![\"Robert](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Holster120920a075.jpg\" "\\"Holster")
<\/a>Each Scholar received personalized mentoring from a faculty member in the development and implementation of their projects.\u00a0 Former Holster Scholars also provided peer support to this year\u2019s group.<\/p>\n
The 2012 Holster Scholars presented their summer projects last month at the Dodd Center.\u00a0 Among those present were their mentors and donor Robert Holster, \u00a0himself.<\/p>\n
Lior Trestman \u201915 (ENG) is an Honors biomedical engineering major who became intrigued by the idea of developing his own research after watching the first Holster Scholars present their projects in 2011.\u00a0 He satisfied his desire to explore ways of improving human health and the environment by using microbial fuel cells to purify water while simultaneously creating energy.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout 1 billion people on the planet don\u2019t have access to clean water or electricity,\u201d<\/p>\n says Trestman.\u00a0 \u201cComing in as a freshman and seeing the opportunity to work on a project that could, down the road, offer a solution to this problem was incredible; I jumped at the chance.\u201d<\/p>\n Trestman spent the summer developing and optimizing \u00a0fuel cells, which take wastewater and, using various chemical processes, reduce the bacteria and other organic matter into more elementary substances.\u00a0 What makes this process different from common methods of water filtration is that it provides clean water while simultaneously creating electricity.\u00a0 With future research and development, this self-sustaining method of purifying water could potentially provide drinkable water and electricity to populations that do not have access to either.<\/p>\n Kaila Manca \u201915 (CLAS) is a physiology and neurobiology and cognitive science major. She is interested in the treatment of aphasia, a partial or total loss of the ability to communicate verbally or using written words, in stroke patients.\u00a0 She has had a longstanding interest in the mind and its inner workings, but Manca\u2019s project was directly influenced by her experience with her grandmother\u2019s stroke. \u00a0\u201cIt is always important in research to be passionate about what you are investigating,\u201d says Manca.<\/p>\n For her project, Manca analyzed conversational samples from five participants in graduate student Jen Mozeiko\u2019s research in Contraint Induced Language Therapy on stroke patients, a concentrated approach to the treatment of aphasia.\u00a0 Manca transcribed the samples and analyzed each participant\u2019s word choice.\u00a0 Manca was especially concerned with the type-token ratio of the samples, which measures the vocabulary variation in an individual\u2019s speech.\u00a0 She found that the stroke patients reached a point in their treatment in which their type-token ratio plateaued, indicating a threshold in the variability of their vocabulary.\u00a0 Manca hopes to further pursue this research in the future in order to determine whether aphasia is the true cause of this impasse in communication.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>