Honors Students Research Accepted to Present at HTCC Student Research Conference
Every year, the Honors Transfer Council of California (HTCC) in conjunction with University of California, Irvine organize the HTCC Student Research Conference. This multidisciplinary conference showcases outstanding faculty-mentored research by students from California community colleges, with a focus on honors students.
Two Cerro Coso students - Emily Aralar and Lucy Bui - submitted their honors research project, which have been accepted for presentation at the 20th Annual HTCC Student Research Conference. Although the physical conference scheduled for April 4th 2020 at UC, Irvine was cancelled due to COVID-19 state guidelines, HTCC reiterates that acceptance to the conference represents a significant achievements by students.
Emily Aralar's presentation entitled “Encouraging Legal Immigration: An Economic Outlook and Solution to Illegal Immigration” discusses the importance of looking at illegal immigration from an economic and public perspective. Her research based on recent studies published by various official agencies suggested that revising the immigration process through improvement of citizenship process and detention centers, as well as adjusting refugee admissions, legal immigration can be encouraged to help in the economy. Emily was mentored by Prof. Melanie Jeffrey her presentation is available here.
Lucy Bui's research refutes the common belief that allergy and asthma are just minor inconveniences to the sufferers. In her presentation, “Allergy & Asthma: It's Not Causing Inconvenience, It's Causing Permanent Damage”, Lucy recounted that 35% of the world's population suffers from allergic diseases, of which 300 million are from asthma, one of the most serious of all pulmonary diseases. Constant exposure to common everyday allergens damages lung tissues leading to cellular senescence and oncogenic changes, which triggers chronic inflammation, alveolar destruction, and endothelial dysfunction. Lucy was mentored by Prof. Guck Ooi, her presentation is available here.
Presenting their work at the HTCC Student Research Conference makes these Cerro Coso students eligible not only for monetary awards but also to submit their work for publication in the HTCC anthology Building Bridges, published through the University of California, Irvine. Cerro Coso Community College is a member of the Honors Transfer Council of California, and send honors students to participate in the Building Bridges Honors Conference every April. To learn more about the Honors Program at Cerro Coso visit the website at www.cerrocoso.edu/academics/honors-program.
