{"id":1486,"date":"2024-09-30T10:03:34","date_gmt":"2024-09-30T14:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/dwell\/?p=1486"},"modified":"2026-02-20T04:45:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:45:12","slug":"looking-back-on-summer-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/dwell\/looking-back-on-summer-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking back on Summer 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Farewell SURFers! Looking Back on DWELL’s Summer 2024 Research Projects <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by AnnaFaith Jorgensen<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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DWELL would like to highlight the excellent work completed by our student fellows this summer. The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program allowed Novena Kapisa, Aidan Donnellan, and Calder Puckett to work on interdisciplinary science communication projects with the DWELL Lab. AnnaFaith Jorgensen joined DWELL as a graduate mentor and team coordinator.  Students contributed to ongoing DWELL projects including the Stormwater Walking Tour<\/a>, an Augmented Reality (AR) interactive PFAS Kitchen<\/a>, and the North Woods Website<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The Summer 2024 DWELL Lab Team! Left to Right: Novena Kapisa, Aidan Donnellan, Calder Puckett, and AnnaFaith Jorgensen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Our three undergraduate fellows also presented at the Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium poster session. In addition to his work on other DWELL Lab projects, Aidan Donnellan assisted with the development and submission of an accepted conference proposal and proceedings submission to SIGDOC 2024<\/a>. Jones will deliver the presentation in October. [Note: a preview draft of the proceedings is available here<\/a>, and this post will be updated when the final version is available.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the SURF Program<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SURF, funded by the National Science Foundation, is a program that enables students to get hands-on research experience with real-world projects across a variety of scientific disciplines. During their time with DWELL, fellows learned about using location-based media and emerging technologies for science communication and public advocacy. We asked each of the fellows to share some thoughts about their experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the SURF Fellows<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Novena Kapisa graduated from URI with her bachelors in May 2024. This summer was Novena\u2019s first time working as a Research Assistant, and her first time working with Augmented Reality (AR). Novena worked on writing descriptions for Points of Interest (POIs) for the Stormwater Walking Tour in Roger Williams Park. She also focused on writing Alt Text for 3D models and AR installations, deepening accessibility in AR projects. \u201cThe best part was realizing that small changes, like adding these short descriptions, can make a big difference in helping more people learn about the environment. Working on this project taught me a lot about teamwork and creative thinking. I’m really proud of what I have experienced and can’t wait to use these skills in my future studies and work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aidan Donnellan joined DWELL as a Computer Engineer, and is entering his junior year at URI. Aidan shared about the growth opportunities that came with venturing into new territory as a team. \u201cI wasn\u2019t yet used to the self-led nature of doing research, but once I reached out with my ideas to others in the lab I was quickly able to find direction. It was a good choice to focus on the groundwork of the \u201cwhy\u201d behind AR accessibility, to help dictate where projects can go in the future\u201d. Aidan\u2019s final research project involved the use of AI to increase efficiency of AR installations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calder Puckett is a sophomore in Professional and Public Writing. Calder said he especially enjoyed creating graphics for the Stormwater Walking Tour, and expanding his skills with Adobe. He used funding provided by the SURF program to purchase a Canon AE-1 film camera. Speaking on his photography work, Calder shared \u201cI love the look and feel of film photography. I also love that you can only take one photo per click, and only 36 on a roll. It makes every shot feel special, and makes me feel lucky for every picture that comes out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AnnaFaith Jorgensen graduated from the URI Master of Environmental Science and Management in May 2024. She assisted in mentoring our three undergraduates, as well as completing development of the URI North Woods website<\/a>. \u201cIt was so much fun to work with this team, and see our students thrive. They had invaluable contributions to ongoing DWELL projects, and they each produced excellent posters for the final presentation session.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DWELL\/SURF Experiences<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Lab was featured in “The Visual Digital,” a story by Ellen Fritz<\/a>, another 2024 SURF Fellow and undergraduate at the RISD, who completed the story as part of her 10-week project,  “What’s the Story? Developing engaging narratives to communicate scientific research.”<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our SURF Fellows also participated in several professional development opportunities. Our season opened with a Field Notes Workshop in the URI North Woods. In July, they completed a creative workshop on Science Communication Poster Design, led by Georgia Rhodes at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Nature Lab. In addition, fellows had the chance to attend the Coastal Institute Retreat at Roger Williams Park and the Manissean Pow Wow on Block Island. At both events, several team members helped to demo interactive Augmented Reality (AR) installations for visitors using the Hoverlay app. Finally, team members conducted several site visits to North Woods, including leading a tour for some of the URI SURF administrators.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The DWELL Team visits the RISD Nature Lab in July 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

 DWELL was fortunate to have each of these talented students join our team for a wonderful summer of creative learning. We wish them all the best, and know that they will continue to accomplish amazing things in their future adventures. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Farewell SURFers! Looking Back on DWELL’s Summer 2024 Research Projects by AnnaFaith Jorgensen DWELL would like to highlight the excellent work completed by our student fellows this summer. The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program allowed Novena Kapisa, Aidan Donnellan, and Calder Puckett to work on interdisciplinary science communication projects with the DWELL Lab. AnnaFaith […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4021,"featured_media":1489,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/dwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/dwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/dwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/dwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4021"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/dwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1486"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/dwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1713,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/dwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions\/1713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/dwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/dwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/dwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/dwell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}