Giegerich Honored in Washington, D.C.
4/30/2015 11:57:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Gavin McFarlin - Assistant SID
DAVIDSON, N.C. — Senior forward Mellissa Giegerich has been busy since the season and her career came to a close for her on the court as part of the Davidson women's basketball team, as she was recently honored in Washington, D.C.
On April 22nd and 23rd, Giegerich, who will graduate this May with a degree in psychology, presented her senior thesis as a poster at the Council for Undergraduate Research [CUR] meeting, "Posters on the Hill." Her research was one of only 60 posters selected from about 600 submissions for the annual conference held in Washington, D.C. Besides communicating about her research with other undergraduate scholars and their mentors, she spoke with legislators and staff in one-to-one
meetings about her work while attending the conference.
Giegerich and Dr. Barton, her faculty and thesis adviser at Davidson, were briefed by the CUR staff on how to effectively advocate for support for undergraduate research. In meetings with legislators, staffers, and poster session attendees, Giegerich advocated not only for research support for Autism, but for undergraduate research support generally; citing how the Psychology Department Summer Fellowship made her project possible, and how the NIH, NIMH, and NSF have supported students and faculty at Davidson for decades.
"The Council on Undergraduate Research's Posters on the Hill conference was an opportunity that I'm very grateful to have been a part of," said Geigerich. "This experience went above and beyond my expectations. I thoroughly enjoyed communicating the importance of undergraduate research to members of Congress, and experiencing how receptive and genuinely interested they were in what I had to say. Using my senior thesis research as an example, I explained how my thesis would not have been possible without funding provided by various institutions. Being able to do a thesis project had a great impact on my college experience and helped me figure out my future research and academic goals. This conference provided me with the opportunity to tell even more people about my research and bring awareness to the challenges facing families with individuals with autism."
In addition, the Wolfeboro, N.H., native had the honor to meet directly with Senator Richard Burr from North Carolina, as well as Representative Frank Guinta, from her home state of New Hampshire.
This summer Giegerich will begin working in a lab at the Lieber Institute, which is affiliated with Johns Hopkins, studying pharmacology in Schizophrenia.
On April 22nd and 23rd, Giegerich, who will graduate this May with a degree in psychology, presented her senior thesis as a poster at the Council for Undergraduate Research [CUR] meeting, "Posters on the Hill." Her research was one of only 60 posters selected from about 600 submissions for the annual conference held in Washington, D.C. Besides communicating about her research with other undergraduate scholars and their mentors, she spoke with legislators and staff in one-to-one
meetings about her work while attending the conference. Giegerich and Dr. Barton, her faculty and thesis adviser at Davidson, were briefed by the CUR staff on how to effectively advocate for support for undergraduate research. In meetings with legislators, staffers, and poster session attendees, Giegerich advocated not only for research support for Autism, but for undergraduate research support generally; citing how the Psychology Department Summer Fellowship made her project possible, and how the NIH, NIMH, and NSF have supported students and faculty at Davidson for decades.
"The Council on Undergraduate Research's Posters on the Hill conference was an opportunity that I'm very grateful to have been a part of," said Geigerich. "This experience went above and beyond my expectations. I thoroughly enjoyed communicating the importance of undergraduate research to members of Congress, and experiencing how receptive and genuinely interested they were in what I had to say. Using my senior thesis research as an example, I explained how my thesis would not have been possible without funding provided by various institutions. Being able to do a thesis project had a great impact on my college experience and helped me figure out my future research and academic goals. This conference provided me with the opportunity to tell even more people about my research and bring awareness to the challenges facing families with individuals with autism."
In addition, the Wolfeboro, N.H., native had the honor to meet directly with Senator Richard Burr from North Carolina, as well as Representative Frank Guinta, from her home state of New Hampshire.This summer Giegerich will begin working in a lab at the Lieber Institute, which is affiliated with Johns Hopkins, studying pharmacology in Schizophrenia.
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