ABOUT OUR GROUP

Kris Harper

Coming from Huntington Beach, California, Kris Harper is a student at Pepperdine University with a major in Advertising and a love for art. He hopes to one day travel around the world and create artwork that inspires people and touches the minds of many who are unable to have a voice or speak about issues that trouble them. With his advertising degree, he hopes to become a creative director in the Advertising company as well as working in the film and television industry marketing and advertising for upcoming movies and TV shows. 

Asha Kamack

Hailing from Los Angeles, California, Asha Kamack is a freshman at Pepperdine University who majors in Biology with a Pre-Medical emphasis. After graduating from Pepperdine, Asha plans/hopes to attend the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. She hopes to become a plastic surgeon who specializes in full facial reconstructions and cleft lips/ palates. 

Alex Lilly

She is a freshman at Pepperdine University. Having spent her early childhood moving to different states and countries, she finally made it back to Texas were she spent her middle school and high school years. As a European History major she is excited to be able to study abroad her sophomore year in England.  

Matthew Peng

Born in the city of San Diego, he is currently a student at Pepperdine University, where his major is Sports Medicine (BS) with a Pre-Med basis.  While studying to become a sports team doctor for hopefully the San Diego Chargers, his hobbies include to play and watch sports, hang out with friends, and eat food.   

ABOUT THE KECK SCHOLARS PROGRAM

This course is part of the Keck Scholars Program (KSP). The goal of KSP at Pepperdine University is to expand student research engagement across majors and across the curriculum in order to connect new students to scholarship early in their undergraduate careers. Each year nine to ten first-seminar courses are designed  with the aim of developing students as scholars. Students design and conduct original researchin teams with the guidance of faculty and undergraduate peer mentors.

There are three parts to the program's framework including formation of teams and research ideas, conducting the research, and presenting the results. Faculty isolate an aspect of their own scholarship and invite students into that field, not only by sharing their research and their excitement about their own work but also by inviting students actually to participate with them in thinking about research initiatives. Students are then  asked to develop their own research questions in teams.