Undergraduate exploration and discovery get the spotlight at research symposium

Andrew Wang was all set to explore whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) integrating into private firms’ decision-making shaped corporate governance when one thing became clear: He couldn’t get the necessary data.

As one of 130 students conducting 10 weeks of faculty-mentored research in the Emory College Pathways Center’s Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE), he quickly pivoted to more accessible data that let him examine a similar question.

What the rising junior and Oxford College continuee found was there was no correlation with the number of CCP members on a company’s board and whether the government flagged it for not following best practices. Instead, distance from the central government in Beijing is what increased a company’s possibility of being caught violating regulations.

“I had to tell him, welcome to empirical work. Things don’t always match up,” says Dan Ludwinski, the assistant professor of economics at Oxford College who worked with Wang this summer. “It’s still a big learning process, just to get from Point A to Point B.”

Wang agrees. 

“I was excited by the opportunity to do a lot of research without other stresses like classes and exams,” says Wang, an economics and computer science major who now is considering attending graduate school to advance his research skills. “For me, this was a starting point for more diverse research possibilities and a foundation to do more.”

The July 30 symposium allowed students to share the culmination of their summer scholarly work across diverse disciplines and to reflect on how hands-on research connects to the way they want to make a mark.

Atlanta as a research lab

Carly Aikens, a rising senior double majoring in anthropology as well as neuroscience and behavioral biology, began thinking about a SURE project after taking an African religions course from religion professor Devaka Premawardhana during her sophomore year.

When Aikens was named a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, Premawardhana, the Winship Distinguished Research Associate Professor of Religion, served as her mentor. Aikens constructed an ethnography project to determine if, and how, theological understanding undergirds political mobilization for Black Christians.

Aikens studied literature reviews this summer, especially writings from Harvard Divinity School Dean Marla Frederick and James Cone, father of Black Liberation Theology, before securing approval to begin interviews at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church and Big Bethel AME Church.

“Atlanta is the perfect place to understand what faith with action means in our current climate and how Black Christians apply faith to imagine a better future,” says Aikens, who plans to earn a master’s degree in theological studies with a specialization in social sciences before pursuing a PhD. “This is what I want to do with my career and with my life.”
 

Looking for impact

For Ammar Razzak, spending the summer in SURE reawakened his interest in becoming a physician. He found a spot in clinical neuropsychologist Negar Fani’s lab at Emory School of Medicine that fed his fascination in biomedical engineering and coding.

The rising senior began learning his way around the lab — which focuses on trauma neuroscience and innovative technologies for treatment — by processing and analyzing psychophysiology data. He then began to reverse engineer a device that synchronizes breathing with chest vibrations to shift traumatized individuals out of fight-or-flight mode. 

“Every time I have mentored a SURE student, they have produced really high-quality work, which sometimes ends up published in journals and always in new ideas,” Fani says. “Ammar is very special, even among undergraduates, for his curiosity and talent.”

Now, Razzak is working with Fani to develop the patent for a wearable device and create a start-up company that would help make it available to more people.

“Working in this lab really did shift my outlook and reinforce the idea of adding a PhD to an MD so I can directly impact a clinical population with my research,” says Razzak, an applied mathematics and chemistry double major. “Research opened a world where I could learn and build. This gives me another way to have a lasting impact.”
 

Artwork as research

Wanting to make a difference in people’s health — and Emory College’s emphasis on interdisciplinary learning — drove rising junior Jenna Black to her research project related to the arts.

Mentor Aaron Putt, an associate teaching professor in the visual art program in the Department of Film and Media, gave Black a long list of art historians and art critics to study as a starting point. Then, the human health and visual arts double major spent nearly all summer in the studio, creating gradually larger abstract paintings. 

“Art making is about intention. I think of it as an exploration of empathy and attention to the work and what is happening outside of your conscious control,” Putt says. “It has been really satisfying because Jenna took it seriously and began thinking about art as problem solving, not just creation.”

Initially starting with an emotion and concept, Black developed the ability to explore different modes of abstraction such as monochromes and textured layers. She expects those skills to translate to a more holistic understanding of how to convey community health needs with images and graphic design.

“Without this opportunity, I would not have thought about how to integrate art into my interest in human health,” Black says. “I viewed art as a science, but I didn’t see a way to put them together. Now I see art can help people slow down and focus on the moment, which is as important in public health as it is in enjoying a painting.”
 

An ideal life

Rising senior Ava Reese conducted a wide swath of research during her SURE summer: literature reviews, observation, device making and artwork.

Two years ago, she and 2025 Emory graduate Sabrina Marvil conducted several months of research and built a warp-weighted loom from salvaged wood. Reese’s goal was to learn how to weave an authentic toga, the topic of a research paper in her high school Latin class.

Once Sandra Blakely, an associate professor and Department of Classics Chair, learned of their foray into experimental archeology, she invited Reese and Marvil for lunch to explain their work. Blakely was similarly intrigued when she heard Reese had moved on to a specific interest in weaving the diaphanous fabrics shown in fifth-century B.C. vase paintings and poetry.

“What sets Ava apart is this wonderfully ambidextrous approach, to think about material culture and questions of theory and method, to find what you can learn through tactile knowledge that you can’t learn any other way,” Blakely says. “Weaving functions in the ancient world as a metaphor of feminine intelligence and more-than-mortal power, and Ava is using her skills in language, technology, archeology, philosophy and artistry to display that power.”

Reese was in Emory’s inaugural Classics Gateway program as a high school student. That experience confirmed her desire to major in classics and tap into the broad field to better understand today’s world. 

Reese worked this summer on the fine weaving skills required to recreate the gossamer garments attributed to ancient nobility, including making more than 150 loom weights to keep the tension high as she worked. She also has begun writing a poetic translation of Seneca’s Roman tragedy “Thyestes” for her honors thesis.

She plans to continue improving her weaving skills this fall while also applying to doctoral programs in the classics.

“Research like this is not my ideal summer,” Reese says. “It’s my ideal life.”


Photos by Avery Spalding and Alya Khoury, Emory Photo/Video