Research week will highlight student research into a variety of topics

USU Research students (left to right) Paul Consalvo, Bethany Jensen, Wyatt Traughber and Brigitte Hugh

LOGAN – Since Utah State University is a research university, once a year the school showcases some of the work of research students and the university itself when it comes to what is really some ground-breaking research. Research Week is happening on campus this week.

On KVNU’s For the People program on Tuesday, the guests were Photographer for Research and Graduate Studies Wyatt Traughber and Brigitte Hugh, a team member for the research team. They will also be two speakers that will be featured in the Friday IGNITE series, which consists of rapid-fire five minute presentations. One of those speaking will be engineering student Paul Consalvo who works at the water research lab.

“I work with a professor who has these computers that collect high resolution data from on-campus housing buildings. So the places (that) all students are staying, we’re basically having these flow meters hooked up to their buildings and we just study the water they use.

“What my talk does is it can get into the nitty-gritty behind all that. But what I decided to do was I’m looking at a single fixture, which is toilets. I’m making a research presentation all about toilets,” said Consalvo.

Among the findings of his research is that between the Mountain and Valley View Towers on campus, which were gender segregated at first, women consistently flushed the toilet more than men.

Another speaker will be Biological Engineering student Bethany Jensen who has studied the problems of algal blooms. She said many Utahns are familiar with the problems they have had with that at Utah Lake.

“But it’s actually a problem that’s widespread throughout the state. There’s often dozens during summer going on at a time that have to be monitored, and it’s a real problem because there’s not really a solution for it right now,” said Jensen.

“A harmful algal bloom happens and you just have to wait it out and it’s really harmful to a lot of people, everybody’s frustrated with the problem. So as an engineer, I’m not just looking into the problem I’m looking into finding a solution for the problem, and that’s what my IGNITE speech will be about.”

The IGNITE talks begin at 12 noon on Friday in the Merrill-Cazier Library. It is a free event but they ask you to RSVP if possible. More information on the weeks’ events can be found at www.usu.edu/researchweek

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