> research ruminations

Fred Helmstetter likes to look at brains, and if you’re a psychology undergraduate student, he may be looking at yours soon.

Over the past 10 years, Helmstetter, a professor in the psychology department, has looked at the results of thousands of brains, mostly of students, mapping the brains the same way a neurologist would.

As technology has grown, so has the fact that people are increasingly turning to those technologies to use as tools in their own lives.

At least that’s what Barb Ley, a journalism and mass communication professor, expects to find through her research as a Center for 21st Century Studies fellow in 2006-’07.

By following the enzymatic activities of a process that breaks down tyrosine, Graham Moran could help provide a path for the development of inhibitors of several diseases.

Moran, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, is working on “4-Hydroxyphenylphyruvate Dioxygenase,” a project that was approved for funding through the Research Growth Initiative. The study looks at the connections between the enzyme and its role as a catalyzing agent in breaking down tyrosine.

As a sub-grantee of several different grants, Peter Maier and his staff help create abstinence education curriculum and compile data to evaluate how it is working for several educational institutions.

Maier, associate director for research services for the Center for Urban Initiatives and Research, is currently overseeing four projects funded by four different grants. The projects help evaluate how abstinence educators use lesson plans to teach teenagers ages 12 to 18. Most who go through the program are ages 12 to 14.