As part of its continuing commitment to intellectual community, the University of Maine at Augusta Research Colloquium (UMARC) series is a venue for UMA faculty, staff, and sponsored students to present completed scholarly works to their peers. The series provides a forum for the presentation of all UMA research (as defined by the Faculty Senate in 2010) including scientific investigations, innovations in education, creative works, and theoretical considerations. Priority is given to those who have not already presented at the Research Colloquium.
The Research Colloquium series takes place during the noon hour using technology to connect UMA’s multiple campuses and Centers. The time reflects our commitment to inclusion, a traditional lunch hour for staff and the time between morning and afternoon classes for faculty and students. Ensuing discussion promotes collaboration through the exchange of ideas and the development of relationships across colleges, programs, departments and disciplines.
2024 Schedule
Anne Fensie
UMA Lecturer II & UM Doctoral Student
Teri St. Pierre
UMPI Director of Early College & Associate Professor of Mathematics
Jennifer Jain
UM Interdisciplinary Doctoral Student & Graduate Research Assistant
Engaged learning during distraction: A case study of successful working moms in distance education
Thursday, February 29, 2024 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Zoom™
Adult learners are a significant proportion of distance learners and many of these students are working mothers. Several instructional design models center the learner, and this requires understanding the learner needs, strengths, and context. There is a gap in the literature describing the experience of modern working mother students in distance education. To understand this experience, the researchers interviewed and observed six academically high-achieving working mother students as they participated in their distance education courses during the pandemic. A discourse analysis approach was utilized to analyze the data. This extreme sample revealed several strategies that these students used to be successful despite their challenges. The findings suggest that understanding the experiences of distance learners as they study in the home are important for effective course design. More specifically, working mothers face significant distractions in their study environments, but the cognitive load can be reduced by making use of their prior knowledge, scaffolding instruction, and encouraging social presence. Additional strategies from the literature that address these constructs are provided for instructors and instructional designers.
Pivot for Funding and Professional Development
Monday, April 22 2024 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Zoom™
Join Veronica Nargi, Learning Experience Design Librarian at UMA, in a webinar that showcases various features of Pivot RP for advancing professional development and research pursuits. Pivot RP is a UMS-provided tool that allows faculty and staff to navigate the world of funding opportunities, scholarships, and conferences. Throughout the session, we will sample the user-friendly features of Pivot RP, demonstrating its versatility in aiding individuals in academia. Together we will learn how to utilize this tool in order to streamline the process of identifying funding sources tailored to specific research goals. Whether seeking financial support for research endeavors or pursuing avenues for professional growth through scholarships and conferences, Pivot proves itself an indispensable ally. If you are struggling to find funding opportunities or would like to diversify your professional research portfolio, please consider joining us for this demonstration.
Veronica Nargi
UMA Learning Experience Design Librarian
Jennifer Long
UMA Assistant Professor of Biology
The effect of human feeding on Canada jay (Perisoreus canadensis) aggressive behavior and potential for nest predation
Tuesday, September 24, 2025 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Zoom™
My research looks at the effect of human feeding on Canada jay behavior in Maine and New Hampshire. To survive the winter, Canada jays store hundreds of food morsels throughout their territory. Canada jays will eat just about anything, including insects, berries, carrion, and the eggs and nestlings of other birds. They often have close interactions with people and can become accustomed to eating human food. Concern has been expressed that Canada jays attracted to wilderness recreationists might increase predation pressure on nesting songbirds. To address this concern, I began to compare jay behavior and nest predation levels between sites where no human feeding has been observed, and sites located at popular lunch spots for hikers, where feeding has been well documented. During May and June, I capture and color band Canada jays to track individuals, record their behavioral responses to people on their territory, and use artificial nests with game cameras to study nest predation. Preliminary results show that in areas where the jays are routinely fed by humans, jays approach closer to humans, usually landing on someone’s hand to take food, and spend much more time near people. In areas where they are not fed, they rarely approach people, showing no interest in human food. In terms of their predation on songbird nests, in areas where they are fed, jays find nests in less time and find more nests in fed compared to not fed areas. Results suggest that feeding jays may have an impact on breeding songbirds.
Conceptual Neighborhoods – A Future Step for Spatio-temporal Decision Support Systems
October 2024 (Date TBD) 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Zoom™
In spatial and temporal reasoning, a mathematical construct known as a conceptual neighborhood graph takes relations between objects and forms a graph between them explaining systematic transfers between the relations. The relations are nodes, while the transfers are edges. Over the past few decades, research has been done on numerous relation sets to identify salient patterns of transfer in these relations. What has not been accomplished is to develop an information system that accounts for this logic, a key piece for moving into decision support systems based on principles of human cognition. In this presentation, I will detail research into conceptual neighborhoods of important relation spaces undertaken by my students (undergrad and grad) and I that pave the way for the future of spatio-temporal decision tools.
Matt Dube
UMA Associate Professor in Data Science, Computer Information Systems, and Applied Mathematics