HELENA — Students at Carroll College have been working hard on their research projects, and on Friday, they presented them to their peers, professors, and the public.
“Anybody who has research...can ask and apply to do SRF. The whole campus shuts down for the day,” said Carroll College biochemistry major Mila Duncan.
Her presentation is one of roughly 135 at this year’s Student Research Festival or SRF.
For the past semester, she has researched the effects of nux vomica, a homeopathic supplement.
Duncan said, “[They’re] little supplements that a mom or dad will buy and give as a little bit of a tummy ache relief. It can also help kill cancer cells, is what the claims are saying. So, we are doing research to see if these claims have any actual validity.”
Nux vomica comes from the strychnine tree, whose main compound is toxic, according to the CDC.
“How is this toxic chemical that is used for rat poison in most of the world, also this homeopathic supplement,” said Duncan.
Duncan said one of the main reasons she wanted to research nux vomica is that there is not a lot of information about it.
Since Duncan is a junior, she hopes to continue the research next year.
Students receive assistance from Carroll College staff members, such as Melissa Lewis, an assistant professor in the nursing department.
She said, “They need to disseminate it to the community, to their classmates, to their peers, [and] other faculty at Carroll. Otherwise, they spent all this time doing research, and it just kind of goes away.”
Another student presenter is senior Delaney Boyle.
She is double majoring in business marketing and international relations.
Since August, she has been researching gender equality, civil society, and levels of peace.
Boyle said, “If women are involved in the negotiation process, countries can become more peaceful and have reduced conflict within them.”
Her research mainly focused on countries in Africa from 2019 to 2021.
“Specifically, I looked at female involvement in nongovernmental organizations or civil society groups. I also looked at women’s involvement in parliament, so government structures,” said Boyle.
Boyle said SRF allows students outside the science departments to share their studies.
“I think that this festival provides a really great platform for students of other majors and of other fields to present their research,” said Boyle.
For some Carroll College students, the work has just begun, as they will continue researching their projects for years.
You can find the different research projects here.
