Clara Barned (December ’22 candidate) and Seneca Doty ’21

Clara Barned and Seneca Doty’s publication started as a class project in Dr. Carles Ferrando Valero’s 19th Century Spanish Literature class. With his encouragement and support, they applied for and received funding from the Center for Undergraduate Research (CURS), edited their article, and published their project, titled "Africa and Spain: Poetic Songs with the Motif of the Moroccan War," in the Open Anthology of Spanish Literature.

“When you’re in college you have the ability to partner with professors – I’m so glad we took advantage of that because he was able to walk us through the process,” Doty said.

Barned is a Spanish and pre-med major, anticipated to graduate this December, and Doty graduated with a Bachelor of Science in aviation and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish. Their collaboration happened during the pandemic and almost entirely on Zoom – they both believe this connection was important.

While they knew each other from classes, working on this project together helped them form a lasting friendship.

“Even though the world was totally interrupted at this time, we could still find these opportunities,” Barned said.

Doty credits this experience with building her confidence to pursue other research opportunities, and she received another CURS grant the following summer. Barned is currently applying to medical schools.

“Surprisingly enough, this project is one of the top things they ask me about,” she said.

They both want to encourage students to take advantage of opportunities to do research and work closely with professors. They’ve been thrilled to see how many people have accessed their work – to date, more than 1,800 downloads.

Barned asserts that “this was not planned; we didn’t expect it to be this big.”

Doty said that, for her, it is critical to “go with the flow of where it takes us. It has been huge and very rewarding.”