This year Augsburg College will be represented by two McNair program scholars:

Building an Infrastructure to Recognize an Image’s Evoked Emotion

Chue Xue Lee, computer science, with Prof. Shana Watters

Facial emotion recognition is a subfield of computer vision. A facial emotion recognition system is a computer application for identifying or verifying a person’s emotion from a digital image or a video frame. This research focuses on building a facial emotion recognition infrastructure. A facial emotion recognition algorithm is implemented and used to analyze images to determine whether a given facial image is classified as “happy” or “not happy.” This type of research is important to the development of robotic systems that interact with humans and is also being used for advertisement studies.

Mesoscale Nanopatterning Using Lipid Surfactant Templating

Nana Owusu, physics, with Prof. Kevin Landmark

Contemporary research in the field of nanotechnology has demonstrated the self-assembly of nanoparticles. They spontaneously form patterns guided only by interactions among themselves and with their environment. There are various methods being investigated by researchers to template nanoparticles and transfer the patterns onto a solid substrate. This project explores the use of lipids on a Langmuir trough to organize nanoparticles at the air-water interface as well as the Langmuir-Blodgett technique to deposit the resulting monolayer. The model system that was created employed the lipid dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) as a templating agent for dye-loaded polystyrene nanoparticles with a negatively charged surface. Both fluorescence microscopy and atomic force microscopy analyses of the deposited monolayers show evidence of nanoparticle patterning by DPPC. The results of this study

warrant further investigation of the technique by extending the system to different lipids, nanoparticle compositions and nanoparticle surface chemistries.

Scholars at the Capitol

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

State Capitol Rotunda

Find more information on the Minnesota Private College Council .

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Then he went to see Lisa Jack, an assistant professor of psychology at Augsburg. He said he was interested in psychology, and she asked him why. “I told her I liked watching people and how they operate,” Praska explained. The next thing he knew, they were mapping out a strategy for him to complete the psychology major in two years.

And that’s how David Praska, psychology major, found himself at the State Capitol building talking to legislators and guests about his research on therapies for children with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Praska was one of several scholars presenting at the Minnesota Private College Scholars at the Capitol day in February. Caitlin Massop, another Augsburg psychology student, also presented a poster but was unable to attend the Capitol event. Both students were advised in their research by assistant professor of psychology, Stacy Freiheit.

As he delved into the psychology field, Praska became interested in the subject of attraction between people—couples, friends, and family members. He talked with other professors and began exploring a career in marriage and family therapy, where he hopes to reach out specifically to Mexican American families.

“I found out that many Mexican American couples will go to a marriage counselor for one session and never return, and I had questions about that,” Praska says. He hopes to focus his graduate studies on therapy with minority groups and to “bridge the gap” between therapists and people of different cultures.

Praska spent most of last summer in the lab conducting research through the McNair program. “I was a little nervous when I started because I had never done a project like that myself,” he says. But he says he learned valuable lessons about communication and research through the program. “It was well worth it because I grew up as a researcher and as a student.”

Praska and other scholars will present research as part of Zyzzogeton, Augsburg’s annual festival of creativity and scholarship. The Zyzzogeton research poster session will be Thursday, April 15 from 3:30-5:30 Oren Gateway Center Atrium.

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