Northwestern faculty awarded grants for summer scholarship
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Thirteen Northwestern College professors will conduct research and pursue further study this summer with funding from the Northwestern College Scholarship Grants program. The awards, ranging from $2,800 to $5,300, are designed to encourage the production of scholarly work for publication and distribution beyond Northwestern’s campus.
Biology professor Dr. Laurie Furlong will visit Santa Cruz Island and mainland California, continuing her research into the genetic differences of mayfly populations in both locations. Furlong plans to expand her collection of insects to confirm her hypothesis that those with higher dispersal abilities will exhibit less genetic differences than poorly dispersing groups.
Theatre professor Dr. Robert Hubbard will research the Commonweal Theatre Company in Lanesboro, Minnesota, one of the few professional theatre companies in the United States that operates successfully in a rural setting. After visiting Lanesboro to attend multiple shows and to interview artists and audience members, Hubbard plans to write a historical essay exploring the creation, history and mission of Commonweal Theatre Company.
Dr. Hyunsung Jun, associate professor of math and physics, will spend the summer at Seoul National University in South Korea studying a new population of faint and red active galactic nuclei (often called Little Red Dots, or LRDs) discovered through the James Webb Space Telescope. Jun and other scientists aim to classify the active galaxy type of LRDs, probe the black hole growth, and study the impact they have on their host galaxies.
The Northwestern Scholarship Grant awarded to Dr. Juyeon Kang, professor of music, will allow her to spend her summer conducting masterclasses with piano students while audience members observe and learn from the instruction. She also plans to bring music to diverse audiences, including hospice wards in hospitals, and to continue her work arranging hymns for the solo piano.
Dr. Jay Medenwaldt, assistant professor of psychology, will work with student Brooke Bartscher, a junior psychology major from Mitchell, South Dakota, on a summer research project involving the Enneagram, a popular personal and spiritual growth personality test. The two will examine responses from 300 participants to explore whether psychological biases can explain why the Enneagram can seem accurate even though the data shows otherwise.
Dr. Cody Rozeveld, assistant professor of biology, will collaborate with a biology department colleague to work through new research protocols for SEA-PHAGES, an international research program that partners with colleges and universities. Their goal is to ensure the necessary experimental procedures and data analysis protocols are in place for successful Northwestern student involvement in the fall of 2025 and beyond.
Phil Scorza, professor of art, will spend his summer preparing for a solo show at the Monte Pearson Gallery in Okoboji, Iowa, that is scheduled for Aug. 14 through Oct. 25. He plans to create new artwork as well as to organize and select pieces for framing and display. Scorza was part of a group exhibition at the Pearson Lakes Art Center last fall, at which he won Best of Show and was awarded a solo show in its next gallery season.
Dr. Rajat Emanuel Singh, assistant professor of kinesiology, will spend the summer working on a paper that will report the findings of research he collaborated on with faculty at Louisiana State University and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Their research focuses on the differences between young and elderly patients in the response to supervised, positive, and negative reinforcement during rehabilitation.
Business professor Dr. Jiying (Jenny) Song will spend her summer continuing to study the writings of Robert K. Greenleaf that are housed in the archives of Yale Divinity School’s library. Greenleaf was a Quaker thinker who, after retiring as director of management research at AT&T, founded the Center for Applied Ethics in 1964 and devoted his life to leadership studies. He published the landmark essay “The Servant as Leader” and coined the term “servant-leadership.”
Dr. Seowon Song, assistant professor of psychology, will research how students’ academic and psychological outcomes are impacted by parental involvement, their motivation to learn, and their relationships with teachers and peers. She will also examine the role of race, ethnicity and culture as they relate to relationships in school and at home.
Dr. Karie Stamer, associate professor of nursing, will work with a team of nursing faculty from across the U.S. involved in teaching RN students who are working on their Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. Their goal is to conduct research to determine best practices for developing the writing skills of RN-BSN students.
Biology professor Dr. Sara Sybesma Tolsma will use her grant to fund publication of the annotations of bacteriophages discovered by Northwestern students through the college’s partnership with the international SEA-PHAGES research program. She will also create images of discovered phages using transmission electron microscopy and do additional sequencing of phage genomes.
Finally, another biology professor, Dr. Todd Tracy, will conduct field research with student Isaac De Jong, a junior biology–health professions major from Orange City. Together they will use mark-recapture methods to survey the population of bumblebees and other pollinators in Buena Vista County Park, Glacial Hills Preserve, Broken Kettle Grasslands, Spirit Mound Historical Site, Northwestern College’s prairie, and several other locations in and around Orange City.
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