Avalanche Chronology of the Maple Mountain/Spanish Fork Peak Avalanche Paths

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Kimball Hansen and Dr. Matthew Bekker, Department of Geography I began planning my project of the avalanche chronology of the Maple Mountain/Spanish Fork Peak Avalanche Paths in 2009 while applying for the ORCA grant. I was currently wrapping up a similar project of an avalanche chronology of Loafer Mountain near Woodland Hills Peak. This later […]

Inter-Caste Adoption in India: Effects on Kinship and Caste as Understood by the Adoptive Family

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Kelly Hacker and Dr. Charles Nuckolls, Department of Anthropology In his studies of kinship (1984), David Schneider put forth the theory that kinship is not inherently biologically-based, but is rather a symbolic and flexible understanding of the relationship between individuals. Inter-caste adoption in India, where a husband and wife adopt an unrelated child born to […]

The Effects of Migration on Salvadoran Families

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Teresa Gomez and Dr. Matthew Shumway, Department of Geography Evaluation of how well the academic objectives of the proposal were met The results of our research were presented on April 14th at the Annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers in the “Immigrants in the USA” session. The presentation was successful. Afterward presenting, we […]

Political Risk and the Currency Markets: A Look at How the Structure of Government Impacts Exchange Rates in Emerging and Developing Economies

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Aaron Gifford and Dr. Joel Selway, Department of Political Science Overview For the last three years, the world has seen dramatic changes in the global economy. What began as a local failure of a couple banks and the deterioration of innovative financial products in the U.S. soon spread to other nations around the world. While […]

How Religious Practices Affect the Rise of Populism in Latin America

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Victoria Garcia and Dr. Kirk Hawkins, Department of Political Science Populism is “a Manichaean discourse that identifies Good with a unified will of the people and Evil with a conspiring elite” (Hawkins 2009). It is a movement that has been spreading in Latin America, in which a group of people consider themselves as the majority […]

Representation in Utah’s Candidate Nomination System

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Matthew Frei and Dr. J. Quin Monson, Department of Political Science When Senator Robert Bennett was defeated in the 2010 Republican state nominating convention, many political observers suggested that Utah’s nomination system gives too much power to convention delegates who nominate candidates who do not well represent most Utahns. My ORCA research addresses these concerns […]

Biological Markers of Cognition and Error-Detection

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Nicholas Edwards and Professor Dawson Hedges, Department of Psychology The purpose of my project was to find factors that might be predictive of cognitive deficits in a college age group of people. After discussing the topic with my mentor, Dawson Hedges, we chose a few broad categories, including family health history, demographics, education, and psychological history. […]

Healthy First Year: Cultural beliefs and customs of Indian mothers affecting the health of a child in their first year of life

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Amy Drake and Dr. Charles Nuckolls, Department of Anthropology Nearly a decade ago, India held one of the world’s highest rates in both infant and maternal mortality. Attention from the Indian government and the implementation of health programs have contributed to the significant improvement seen in the past ten years. While both rates have dropped […]

Beyond Populism: An Empirical Categorization of Elite Political Discourse

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Stephen Cranney and Dr. Kirk Hawkins, Department Political Science The project Dr. Hawkins, Mayavel Amado, and I completed with the assistance of the ORCA funds provided was an extension of a previous project that we presented at the American Political Science Association’s annual meeting in 2010. Specifically, that paper presented theoretical possibilities for expanding the […]