The Lion's Roundtable (Guests: Aidan Hidalgo and Avery Hearnsberger)
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Todd Delaney:Discussing topics of interest to the university, Hammond, and the surrounding communities. This is the Lions Roundtable. Now, here's your host, Doctor Amber Narro.
Amber Narro:Good day. Good day. This is Amber on ninety point nine. The Lion, we are at the Lions Roundtable today and I've got with me today two students from the honors program. We're talk gonna talk to them in just a second but first, I wanna make sure that we notice that we just heard from Darci Lourigan.
Amber Narro:She actually interviewed Robin Roberts when she came here and opened the Robin Roberts studio here at Southeastern. This is only the second time we've gone live from this studio, and I appreciate two of my honor students joining me today. I have got Avery Hernsberger and Aiden Hidalgo, and we're gonna talk today about National Collegiate Honors Conference as well as some of their research they're doing in biology with big words. I don't know what they're talking about, but I'm I'm hoping that they can explain them because I got no clue. And also, Aiden's winning a scholarship, the only one offered in the entire nation to travel to this conference and we're super proud of him and going to be doing some some some pressing stuff on him very soon.
Amber Narro:So, welcome. So glad to have y'all.
Avery Hearnsberger:Hi, everybody.
Aidan Hidalgo:Thank you so much.
Avery Hearnsberger:Yes. Absolutely. I was a
Amber Narro:little nervous in the studio today. That's alright. This is our first time on the radio. That's okay. We're gonna take care of em.
Amber Narro:So, let's chat about this a little bit. Avery, you were talking before we started about phages and lysinogens and all kinds of craziness before we started. I had no idea what these things were. So tell me what you're doing in biology over there.
Avery Hearnsberger:Yeah. So basically, we have these quote unquote host and phages. It's basically a phage, a bacteriophage. It's a What's a phage? Yes.
Avery Hearnsberger:It's a virus, like a virus that infects you whenever you're sick, but the bacteriophages that we're working with, they are not harmful ones.
Amber Narro:Okay. So I've heard doctor Anderson. That's doctor Justin Anderson. He is the department head here at Southeastern for biology, and he teaches this class to our honor students. It's an honors only class, biology twenty thirty, and the students take this class and, they literally, on the first day, have to bring a bag of dirt Yes.
Amber Narro:To class. I think that's their favorite day. Everybody walks in with their little bag of dirt.
Avery Hearnsberger:Yes.
Amber Narro:I always think about what's the little character on Finding Nemo, the girl with the with the fish. With the goldfish.
Aidan Hidalgo:The braces. Yeah.
Amber Narro:I dressed up as her as Halloween a couple years ago. I had to show you that picture. But I always think of y'all coming in on the first day with your little bag of dirt looking. Yes. Looking like that little character.
Amber Narro:Right?
Avery Hearnsberger:Right. Yeah. We walked in with bags of dirt. I think that's the first day we met it. It's like been three years ago now.
Aidan Hidalgo:Oh my goodness. Yeah.
Avery Hearnsberger:Yeah. We met three years ago and we just had these bags of dirt and we put it into random stuff. We didn't know what it was at that point but it was actually just making it, putting it in with the host and the host is like infecting it with a virus. Ew.
Amber Narro:Yeah. So, how you, like, Doctor Anderson always says, it's not harmful. Don't worry, parents. You don't have to worry about anything. Yeah.
Amber Narro:So, it's okay.
Aidan Hidalgo:These viruses are viruses that infect like dirt and things like that. So, it's not going to be infecting humans. Essentially, like the viruses we're finding in the dirt or viruses that usually will hurt agriculture, you know, and viruses that are just found you know, by sewer sewers, sewage, what is it?
Amber Narro:Sewage plants. Treatment plants.
Aidan Hidalgo:Yeah. Treatment plants like. Okay. They So, don't affect humans but what the cool thing is is that the viruses that we find, they they're able to they're able to help treat
Avery Hearnsberger:humans like the fade shots and stuff that we talked about.
Aidan Hidalgo:Right.
Amber Narro:Okay. So, they can't hurt you but they can help you.
Aidan Hidalgo:Correct. So, they eat up the bacteria and so if you have a bacterial infection, the antibiotics like because they're becoming so resistant with time, these viruses can actually help treat, you know, bacterial infections by eating up the bacteria.
Amber Narro:Teach the teacher. I like it. I like it. Alright. So doctor Anderson talks about this.
Amber Narro:He says it can harm you that while you're messing with him. And, obviously, you take special precautions in there anyway. I've seen y'all gloving up and putting your lab coats on and goggles and the whole thing as well. So you take some special precautions anyway. But the whole point of this is that you are contributing to the research.
Amber Narro:Avery, tell me a little bit about where this research goes past the lab here at Southeastern.
Avery Hearnsberger:Right. Past the lab, kind of what Aiden was just talking about is there's these kind of phage shots and stuff. Hopefully one day we'll be able to isolate all of these virus or like phages and kind of group them together and have medical purposes to them to help medicine. So, like, it'll kind of, like, bunch them all together and it'll amplify, like, antibiotics and stuff like that.
Amber Narro:Fantastic. So this goes to, how does it get out of Southeastern? Like, where is, where does, where do you give this information so that it can, it can continue on?
Aidan Hidalgo:So, there's a database that we submit all of our stuff to. Southeastern specifically will have two of our phages typically if we can find enough like sequenced. And so what that means is that they will find literally the genetic code that makes up the virus that we find. And so specifically speaking, those are the ones that typically might be able to help because we can figure out which viruses that we need to use to treat whatever infection it is. But it all goes on a database.
Aidan Hidalgo:It's I think it's like phagesdb.com or .org or something. Yeah. But it's all in a database. So there's the faders that every student finds from every university that's participating in the program and it's all on the on that one database.
Amber Narro:Right and it's gone international now.
Aidan Hidalgo:Right?
Avery Hearnsberger:Right.
Amber Narro:So, it used to be kind of a national registry and now it's an international thing and you guys are contributing to that research. So, it's not only you guys, it's also colleges and universities from all over the planet. And I I mean, we have international students who are in our program as well, and they're bringing stuff from their areas as well. So it's it's it's an amazing experiment so that we can all make sure that we are.
Aidan Hidalgo:And it's really neat.
Amber Narro:Contributing to
Aidan Hidalgo:the science. The virus that we found, from Nigeria, I think it was it had very much similarities to one of the viruses we found here. And so now the question is, is how are they similar? Why are they similar? And things like that.
Aidan Hidalgo:So the fact that we have international students participating in the program definitely helps out and brings a lot of questions as well to some of the research that we're doing.
Amber Narro:Love it. Love it. So when you're in the when you're in the lab and doctor Anderson's walking around, okay. Like, you know, the communication person in me, I get this. Right?
Amber Narro:I get the the switches and everything. Y'all walk in and y'all are very confused about this process and you're like, what do I need gonna do? I have the same questions when I'm over there. Right? So you walk in with a bag of dirt and you put it on the table and you start putting it under microscope.
Amber Narro:Why is this a semester worth of work for you guys?
Avery Hearnsberger:Oh, we had to first isolate this bag of dirt. So that means we had to extract this, like, virus out of the dirt and infect the virus with, bacteria. So the bacteria acts as a host to the virus. So it's like the bacteria is a home for the virus. And then we had to amplify it, so make it, like, abundant.
Avery Hearnsberger:And then we had to purify it, so make it pure so it's only that virus there.
Amber Narro:Y'all name your viruses, don't you? Yes. What's the name of y'all's viruses? YouTube.
Avery Hearnsberger:I named mine my last name, so Hernsburger.
Amber Narro:Okay.
Aidan Hidalgo:Yeah. Mine's Hidalgo, but g e a u x, you know, for Louisiana.
Amber Narro:Yeah. I gotcha. I gotcha. Y'all have, like bench scraper and all kinds of other things as well, right? So, who's
Avery Hearnsberger:the one from Nigeria that we work on a lot?
Amber Narro:Yeah. Yeah. So, talk to me about the the voting process because don't y'all like, sequence these things and then you vote on one. It that's like the best virus. Like, how do you find which one's the best virus?
Aidan Hidalgo:So, we take I mean, so this whole semester, we're like, we're doing all the stuff that Avery had talked about but, you know, to make it an honors course, obviously, you know, doing the research isn't enough to make it an honors course. We do a presentation at the very end and it gives us practice presenting. So, when we go to these conferences that we're going to.
Amber Narro:Or on the radio.
Aidan Hidalgo:We have a little bit of practice, you know, talking about the things that we did. So, we, when we're presenting our poster, we are trying to convince the other students that our that our virus is is unique. That there's something about our virus that they need to sequence because it is special and it is not like the other ones.
Amber Narro:You're only sending one or two off a year. Correct? Correct. That's that's the biggest thing here. That's why you have to vote on it because, I mean, it costs money to do these things.
Amber Narro:Right? So we have to make sure that what we're sending is the best of the best so that it can contribute to this research on this international level. And we're doing that right here at Southeastern. Isn't that crazy? Is.
Aidan Hidalgo:It's really nice.
Amber Narro:And you too, love this, have presented I I I sent out an email, and I I didn't really jump on it too too much and and said, hey, if y'all wanna, you know, submit some of your stuff to the National Collegiate Honors Conference, go right ahead. Couple weeks later, Aiden contacts me and say, hey, I did it. And I said, well, didn't tell me you did it. And he said, yeah, I did it. I got accepted by the way and now you need to pay for me to go to San Diego.
Amber Narro:So, what's up, Doctor Nero? Tell me about that process, Aiden.
Aidan Hidalgo:So, I mean, you sent out the Email and I did a little bit of research before and I realized that it is not likely to get accepted because it is a national conference. So, I was like, you know, what the heck? Let's just go for it. So submitted it and then, basically you upload the post that we did. You upload the same stuff that we we got some practice because we went to the academic summit that, you know, our system host, our our college system host every year.
Aidan Hidalgo:So, we got some practice doing that. But yeah, I submitted it. I put Avery's name in it because I was like, you know, we're both going down with this like.
Avery Hearnsberger:She's taking me down with her.
Aidan Hidalgo:Love it. So, I was like, yep, Avery's, I didn't even tell her that I did it actually until we got accepted and then she was like, what did you do?
Amber Narro:He's a sneaky little booger, ain't he? Yeah. Yeah. I just. I don't think he likes rejection.
Amber Narro:I'm I'm seeing this on a psychological level now because like if he got rejected, he never had to tell us. No. Right, Avery?
Avery Hearnsberger:Psych minor is just telling me. If I'm just evaluating him, he's being evaluated hard.
Amber Narro:Yeah. Absolutely. I think he did this in secret on purpose. Yeah. So.
Aidan Hidalgo:Well, we got accepted and I was like, well, first off, we had to figure out how to pay for it. Second off, Avery's coming with me because we're we're going to figure this out together.
Amber Narro:Right. That was another thing. Oh and by the way, I'm bringing Avery too and you're going to pay for her as well. Yeah. So, let me tell you about that.
Amber Narro:We do fundraising activities here at Southeastern and we make sure that we have funds available for them And these two are going not only on a, student government association grant, but the honors program is picking up whatever else is involved in their travel except for about $500 because there has also been a national scholarship that was awarded to Aiden, the only one in the country, by the way. Tell me about this process because I also didn't know that you applied for this.
Avery Hearnsberger:I did. Here you
Amber Narro:I mean, like, here's here's the fear of rejection. Yeah. I had no idea about a
Avery Hearnsberger:scholarship opportunity. I was like, Aiden, what? There's a scholarship?
Aidan Hidalgo:So, they. Yeah. I mean, you know, importance of reading Emails, I guess.
Avery Hearnsberger:Yeah. Go.
Aidan Hidalgo:They send them an Email. Right. And they were like, you know, some here are some opportunities to help pay for your travels and I was like, you know, Doctor Nara is doing a lot trying to get us there. So I was like, let me see what this is. So open it up and it's just a it's just a portal kind of like Southeastern has every every spring and it's a portal and you just put your information in and then they select you for the scholarship.
Aidan Hidalgo:So, I didn't apply for a specific scholarship. I just kind of applied in general for a scholar, you know, the scholarships that they had. I put in my information, the stuff that I'm involved in on campus and then I got an Email a couple weeks later saying that I got the scholarship. So.
Amber Narro:They issue one in the country. So that's pretty amazing that that's coming from Southeastern Louisiana University. I got the email. It said, congratulations. You you sent it to me, and we're gonna get to sit on the front row at National Collegiate Honors Conference in San Diego representing Southeastern the state of Louisiana and and really and truly nationally, Aiden.
Amber Narro:So, congratulations for that. Thank you. That's a big deal for you and a big deal for this area. I, Doctor Procopio and I don't know of any other student who's come from Southeastern who's gotten this scholarship at all and you get one. You know, so, well done.
Aidan Hidalgo:Thank Thank you.
Amber Narro:Very excited about that. Tell me about you you you tell me about the scholarship first. Let's let's honor the National Collegiate Honors Conference and explain the the John Hannigan scholarship that you were awarded.
Aidan Hidalgo:Yeah. So, he was on the National Collegiate Honors Council as a board of director, and he kind of sat there. He had a business background, so he was able to, I guess, make the the, you know, the conference a little bit broader and bigger. And he was very respected, obviously. And I think the scholarship just kind of honors his legacy towards his commitment and you know, the stuff that he did for the for the council.
Amber Narro:He's a financial guy. So, obviously, a a scholarship of some sort to help somebody. Yes. Go to this conference is pretty and that's that's a major deal. So, we'll be doing some, when we're in San Diego, we gotta find a good spot to take a picture of you at this conference, you know.
Amber Narro:And make sure that people around here know that this is a big deal.
Aidan Hidalgo:Yes, ma'am.
Amber Narro:We're going take care of that for sure.
Avery Hearnsberger:Very big deal.
Amber Narro:Indeed. Avery, you gotta be proud of your friend here. I'm
Avery Hearnsberger:so proud. I'm so proud. Indeed.
Amber Narro:Indeed. Even though he doesn't tell us anything. Right.
Avery Hearnsberger:I am so proud of him.
Amber Narro:Sneak up on you.
Aidan Hidalgo:I'll work on it. I'll work on it.
Avery Hearnsberger:No. No. Alright.
Amber Narro:You guys have are you have y'all looked at the rest of the conference proceedings and are y'all interested in heading for something else while you're there or just kind of poster so far and and just getting.
Aidan Hidalgo:We're kind of still working on our poster a little bit just making sure that we have everything we need because we're we're combining two semesters worth of work into one poster and.
Amber Narro:P. S. I've gotta turn my poster in as well. I'm presenting too and I haven't done it yet and Doctor. Picobio is like, hey, look, lady.
Aidan Hidalgo:So, you're not the only ones. Yeah. So, we're trying to combine two semesters worth of work into one. You know, we I Doctor. Asked Doctor.
Aidan Hidalgo:Anderson for some help, and he is very good at just kind of guiding you by giving you the range. He's not very you know, he doesn't he doesn't he's on what is it? Very specific. He wants to he wants students to have the ability to to, you know, have their own creativity with stuff which is good and bad for us. It's bad because we kind of want the we want the specifics of what to include but it is helping us grow a lot.
Avery Hearnsberger:Yeah, we want to be able to say, okay, Doctor Anderson, what do we need to put on this poster? And Doctor Anderson wants to say, well, what do you think you should put? And like, we have the capability to say, oh, we know what to put.
Amber Narro:I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed. You know why? Because when I started making my poster, I went to your poster and I copied it so that I could have a so that I could have a nice little format of what we could look at like look like. So, my format's gonna look a lot like yours.
Amber Narro:It's gonna, I mean, obviously, I'm presenting on different things. So, I won't say the same thing but it's going to look a lot like like I replaced the Southeastern logo with the Southeastern Honors logo and and other than that, it kind of looks a lot like yours. So, the pictures are going to be in the same place.
Avery Hearnsberger:It's a great format. It's a great format.
Amber Narro:That's what I'm saying. I'm honoring it.
Aidan Hidalgo:There we go.
Avery Hearnsberger:There we go. There we go.
Amber Narro:Wait till you see it. You're gonna be like, yes, you did. So there we go. Alright. Aiden, Avery, when you're talking to your parents and and and your friends about these kind of things, what what are you most excited about?
Amber Narro:San Diego or the trip? Let's check. You know, let's be real. Tell me what you're most excited about.
Aidan Hidalgo:For me, it's just the fact that we get to go to a conference that's not in Louisiana. I mean, a lot of the conferences, actually, all the conferences we've been to has been in Louisiana. So, the fact that we're going out of the state to go to a conference is one of the things I keep, you know, saying a lot.
Amber Narro:Yeah and I think that's amazing and I appreciate that very much. One of the things that's I'm gonna challenge you guys to do is to keep up with this research because in the spring, we're gonna be going to the Southern Regional Honors Conference in Montgomery, and that's certainly an opportunity for y'all to go and and be a part of that trip as well if you can present something further. And just as a just for the audience as well as students and and and everybody who might be listening to this here locally, typically, ethically, you submit one thing and you present it at one conference. Right? And then you've gotta have new information for another conference.
Amber Narro:Now while you're just in, Louisiana and we're just doing some practice conferences, that's fine. Right? But once we start heading out, you wanna present different things to, you know, so that it's not just line after line on your resume, but you're actually contributing to the research, right? So you're presenting something one time and then you get it a little bit further. So I'm gonna challenge the two of y'all to find some more stuff that y'all can present and go in a different direction so that y'all can also bring this to the Southern Regional Conference in in April.
Aidan Hidalgo:Yeah. We're working we're working on some new research right now. As far as some of the things that are probably big terminology but lysogens. Yes. Basically, we're just we're we're furthering our research a lot from the what we're presenting at the conference and I think both of us are going to eventually do our honors thesis on different things of the from the research that we found.
Amber Narro:Avery, what's an honors thesis?
Avery Hearnsberger:A thesis where we earn it from through the honors program. Yes. Okay.
Amber Narro:Well, that would be what an honors thesis probably is. So, defining the word with a term. Okay. So, what an honors thesis is and she's learning it right now as she's going through the process here at Southeastern. I I kind of stomped her on purpose there.
Amber Narro:That was rude.
Avery Hearnsberger:Okay. It's okay.
Amber Narro:Yeah. But what an honors thesis is is that the students actually are gonna write a big research paper, a big thesis, on they're they're gonna kinda come up with an idea, some questions, they're gonna do their experiments, they're gonna explain what they found and also contribute to the research as well as make suggestions for future research in their thesis. Right? And they do this as part of their honors diploma, which means hopefully at the end when they're when they've gone through this entire process, they defend it to doctor Anderson as well as me and probably another professor on campus, well definitely another professor on campus, and they tell them what they found and and they are probably gonna take some questions about those that research project as well. And then, hopefully, they get blessed with the honors diploma from from that process, and at the end of it, they are going to walk under the flag of the College of Honors and Excellence along with about five or 10 of their closest friends.
Amber Narro:They're gonna sit on the front row at graduation. We're gonna put a gold hood on them. We're gonna put a medal on them. We're gonna make a big celebration out of them. I'm gonna take a picture of them from the floor.
Amber Narro:So that's a fantastic opportunity for them to do that. And then they're going to be on the brochure for the next semester representing Southeastern and the College of Honors and Excellence. So, both of these students in front of me are working hard toward that. This is part of that process and this research started when they were freshmen, right?
Aidan Hidalgo:We did. We kind of trauma bonded, I guess, a little bit.
Avery Hearnsberger:Yes, we did. We did because are you talking about when you fell? When you fell and dropped it?
Amber Narro:You dropped.
Aidan Hidalgo:It was probably about a week's worth of stuff.
Avery Hearnsberger:Let me expose Aiden real quick. Aiden dropped his page, his virus, and I shared mine and that's how we became friends. Aw.
Aidan Hidalgo:Is it that nice? I adopted Avery's virus. That's what we call it adoption. I I adopted her virus and it's been my virus ever since.
Amber Narro:I love it. I love it. Well, that's fantastic. I appreciate you and I appreciate y'all going. I truly do appreciate y'all going to this conference and representing Southeastern and Hammond America and San Diego in just a week, right?
Amber Narro:We're headed out. I mean, like, next Wednesday It
Avery Hearnsberger:feels It's coming fast.
Amber Narro:We did the flights already, right?
Aidan Hidalgo:Yes. We got it. Right. Right.
Avery Hearnsberger:So, think so.
Aidan Hidalgo:I keep double checking because I'm like.
Amber Narro:So do I. This semester has gone. It I I keep saying, it feels like the slowest and fastest semester ever.
Aidan Hidalgo:So much has happened but yet,
Amber Narro:so little time it feels
Aidan Hidalgo:like, I don't know.
Amber Narro:It's like the the semester that won't end but also keeps going really fast at the same time and that that's not just me. Like, a lot of people on campus are saying that. We've been through our hundred year celebration. We've had lots of activities on campus, lots of gotta get to this event and gotta do this and still gotta do all of the things that you have to do every day to make sure that the campus is running smoothly and that all the grades are in and and things are happening. And faculty and students alike, as well as staff on campus are like, this is the longest semester that's moving very quickly I've ever seen.
Aidan Hidalgo:Right. It's like it never ends.
Amber Narro:It is is a an Alice in Wonderland kind of semester for sure but I appreciate y'all going and representing us during this very busy time at Southeastern on a very national level. This is huge, huge, huge stuff. So, good good students here. Very proud of y'all. Congratulations.
Amber Narro:Congratulations. Thank Yes,
Aidan Hidalgo:absolutely. Yes. Thank you. Indeed.
Amber Narro:Indeed. So, thank you very much for doing that and thank you for listening here at KSLU's nine. Nine, The Lion. I'm Amber Barnero. We've been sitting at the round table with Avery Hernsberger and Aiden Hidalgo.
Amber Narro:I said, Kyle because Kyle's a cousin, right? He's in
Aidan Hidalgo:in the history. Yeah.
Amber Narro:Yes, He's also one of our honor students and I I went straight for his name and I know who you are. So, very good. I've been sitting with Aiden Hidalgo as well as Avery Hernsberger, and we're chatting about the National Collegiate Honors Conference. Aiden Hidalgo representing Hammond America with this national scholarship, the only one of its kind. Very proud of him.
Amber Narro:And Avery going along for the ride that she didn't even know she was going on until he told her. So, we're so glad that you're coming and you that you allowed him to adopt your virus and that y'all have worked on this project together and both of you will be sitting with me at graduation in just very soon. When is graduation for
Aidan Hidalgo:December for me, possibly.
Avery Hearnsberger:Mine is in '27.
Amber Narro:Very good. Alright. So, I'm I'm looking forward to that. So, y'all keep working together. Y'all an awesome team and with your classmates as well.
Amber Narro:Proud of both of y'all.
Aidan Hidalgo:Thank you. Thank you.
Amber Narro:Very good. Thank you for joining me on Thursdays and Fridays here at 9AM on ninety point nine, the Lion. I'm Amber Narro, Lion's Roundtable. Y'all have a great day.
Todd Delaney:Thank you for joining us today. If you missed any part of the show, you can listen to the Lions Roundtable on demand at our website, lionupradio.org. The podcast version is also available for download from Amazon, Google, Spotify, and TuneIn.
