Integrated Science Curriculum (ISC) students Carolyn Jones and Amour Dau presented their work this summer at Virginia Tech's Office of Undergraduate Research Summer Research Conference on July 31st. 

Dau’s work, titled “Variability in Children’s Emotional Responses to Threat Over Time,” examines how young children’s responses in contexts like stranger anxiety, separation, and novelty evolve across ages 18 to 24 months. The study used behavioral coding to measure positive and negative effects. Dau is biological sciences student from Henrico, Virginia, who participated in ISC during her first two years at Virginia Tech. Dau also presented her work at the fifth annual Summer Programs Research Symposium at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC.

Jones’s research, “Lighting the Way to Sustainable Biofuel Production: Optogenetic Control in Yarrowia lipolytica,” works to establish light-switchable control systems in an industrial yeast. Jones is a Neuroscience student from Clarence Center, NY who participated in ISC during her first two years at Virginia Tech.

Both students successfully talked about their work among over 150 other teams, expressing how the work they had done as part of the Integrated Science Curriculum helped prepare them for this exciting opportunity.