Dordt University's annual Summer Undergraduate Research Program will take place from June 1 through July 24.
Dordt University will hold this year’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program from June 1 through July 24. Sponsored by the Kielstra Center for Research and Grants, this program provides students with the opportunity to work closely with faculty mentors while conducting in-depth research in their chosen fields.
In addition to hands-on research experience and personalized mentorship, participating students receive a stipend, complimentary on-campus housing, and the chance to present or publish their work.
The program also supports faculty in advancing their scholarly research while fostering collaboration between faculty and students engaged in meaningful, original inquiry across a broad range of disciplines.
Descriptions of the research projects scheduled for Summer 2026 are provided below.
Faculty Mentors: Dr. Chris Borchers, Dr. Preeti Shinde, Dr. Brette Feldhacker, Biology
Research Student: Annika Visser
Caenorhabditis elegans are free-living nematodes that naturally inhabit soil ecosystems, where they encounter and feed on diverse microbial communities. Given the vast diversity of soil bacteria, C. elegans regularly interact with microbes that range from beneficial to pathogenic. This requires the nematode to distinguish between favorable and unfavorable food sources in order to survive and reproduce. The proposed project will explore local soil microbial diversity by isolating, culturing, and identifying bacterial species. These isolates will then be tested in a series of phenotypic assays with C. elegans to examine how different microbes influence behavior, health, and survival, providing insight into the ecological dynamics of prey–host interactions.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jonathan Gingrich, Engineering
Research Student: Ada Smies
This project is excellent for a health minded science student (biology, environmental science, or engineering). We will be designing and executing a small pilot study. We will be obtaining wristbands from a professor at Yale. These wristbands absorb chemicals from the air. We will distribute and monitor the usage of these wristbands, in order to determine which chemicals our subjects are exposed. An applicant should be prepared to analyze around 200 chemical species, and work with the faculty mentor to design a larger study based on the pilot data collected from this summer. Planned research questions we will attempt to answer: 1. What are the largest chemical exposures people living in Sioux Center are exposed to in their daily lives (specifically, what is the level of pesticide exposure in Sioux Center)? 2. How do these exposures compare with other areas in the world (we will compare our data with data collected by Dr. Pollit's lab around the world)? 3. What processes and procedures should we put in place if we are to expand this study?
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jenna Veenstra, Chemistry
Research Student: Katie de Gier
We will collect replicate data in collaboration with Dr. Gingrich's research project. The data comes from wristbands developed to absorb air pollutants. While Dr. Gingrich's wristbands will be sent out for analysis, our goal is to analysis the replicates in house. We will need to optimize the extraction of the pollutants from the wristband as well as the method used on the GCMS to separate and detect these pollutants. This will involve reviewing literature to determine standard procedure, creativity to figure out how to incorporate these procedures using Dordt's resources and likely troubleshooting throughout. Through this project, you will gain experience in data analytics (specifically data from a GCMS), problem-solving skills, collaborative skills, and, ideally, an appreciation for scientific research.
Faculty Mentors: Dr. Jonathan Gingrich, Engineering and Dr. Josh Hollinger, Business, Accounting, and Economics
Research Students: Cameron Grimes & Daniel Garcia
We plan to investigate the effects of air quality on test performance. We will work with two datasets—one involving air pollution throughout the United States, and another involving the test scores at different schools across the country. We will compare the datasets and determine if there is any correlation between different air pollutants and test score results. One student, ideally science/engineering focused, will investigate the air pollution data, and a second student, ideally economics/education focused, will investigate the school data. Below are the questions we will attempt to answer: How much of a difference in air pollution do high achieving schools have over lower achieving schools? What factors have the greatest influence on this poor air quality? Is there a relationship between poor air pollution and poor student outcomes? What other factors may influence this (race, economic status, parental involvement, funding etc.)? How big of an impact do disparities in air pollution exposure have on gaps in test scores between schools and demographic groups?
Faculty Mentors: Dr. Luralyn Helming, Psychology and Dr. Valorie Zonnefeld, Mathematics
Research Students: Joe Johnson
You will grow in your understanding of both qualitative and quantitative data analysis as you assist on two educational psychology projects on math education. You will gain knowledge relevant to research methods, statistics, qualitative analysis, math education, and achievement motivation. You will engage with the quantitative data from the starting point of cleaning data collected this year and integrating it with last year’s data; you will assist running statistical analyses; you will assist with interpretation of analyses. You will engage with the qualitative data by assisting in the analysis of the data and learning to analyze qualitative data in partnership with us. You will learn to identify themes and define themes in qualitative data. You will read literature to develop a level of comfort with the data and the field. You will find and read more research to contribute to the literature reviews. You will be encouraged to develop your own research question to be analyzed from the data and to conduct an appropriate literature review for that data.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jason Ho, Physics
Research Students: Brody Driesen & Silas Reynolds
Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is the theory that describes the strong force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature. The strong force binds quarks and gluons together to form hadrons, such as protons and neutrons, which make up nearly all of the visible matter in the universe. Understanding how this force works at the smallest scales is an active area of modern physics research. In this project, undergraduate students will explore how quarks and gluons combine to form both familiar particles (like protons and neutrons) and more exotic states of matter (such as particles made of four or five quarks). Students will work closely with a faculty mentor to select a research problem that fits their interests and strengths. Current research directions include: Studying how short-lived particles called mesons decay; Reconstructing particle properties from theoretical data using Bayesian methods; Using computational tools and high-performance computing to evaluate complex integrals that appear in quantum field theory; Calculating theoretical models for conventional and exotic matter.
Students will be active participants in the research process. This includes reading and discussing scientific literature, meeting regularly with their mentor, and presenting their work at a summer seminar as either a poster or an oral presentation. Through this project, students will learn foundational ideas in particle physics and gain insight into how physicists model the universe at its most fundamental level. Along the way, students will develop valuable technical skills, including: Interpreting and working with Feynman.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Michael Kearney
Research Students: Seth Herman & Malachi Myers
Assist with research for a textbook surveying the field of religious communication. The summer project will involve finding research, meeting with the author team, line editing and copy editing, and helping with other administrative tasks as necessary.
Faculty Mentors: Rev. Dr. Jeremy Perigo & Rev. Dr. Angela Perigo
Research Student: Rachel Brown
Situated in Dordt’s Children in Worship grant, core student research tasks may include: Researching and writing IRB policies for interviewing children; Editing transcripts in NVIVO; Coding data; Reviewing books, curriculum, and articles on intergenerational worship from 2018-2025; Creating an annotated bibliography and analyzing key terms from lit review; Participant observation at regional churches; Prepare consultation questions and listening sessions; Research and create interview questions for parents, pastors, and children; Aid in curriculum creation and editing for children's worship workshops.
Dr. Manuela Ayee-Leong, Engineering, Iowa EPSCoR Program
Research Student: Jalyn Struble
The student will play active, hands-on role in all stages of the computational research process. They will begin by learning the fundamentals of molecular modeling, simulation workflows, and the biological context of respiratory viral proteins. After completing initial training, the student will be responsible for setting up protein–membrane systems, running molecular dynamics simulations, and performing protein docking analyses. They will troubleshoot computational challenges with mentor guidance and develop scripts or workflows to organize and analyze simulation data. As the project progresses, the student will interpret results using statistical and visualization tools, compare their findings with published literature, and identify patterns that inform our understanding of viral protein behavior at epithelial membranes. The student will also prepare visualizations, figures, and short written summaries that contribute directly to future publications or collaborative reports.
Beyond technical tasks, the student will participate in group meetings, share progress updates, and engage with collaborators as appropriate. By the end of the summer, they will have contributed meaningful data to the larger project while gaining practical experience in computational biophysics, data analysis, and scientific communication.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Preeti Shinde, Iowa EPSCoR Program
Research Student: Sherry Wang
The student will start by reviewing relevant literature to understand the project background and identify key genes and pathways. Students will be active researchers throughout the project. They will learn foundational skills in molecular biology, microbial cultivation, and safe laboratory practice. Students will diagrams; Performing algebraic and numerical calculations relevant to quantum field theory; Comparing theoretical predictions with published results; Using Python and Mathematica for scientific computing.
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