MARQUETTE, Mich.— Four Northern Michigan University students were chosen as recipients of the 2014 Lundin Scholarship: junior Sarah Lauinger of Holly; senior Marissa Kane of Ortonville; senior Chris Thornton of Lewiston; and senior Rachael Peters of Howell.

The Lundin Fellowships are designed to support undergraduate members of the NMU Honors Program as they engage in research projects and creative works over the summer. The awards are worth $5,000 each to cover tuition costs and living expenses.

Lauinger is an art and design major with a concentration in computer art. Her project will be to explore the program, Cinema4D. Using the program, Lauinger will create an animated forest scene intended to generate a calm and relaxing effect in its viewers.

Kane is a biology major with an emphasis in physiology. She will be working with the Upper Michigan Brain Tumor Center to study the common malignant brain tumor, glioblastoma. Kane will be working to characterize the behavior of Basigin-2, a protein involved in cancer biology, in order to target and kill glioblastoma cells.

Thornton is a biology major with an emphasis in microbiology. He will be assisting Professor Josh Sharp with testing a bacterial identification system known as MIT 1000. They will be studying MRSA, a dangerous strain of Staphylococcus aureus. They plan to add bacterial signatures to the comparison database, report problems back to MIT and continue their analysis of MRSA.

Peters is a triple major in graphic communications, English writing and Spanish. Peters is working on a documentary comparing the culture of Cuba to common perceptions of the Cuban culture. She utilized her study abroad trip to Cuba in May to continue progress with the documentary by getting interviews from citizens about their lifestyles.