In the word "we," Rocheleau includes not only herself and lab partner Andrew Morse '03, but professors Robert Vallari and Steve Tobin, who directed her senior research. She also includes Professor Andrew Laudano and a host of laboratory assistants and students at Saint Anselm and UNH who have collaborated over several years. Breast cancer tissue from hospital laboratories is sent to UNH, where thin slices are fixed to microscope slides. The researchers apply antibodies designed to interact with activated forms of cancer-causing proteins. Some of the slides are then sent to Saint Anselm's faculty research laboratory. Rocheleau and Morse have been fine-tuning the tissue staining procedure used to look for the interaction between two proteins, Src and Her2/neu.

"My contribution to the total picture is small," Rocheleau acknowledges. "But knowing you're helping to figure out even one little piece of the puzzle is exciting."

"It's important for us to get handson research experience before deciding if this is what we want to do, she adds. "It can be slow and frustrating, and there are times when it seems like it's not working out at all, but in the end you can get good data that have implications."

Rocheleau will pursue a Ph.D. in biomedical science at UMass Worcester.

Honors Thesis: The Warrior Spirit and the Church
Elizabeth Jorgensen '03 (Natural Science)

Can a 21st century American understand the medieval mind? Elizabeth Jorgensen has come pretty close. Having read about the Knights Templar, the medieval order of fighting monks, she craved an explanation for what seemed an impossible contradiction. Failing to find one to satisfy her, she turned to a myriad of primary sources, historical documents, and texts. The result was an honors thesis that Associate Professor Denise Askin calls "first-rate research that brings theology and history together in a most sophisticated way."

A natural science major, Jorgensen says the process is familiar to her. "If you look closely at something you're interested in, you eventually find an aspect others haven't looked at. You look at research that others have done and look for sources that will lead you to what you want to know," she says. "A scientific mindset helps."

Half of her sources are historical (such as Crusaders' diaries and the Papal Bull of Pope Urban II) and half theological (writings of Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome, and other church fathers). The order was derived from the Germanic warrior spirit, Jorgensen says, after the fall of Rome left the church without secular authority and pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land needed protection from marauders. "The church militant of the fighting kind was an extension of the church militant of the praying kind." The fusion of holiness and worldliness, even to the point of violence, was not a contradiction to the medieval mind, but rather the expression of the Church's highest ideals.

After a year, the young scholar says she has only touched the tip of the iceberg. Encouraged by Professor Askin, she plans to expand her project into a book. It could end up on the shelves of Geisel Library, cited in the pages of future Anselmian theses.

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