'Roofie' Research Shines National Spotlight on Doane
BY Rebecca Svec
PHOTOGRAPHY Allan Recalde
it took a visit to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for Kari Thompson to fully understand the gravity of the research that took place at Doane College last summer.
Her team's work to create a new chemical sensor and personal testing kit to detect the drug flunitrazepam-sometimes used in date rape-had drawn national media attention months before.
It had earned Doane a finalist spot in the prestigious national Collegiate Inventors Competition and this trip to Washington, D.C.
But now, Thompson was shaking the hand of the doctor who invented the Fogarty® balloon embolectomy catheter.
She was answering questions from the research physicist whose work shaped the world's fiber optics revolution; rubbing elbows with a co-inventor of the electret microphone found in cell phones and medical devices-all judges of the collegiate inventors contest. Read the full story.
Whale Pod Behavior Research
Sarah King
Short-Term Impact of Vessel Traffic on the Hawaiian Humpback Whale (PDF)
Sarah King debated a long time which course of study she should pursue in college. One of her passions, biology, led her to look at schools along Texas' Gulf Coast region, as well as in California. But fear of an unsecured marine biology job market brought her attention back to psychology, another academic interest.
Eventually, she chose Doane, opting for a music/psychology double major, emphasizing music therapy.
As the story goes, she discovered that while psychology was at the top of her academic interests, music was not. At the same time, her biology classes were quickly becoming favorites.
"I decided to drop the music major and pick up a biology minor, and focus on a mental health emphasis within the psychology major," the sophomore from Lincoln said.
But again, her path was about to change. Read the full story.