News Archives - 2011

Representing Augsburg at our nation's Capitol

This spring during Undergraduate Research Week, Jeremy Anthony, a senior mathematics major, represented Augsburg College in the Council on Undergraduate Research Posters on the Hill event. This event held each year in Washington, D.C. showcases the research of 75 undergraduate students from colleges and universities across the country.

Anthony was one of 700 applicants who were selected to present his research at the Capitol. Mathematics professor John Zobitz, who was Anthony's research adviser, said that the council chose projects that represented good examples of undergraduate research and also highlighted government support.

Anthony's project, which was funded through the Undergraduate Research and Graduate Opportunity (URGO) program at Augsburg, involved modeling carbon uptake of a forest in Colorado. He used wavelets (a math function) to understand the relationship between carbon uptake and environmental variables like air temperature.

While at the Capitol, Anthony and Zobitz met with Senators Franken and Klobuchar and with Congressman Ellison. "Congressman Ellison had a background in statistics so we had a really good conversation about my research," Anthony says. Later in the day, he presented his poster to a large crowd of Washington staffers and other guests.

Zobitz was very pleased with Anthony's presentation and with all of the people who were interested in hearing about his work. "He represented himself, Augsburg, and the research really well."

Anthony says conducting research and presenting in Washington helped him solidify his future plans. "Before I did the work I didn't know what I wanted to do after college. Now I know I really want to go to graduate school, and this is really preparing me for that."

This summer, Anthony will conduct research at Virginia Tech through the National Science Foundation's Research Experience for Undergraduate program. Next year he'll begin applying to graduate programs in mathematical biology.