A&S Student News

FALL 2019

Harbin to Launch TTU Hub for Radio Astronomy

Heather Harbin, a junior physics major, served a 2019 summer internship at the headquarters of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Charlottesville, Virginia. Now that she's back in Lubbock, Harbin is in charge of establishing Texas Tech University as the U.S. mainland's first hub for the NRAO's National and International Non-Traditional Exchange (NINE) Program. The NINE Program accepts only two trainees each year. Over the course of 10 weeks during the summer, it teaches them to use radio astronomy-related software and provides project-management training and mentoring. Participants leave the program with a fully developed NINE Hub plan to enact when they return home. Follow this link for the complete story about Heather Harbin's internship.

Reyes Makes Most of First-Gen Opportunities

Ximena Chavez Reyes of San Antonio is an anthropology major who is sharing highlights of her experiences as a nontraditional, first-generation and international student. Chavez said being active in the first-year program in First Generation Transition & Mentoring Programs (FGTMP) led her to some of the best friends she has made in college and also allowed her to become engaged with local organizations. "Through this program, I was given opportunities to network, develop academically and professionally and give back to my community," Chavez said. "We had volunteer opportunities at South Plains Food Bank, Lubbock Impact and Ronald McDonald House, to name a few." Follow this link for the complete story about Ximena Chavez Reyes.

Scanlon Publishes Psychology Research

Faith Scanlon, a doctoral student in the Texas Tech Department of Psychological Sciences, is lead author of a new study, published Aug. 20 in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, that shows children who experience traumatic events are more likely to wind up in the criminal justice system later in life—unless there's a mentor in their lives to keep them out of legal trouble. Scanlon's group looked at how each of nine types of childhood traumas were associated with different kinds of criminal behaviors—delinquency, arrest, incarceration—in adolescence and adulthood, Scanlon said. Then they assigned "trauma scores" based on the number of traumas a child had experienced. That allowed the researchers to examine if higher rates of trauma were associated with worse outcomes. They also examined the effects when a mentor wa part of a child's life. For a complete account of Faith Scanlon's research, follow this link.

Hernandez's Success as First-Gen Nontraditional

Colton Hernandez, a biochemistry senior, sat down with us to share some of his experiences as a first-generation and nontraditional Red Raider. A Lubbock native, Hernandez is an undergraduate researcher in the Texas Tech McNair Scholars Program, a graduate school preparatory program for undergraduate students from historically underrepresented groups who demonstrate strong academic potential for graduate research and studies. Follow this link for details of Colton Hernandez's interview.

DeWinne to Serve as Chancellor's Ambassador

Callie DeWinne has abundant reasons to be glad she's a Red Raider. The kinesiology major in the Department of Kinesiology & Sport Management, will enter her senior year as winner of the Dr. Sarah Kulkofsky Scholarship for Social Sciences. A native of San Antonio, DeWinne is a recent Mortar Board inductee and, come fall 2019, will serve as a Chancellor's Ambassador. Her work as an Honor's College undergraduate research scholar has been published in the May 2019 issue of Experimental Brain Research. The project, "Pre-crastination and procrastination effects occur in a reach-to-grasp task," was led by principal author Jarrod Blinch, assistant professor of kinesiology. DeWinne says she worked with Blinch for a year on that project and has begun a second under his direction. "Now we're doing a study on the best way to measure reaction time," she says. A detailed story about DeWinne may be found by following this link.

Acosta Headed to Russia on Fulbright

Nicholas Acosta, a grad student and adjunct instructor of applied linguistics in the Department of Classical & Modern Languages & Literatures, has won a scholarship on the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. He will head to Moscow for an academic year beginning fall 2019, as yet uncertain of the university where he will teach. Acosta, who earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from Texas Tech, switched disciplines to further his education by applying to the linguistics master's program. He says the transition to applied linguistics took some getting used to, and that he took up the Russian language on a dare. "One of my friends was taking Japanese, another was taking Italian and another was taking Spanish," Acosta says. "Then, they said, 'You should take Russian,' and I said, 'OK, I'll do it.'" His Fulbright application was for an English teaching assistantship in Moscow. Though competition was fierce, he won. "I will be teaching English as a second language while also doing a cultural unit with Russian speakers to help them understand American culture a little bit more," Acosta says. "I'll focus more on American movies and books, and maybe some music, art and poetry." A detailed story about Acosta may be found by following this link.

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