"Innovation to me is the ultimate step. It changes the way we live and makes the world a bigger and better place," said Artemio Castro of Procter and Gamble (P&G), the keynote speaker at the 21st Annual Undergraduate Research Forum, April 19, in Duffield Hall.

His talk, sponsored by the Cornell Undergraduate Research Board (CURB), was part of CURB's spring event at which undergraduate students presented their research projects. CURB is a student-run organization dedicated to enhancing Cornell undergraduates' research experiences.

Castro is associate director of new business development at P&G's home care division where he has helped launch Febreze and Mr. Clean products. He encouraged the undergraduates to "do research not because you need to put it on your resumé, but really think about what the end point is."

Castro described the "journey" from discovery to invention: Curiosity, persistence and creativity are important qualities a researcher needs to possess. "To know how to wonder and question is the first step of the mind towards discovery."

This is just what more than 150 Cornell undergraduate researchers from all fields exemplified while presenting their research posters, including 30 oral presentations.

Anne Choike, A&S '06, a biogeochemistry major, explained her project that studied how small farms survived globalization using social networks in Poland. She interviewed 16 local government officials, small farmers and ex-small farmers in a traditional farming community southeast of Krakow. Choike found that thriving farmers have more interaction with and are more trusting of others than farmers who have left or plan to leave farming.

"For my research in the Cornell Presidential Research Scholar program, I have always wanted to do something that is different from my major," Choike said, "so I did a lot of reading on social network research and identified a problem that I am really interested in to apply my knowledge." Choike will present her research at an upcoming rural sociology conference and plans to attend law school in the fall.

Paul Karasick, A&S '06, also a Presidential Research Scholar, majoring in psychology and history, studied the efficacy of the Teen Court program, a juvenile diversionary program in which juvenile offenders are given a chance to be sentenced outside of the regular court system.

"This research is still at the very preliminary stage, but my study so far has found positive responses on the Teen Court program," said Karasick. He made these conclusions based on a series of offender satisfaction surveys and on-site observations of administration and offender hearings.

Nicky Chopra, A&S '08, a biology and religion studies major, said she spent a whole year after high school in Texas studying how the expression of certain (CCR5) genes is related to HIV progression.

"I go back to Texas every winter and summer to continue working on this project, so basically it has been three years so far," said Chopra.

CURB co-president Santhi Gollapalli, CALS '06, presented research on the risk perceptions of breast cancer among teachers in New York state. She presented her study at the Society of Risk Analysis convention in December and is preparing a manuscript for publication.

As the main organizer of the research forum, Gollapalli was busy taking pictures for the event while still trying to answer questions about her own research. "I hope this has been a rewarding experience for all the undergraduate researchers," Gollapalli, who has a job offer from P&G after graduation, said.

Also recognized at the event was Jón T. Njardarson, a Cornell assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology, who received this year's Marilyn Emmons Williams Award for his support of undergraduate research.

Graduate student Zheng Yang is a writer intern at the Cornell News Service.