North Easton Native Bryan Switzer Earns Summer Research Award

EASTON, MA (04/10/2012)(readMedia)-- North Easton native Bryan Switzer will be one of 50 students from Stonehill College working with faculty members at the College this summer on research projects through the Stonehill Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program. The SURE Program provides students with an opportunity to perform significant, publishable research under the guidance of an experienced faculty researcher.

Switzer, a junior philosophy major at Stonehill, will work with Constantinos Mekios, assistant professor of Philosophy, on The Aristotelian Final Cause and Potential Relevance of Teleological Explanations for Modern Biology: A Comparative Study.

Switzer will be studying in detail Aristotle's account of teleology by tracing the references to this concept in three of his works. An emphasis will be placed on identifying and analyzing the sections of these texts which do not only help the reader understand the general role of final causes in Aristotelian philosophy but are also relevant to biological considerations. From such considerations, the focus of the project will then shift to the task of addressing the question regarding the potential relevance of teleological explanations for modern biology. Upon completion of the research, the two are planning to publish the results into an undergraduate philosophical journal and to attend a conference in which to present their findings.

The scholars and their faculty mentors are the 17th group to work under the Stonehill Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program. SURE Scholars will engage in weekly meetings to discuss the progress of their projects and other topics of general interest, and will be paid a stipend for their full-time service. All SURE Scholars will present summaries of their summer's work at an all-campus poster session in the early fall.

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