Diamond Ranch High School Wins Concordia University’s Annual Academic Showcase

Concordia University Irvine (CUI) has announced winners of the 11th Annual President’s Academic Showcase, a campus-wide research competition that challenges students to conceive and investigate a research topic and present their findings. Students compete across disciplines and are required to complete a research paper, an academic poster and an oral presentation.

The competition provides a chance for students to work one-on-one with a faculty mentor to complete a full-scale undergraduate research project selected from any discipline. A panel of faculty, selected from across Concordia’s disciplines, serves as judges for the showcase and evaluates projects on use of literature, choice of methodology, and discussion of results and implications. 

“The President’s Academic Showcase is a Concordia University tradition that aligns with the university’s mission to empower and equip students for lives of learning, service and leadership,” said Melinda Schulteis, director of the President’s Academic Showcase at Concordia University Irvine. “We are extremely proud of each student who took on the challenge in this year’s Academic Showcase. On behalf of the entire faculty, I would like to congratulate each of the winners on their accomplishment.”

Winners and runners-up of the Tier-One competition, for upperclassmen are:

• First place: Chase Harrington for her winning research on “From Brubeck to Brezhnev: How American Jazz Diplomacy Shaped the Cold War” (faculty mentor: Dr. Daniel van Voorhis)
• Second place: Shannon (Meredith) Prier for “The Hidden Imam in Iran: Apocalyptic Islam and Iranian Nuclear Policy”(faculty mentor: Dr. Adam Francisco)
• Third place: Rebecca (Rierson) Lott for “The Modern Welfare State: From 16th Century Ypres to the World” (faculty mentor: Dr. Daniel van Voorhis)

Honorees of the Tier-Two competition, for freshmen and sophomores are:

• First place: Thomas Moreno and Cy Perkins for their research on “Insights into the role of interactions between VDAC1, Bcl-2, and mutant Sod1 in familial Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease” (faculty mentor: Dr. Lindsay Kane-Barnese)
• Second place: Kendall Davis for “My Kingdom is Not of This World: Pre-Nicene Christians and the Roman Military” (faculty mentor: Rev. Dr. CJ Armstrong)
• Third place: Phoebe Weaver for “The Quenching Effects of Singlet Oxygen” (faculty mentor: Dr. John Kenney)

Winners receive a cash award, and some will be invited to represent Concordia by presenting their research at an inter-collegiate undergraduate research conference in Fall 2014.

—Concordia University Irvine