Health science major wins Clemson Libraries Undergraduate Research Award

Mackenzie Morgan, a senior majoring in health science, received the first place Undergraduate Research Award from Clemson Libraries. The award recognizes students who make use of library resources and services to produce outstanding research or scholarly or creative works.

Morgan’s research project was titled “The Relationship Between Peripheral Arterial Disease and Chronic Kidney Disease and the Ethnic and Racial Disparities that Exist in Medication Prescription and Outcomes” and was completed as part of the Departmental Honors Research Program. She is a student in the Clemson University Honors College. 

In the course of her research, Morgan made use of several databases available through the Libraries, as well as the online research guide for the public health sciences department. She also met with Sally Smith, the research librarian for public health sciences, who helped Morgan narrow down her search parameters so she could find the resources she needed for her project. 

“Clemson Libraries services and staff were essential in the successful completion of my preliminary version of a systematic review project,” Morgan wrote in her award application. “Having access to both the online databases for finding articles and the helpful library staff allowed me to better create a body of work in accordance to how research is traditionally conducted in the field of public health.”

The second-place winners were Claire Bardell, marketing major; Danielle Haley, Mia Ricottilli, Caroline Strinsky and Honors College student Shreya Tellur, psychology majors; and Jack Patterson and Kendalle Quast, health science majors, for their project “What is Well-Being? A Systematic Review.” Their project examined how researchers define “well-being,” specifically for people in the workplace. They used the Libraries to explore and find databases and peer-reviewed articles and also checked out articles via Interlibrary Loan. Their project was completed as part of Creative Inquiry, Clemson’s cross-disciplinary undergraduate research program. 

Third place went to Evan Jackson, a double major in religious studies and history, for his project “The Church and Its Emperor: Examining how the Fourth Century Post-Nicene Trinitarian Controversy Reflected Constantius’ Educational Ideology and Personal Involvement.” His project was part of his Junior Research Colloquium class for religious studies and explored the connections between the political influence of the Roman Empire and theological development in the imperial church. He accessed online sources through the Libraries’ website and checked out a book through PASCAL, South Carolina’s academic library consortium. He also was assisted by Ed Rock, research librarian for philosophy and religion. 

This marks the second year of the Libraries’ Undergraduate Research Award. The first-place winner received an award of $1,000, with $750 going to second place and $500 going to third place. The recipients’ research projects will be made available in TigerPrints, Clemson’s digital repository.