University of Nevada, Reno students Kira Ewoldt and Alejandra Griswold have received Nevada Undergraduate Research Awards. | Clark County website
University of Nevada, Reno students Kira Ewoldt and Alejandra Griswold have received Nevada Undergraduate Research Awards. | Clark County website
The University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) recently announced that two of its undergraduate liberal arts students have been have been selected to make a presentation at the 2023 Writing Across Borders (WRAB) conference in Norway.
According to a news release, UNR liberal arts students Kira Ewoldt and Alejandra Griswold will present their research on current conflicts between humans and elephants in Sri Lanka.
The conference is scheduled for Trondheim, Norway, in February. The presentation will be part of the panel discussion “Writing Methodology as Methods for Writing: A Discussion on the Translation of Communication Practices of Elephants into Disciplinary Texts.”
Griswold is a fifth-year student with a double major in geography and Spanish. Ewoldt is a fourth-year student majoring in English literature and minoring in Chinese.
“My research examines how educational materials address the human-elephant-conflict [HEC] within rural Sri Lankan communities, specifically among youth populations,” Ewoldt said, according to the release. “I will conduct onsite, secondary research and analyze the collected materials through an asset-based community development (ABCD) framework to acknowledge existing community involvement and amplify the significance of youth involvement in HEC mitigation efforts across elephant-range countries.
“I'm interested how humans interact with spaces and places, and the Sri-Lankan HEC research opportunity has provided me with a chance to be able to immerse myself into a culture I am unfamiliar with and do my best to understand the culture around conflict,” Griswold added. “For this particular project, I am focusing on gathering human perceptions of elephants to gain a deeper understanding of the human-elephant-relationship with the purpose of aiding those working toward solutions for the HEC and environmental conservation.”
Ewoldt and Griswold have received Nevada Undergraduate Research Awards and will also make presentations on their experiences as students and researchers at the WRAB conference.
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