the Fukushima disaster, understanding how those forces affect different materials, and if undergoing those stressors repeatedly weakens them is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

Though not the Idaho National Laboratories’ sole focus — or even its main one — there’s a room in the Idaho Falls facility where this material degradation can be studied on the other side of a window. The catch? That window is a 48-inch-thick slab of leaded glass. Accurately photographing things on the other side of it is no easy task.

And that’s where senior Brayden Monson’s research comes in.

Have you ever stuck your hand underwater and noticed how it’s position subtly shifts? Maybe you’ve tried to catch a fish or tadpole swimming just beneath the surface only to come up empty-handed. The phenomenon that distorts what you’re seeing under the surface is called refraction and is the focus of Monson’s research.

Except, rather than sticking his hand under water, he’s studying its effect through thick, multi-paned glass.

In conjunction with Dr. Ryan Berke, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, Monson is studying optics. Berke’s lab focuses on experimental solid mechanics with an emphasis on extreme temperature applications. Or, put more simply, the lab studies how materials degrade or break down under extreme force or temperature.

Under Berke’s tutelage, Monson has spent the past year and half working on a window to mimic the optical properties of the one in Idaho. Testing at the Idaho National Laboratories is expensive and involves a litany of safety procedures, whereas testing in the lab at Utah State — where they don’t have to reproduce the radiation shielding because they’re not testing irradiated materials — is significantly cheaper and completely safe.

“Ever since I started [my research] things have really ballooned outward, and the research has become much more interesting to a wide group of people. They really want to know how to apply [camera-based deformation measurements] through a thick, optically distorted medium,” Monson explains. “The broader research is going to help out the field of experimental mechanics, and it’s going to help out with designing nuclear reactors quite a lot.”

To build USU’s replica window, Monson and Berke took a four-foot-long fish tank, stuffed it full of glass bricks to simulate the optical properties of the nested panes inside the INL window, and then filled in the gaps with mineral oil to make them optically transparent. The ability to practice these high-magnification measurements at a fraction of the cost allows them to build a benchmark for the sort of distortions and errors they should expect in Idaho.

“The undergraduate research has given me a lot of experience that I would not have had a chance to get otherwise,” Monson says. “It’s just that sort of practical, real-world experience that I just wouldn’t have gotten.

“I didn’t know anything about the field of optics at all. As a mechanical engineer, we have maybe half a unit on it in a physics class, and then it’s never talked about again. But I’ve been able to spend two summers now just learning about optics and learning about the field and about how it affects my project. And I’m thinking, ‘Wow, this is really interesting stuff, and I’d love to be more involved and invested in it.’ So, this is what I think I want to go get a PhD in.”

A Study in Behavior

“But why?”

That was the question senior Jacey Hopkin asked the most as a kid. That simple inquiry constantly led her on Wikipedia hunts with her mother and kept her dad busy after he got home from work.

“I just had such a passion for learning and for kind of puzzling out how the world works. And the idea of a scientist has always appealed to me,” Hopkin recalls. “I was just so enchanted with the idea of looking at the world from a perspective of, how does it work, and what happens if we do X. I’ve always loved it.”

That inquisitive nature and desire to puzzle out how the world works followed Hopkin, who is slated to graduate this coming fall, to USU where she immediately sought out undergraduate research opportunities. A dual major in psychology and biology, she originally started out in physics before realizing that was not the path for her.

Hopkin’s path led her to assistant professor Sara Freeman’s lab in the Department of Biology. A member of the Utah State faculty since 2019, Freeman — who’s lab is heavily involved in undergraduate research — was named a Peak Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year in 2022.

While in the Freeman Lab, Hopkin worked on a research project trying to determine if there were differences in the brains of animals, specifically coyotes, that had lost their pair mate compared to those that hadn’t. Coyotes are monogamous and form lifelong pair bonds after they mate, providing a model organism to study social loss.

Ultimately, the portion of the brain they were able to test in the study showed no difference between the animals that had lost their pair mates and the ones that hadn’t. However, due to the limited scope of undergraduate projects, Hopkin was only able to look at a small section of the brain.

While the study didn’t ultimately yield the results she was hoping for, her time in the lab helped Hopkin discover her love for psychology, the study of the mind, and how people relate to the world. It also included Hopkin discovering that she didn’t really want to work with dead tissue — or animal models.

She’s now shifted her focus to humans and how people view the world around them.

“Engaging in undergraduate research has really, at the same time, broadened and narrowed my scope of what research really entails,” Hopkin says. “It’s helped me work through the nitty gritty of writing research papers, submitting ethics proposals, doing these experiments and presenting them to audiences, and learning all of these technical skills not taught in classrooms.

“Utah State is definitely the place for undergraduate research. When I switched my major, I thought about changing colleges, but what really made me stay was how much funding was available for undergraduate research and how much support was available for students,” she emphasizes. “These opportunities are just everywhere at Utah State, and there’s so much support available for anyone who’s interested. … I think it’s invaluable experience to understand how it works and to get your hands dirty, get in the lab and see how your work fits into the world at large.”

Drought Resistance and Water in the West

Plants have mouths … well, kind of. More like microscopic holes, called a stoma, usually on the underside of their leaves. This is how they breathe, exchanging oxygen with carbon dioxide. The exchange of gases also allows water to evaporate from the plant into the surrounding air.

This process is extremely important to a plant’s drought resistance, and there are a multitude of factors that affect its efficiency. Understanding those factors and how to potentially manipulate them is important for agriculture, especially in the arid west, and is something that fascinates senior Ty Wilson.

The 24-year-old Rupert, Idaho native has spent the past two years working in Dr. Amita Kaundal’s lab researching plant-microbe interaction at Utah State.

“Looking at the microbes right around the roots, as well as inside the roots and inside the leaf tissue, to see whether or not those microbes have plant-growth promoting characteristics,” Wilson says. “There’s tons of microbes everywhere, but the plants are able to kind of attract the ones that they like.”

Some of the microbe characteristics plants are looking for include nitrogen fixation — essentially the process of turning the plentiful but relatively inert nitrogen gas in the air into more reactive nitrogen compounds found in fertile soil — and iron chelation, the process in which an organic compound binds to iron making it more available for the plant to absorb.

Kaundal, an assistant professor and molecular biologist, says the goal is to develop and test bio fertilizers that will not only help develop stress-resilient crops, but also alleviate the long-term soil destruction caused by a lot of the fertilizers currently being used.

“With climate change, environmental stresses, and the world population increasing … we need to increase the crop production,” Kaundal says. “We are putting tons and tons of fertilizers in the soil, and these fertilizers, they help with this crop production for a little while, but then later on, they just destroy the soil.”

For his part, Wilson, who spent this past summer participating in a 10-week internship at Michigan State University, plans to pursue graduate school and then a career in governmental research working on the molecular side of plants. With the portfolio he’s already developed through his undergraduate research, he’s well on his way.

“I already had two papers published by the time I did this summer internship and had lots of lab experience. So, while other people were getting used to lab work for the first couple weeks, I hit the ground running the first week,” Wilson recalls. “I was able to do more during that internship because I had this background. … I wholly attribute it to the experience that I had doing undergraduate research previously and having prepared presentations and making posters and presenting in the past.”

Facing The Music

Stage fright. For many performers, it’s an inevitable and sometimes career-defining challenge. For senior pianist Audry Ricks, studying how to navigate this obstacle became the focus of her undergraduate research.

Ricks, a native of Smithfield, has been immersed in music from a young age. But as she delved deeper into her studies, she discovered a curiosity that extended beyond the piano keys — understanding the psychological hurdles musicians face when performing under pressure.

“Stage fright is one of the main reasons for attrition. A lot of people quit because of that,” explains Dr. Cahill Smith, an assistant professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Caine College of the Arts. “It’s very hard for them to perform things from memory under pressure, and there’s this huge dip to their performance.”

Specifically, Ricks focused her research on examining performance anxiety the day of competition. She and her team received funding to travel to Ireland to observe and analyze how competitors prepared during the crucial moments before taking the stage. They filmed warm-up routines, collected data, and conducted interviews to understand what strategies worked best for managing anxiety.

“Our study was mainly focused on how to manage performance anxiety, but specifically the day of the performance,” Ricks says. “The learning process through it all was really mind blowing, honestly.”

One of the most intriguing findings came from observing the first-place winner, who verbally articulated his plan before even touching the piano. The study also revealed a surprising disconnect between performers’ internal experiences and how they were perceived by judges.

“They found (a performer’s internal anxiety) had no correlation at all with what the judge perceived,” says Smith, who is also Ricks’ faculty mentor. “It’s kind of cool, because it tells people that even when they’re feeling incredibly nervous, jumping on stage to play these things, most people can’t perceive it if they’ve been practicing.”

For Ricks, the research process was as much about personal growth as it was about contributing to the field of music. From drafting funding proposals to navigating human subject approvals and analyzing data, the project demanded skills far beyond those taught in the classroom.

“I’d never learned how to do qualitative or quantitative research methods, so that was all new to me,” Ricks reflects. “It helped me to be more organized and see a bigger picture. It also helped me to think critically and to figure out a plan when things don’t work out.”

Smith sees Ricks’ work as part of a broader movement to destigmatize the pressures of performing.

“The music world is incredibly disorganized. There’s a lot of unnecessary mystique around it,” Smith says. “This is one of those things like ‘Fight Club.’ You know, don’t talk about ‘Fight Club?’ You don’t talk about performance anxiety. But we’re now merging science, psychology, and music education to give students tools to succeed.”

Ricks’ research experience has inspired her to pursue further exploration at the intersection of music and psychology. Her next project involves developing a tool to help students visualize their performance data, such as note velocity and duration, through MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) technology. The aim? To make learning scales and sight-reading more accessible and engaging.

Reflecting on her undergraduate journey, Ricks emphasizes the transformative power of research.

“I never imagined I’d be involved in research, but I was fortunate to have a mentor who encouraged me to take that first step,” she says. “Looking back, I’m so grateful for the knowledge and skills I’ve gained, the professional connections that have shaped me, and the opportunity to connect with the community.”

Smith echoed Ricks’ remarks about the benefits reaped by students who participate in undergraduate research and specifically pointed out the abundant opportunities available at Utah State.

“I came from a school that did not have the emphasis on undergraduate research. There was a lot of great grad school stuff. It was a really strong graduate program in music, but the undergrads really didn’t do anything like that,” he recalls. “So, I’ve really appreciated that focus (on undergraduate research) from [Utah State], and I just want to do more. … I think it’s incredibly valuable.”