Featured researchers
Joseph Beeman
Year in school:
Senior
Major degree program/department:
Biology (minor in Spanish)
Joseph Beeman works with Dr. Susan Nagel in the Department of OB/GYN and Women's Health. He studies endocrine disruption and focuses specifically on xenoestrogens, which are chemicals found in the environment and in indstury that can mimic the body’s natural estrogen hormone. As such, they have the ability to exert therapeutic or detrimental effects depending on the type of xenoestrogen.
Connie Bubash
Year in school:
senior
Major degree program/department:
English
MU senior and undergraduate research ambassador Connie Bubash spent an average of five hours a day doing research this summer, but Bubash is no scientist. She is an English major originally from Lee’s Summit, Mo., and her research subject was Giordano Bruno, an Italian Renaissance philosopher.
Danielle Huff
Year in school:
senior
Major degree program/department:
biological science, pre-med
Danielle Huff was introduced to the EXPRESS program (Exposure to Research for Science Students) during Summer Welcome prior to her freshman year. With her mentor, School of Nursing Professor Jane Armer, Huff has been examining the possible relationship between the use of hormone replacement therapy before the onset of breast cancer with the occurrence and severity of lymphedema in breast cancer survivors.
John Moon
Year in school:
Junior
Major degree program/department:
Atmospheric sciences
Hail storms are bad news for most people. But for John Moon, a University of Missouri junior majoring in atmospheric sciences, a recent spring thunderstorm was cause for celebration. That was when his hail pads first recorded the impact of one-inch hailstones on the north edge of the MU campus.
Megan Pallo
Year in school:
senior
Major degree program/department:
secondary science education
MU Senior Megan Pallo has had two summer internships in Colorado and one in the Galapagos Islands. Both locations are a long way from her hometown of Independence, Mo. Her secret to adventure is letting people know about her interests and then saying yes when opportunities present themselves.
Katie Walker
Year in school:
senior
Major degree program/department:
biochemistry
Since March of 2006, Katie Walker has been working in Dr. Antje Heese’s lab, which studies how proteins and molecules are transported to the places that they need to go within in the cell. Vesicular trafficking plays an integral role in the immunity of plants (the way plants protect themselves from pathogens). Walker's role in the lab is to evaluate the various defense responses the plants have when they are attacked my pathogens; specifically, the first line of plant defense responses, also known as “innate immunity.”