Monday, April 20, 2020

ALURA Recipients Announced for 2020!

We are happy to announce the winners of this year’s Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Awards: congratulations to CAS students Margaret Eronimous and Lindsey Jordan!

In the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, our congratulations go to Margaret Eronimous for her ALURA submission in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences entitled, “An American Sound: Parallels in Popular Compositions and Land Management in Depression Era North and Latin America.” Maggie began work on this project in the fall of her junior year and has just successfully defended the paper. 
The central claim of Maggie’s paper revolves around changing human relationships with natural spaces and emerging attitudes and practices around public lands developed in tandem with novel musical forms during the 1930s and 40s in the Americas. Her work explores and defines examples of how art imitated life in the form of popular music. In order to do this, Maggie necessarily drew upon works in scholarship, journalism, government reports, and musical scores and recordings. Bravely navigating the waters of an emerging sub-discipline, she made full and expert use of various information resources, including multiple databases, print materials, and faculty across campus.  

In Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, our congratulations go to Lindsey Jordan for her paper, “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Associated with Animal Agriculture and Mitigation Strategies within the Industry.” Lindsey describes her paper as a “meta-analysis of mitigation opportunities.”  Her central question is: “How much would our total emissions decrease if we applied technical mitigation strategies to the four processes in the livestock lifecycle analysis?” 
Lindsey used a variety of sources including books, journal articles and scientific research-based information from NGOs including the OECD and the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization.  From that literature, Lindsey identified stages in the livestock lifecycle that could be analyzed, and various mitigation strategies associated with each.  She synthesized content from those sources and concluded that using a variety of strategies could result in a 45% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.  That is a reduction of more than 3.2 gigatons annually.  A significant amount.   

We’d also like to heartily thank the members of this year’s two selection committees, and all of the entrants. Winners from all years may be viewed in InSPIRe, our institutional repository. Congratulations to Maggie and Lindsey! 

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