Every summer, the Office of Research awards funding support to a cohort of VCU undergraduates to conduct research over a span of 10 weeks with a faculty mentor of their choice.  This year we were able to award 25 students!  The award is offered through the VCU Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program to undergraduate students and their faculty mentor partners whose research proposals show the greatest potential for learning and discovery.  The fellowship is open to all VCU undergrads from every academic discipline, and the funded projects represent a wide array of scholarly interests that exemplify the diversity of our academic community.  On behalf of the Office of Research and the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, please welcome our 2013-2014 UROP Summer Fellows:

Rhonda Chapman, Clinical Lab Sciences major in the School of Allied Health, will work with Dr. Lara Mabry, on a project titled ‘MPO to Determine Risk of Cardiovascular Disease’.

Jerry Walters, a Sculpture major in the School of Arts, will work with Prof. Matt King on a project entitled ‘Powder, Candy Chrome: Research Into the Relationship Between Surface and Sculpture’.

Michelle Florence, a Craft and Material Studies major in the School of Arts, will work with Prof. Andrea Connell on a project entitled ‘Application of Armatures in Large-Scale Figurative Ceramics’.

London Perry, a Cinema major, will work with Prof. Beth Reed of the School of Arts on their project “Music and Subjective Image”.

Elise Neuscheler, a Communication Arts major, will work with Prof. Ying-Fang Shen on their project “Making It Happen: Establishing Prerequisites for Independent Animation”.

Torian Ugworji, a Kinetic Imaging major in the School of Arts, will work with Prof. Bob Paris on a project entitled ‘Aspect of the African American Male’.

David Williams, an Information Systems major in the School of Business, will team with Dr. Manoj Thomas on the project “An Ontological Approach for User-Centric Data Mining Model Management”.

Danielle Armstrong, a Psychology major, will work with Dr. Faye Belgrave on a project titled “How to Mold Minds: The Factors Influencing HIV Testing Attitudes”.

Azhar Bashir, a Chemistry major, will team with Dr. Gail Christie on a project called “Identification of superinfection exclusion genes in Staphylococcus aureus bacteriophage 80a”.

Rose Bono, a Psychology major will work with Dr. Scott Vrana on their project entitled “Examining the Effect of Stimulus and Response Training on Semantic Structure in Personal Narratives: Applications of Latent Semantic Analysis”

Joanne Chiao, a History major will team with Dr. Karen Rader on their project “History of the Patient’s History: Exploring Origins, Developments, and Debates of the Art of Clinical Case-Taking”.

Jenna Dodson, an Environmental Studies major, will work with Dr. Lesley Bulluck on their project “Do egg size and parental care influence nestling personality in PROW”

Donald Jessup, a Forensic Science major, will team up with Dr. Christopher Ehrhardt on their project “Forensic Signatures for Illicitly-produced Bacterial Pathogens: High Resolution Assays for Detecting Chemical Additives Used to Weaponize Biothreat Agents”.

Ian McClenny, a Chemistry major, will work with Dr. Hani M. El-Kaderi on their project, “Gas Separation by Porous Materials for Energy and Environmental Applications”.

Jay Patel, a Biology major, will work with Dr. Maryanne Collinson on their project “Using Nanoporous Gold as a Potentiometric Sensor to Measure the Redox Potential in Blood”.

Joseph Bungard, a Chemistry major, will team up with Dr. Matthew Hartman on their project entitled “Peptide Permeability”.

Karin Miller, a Biology major will work with Jacek Ghosh and Steven Heinetz with VCU Sustainability on their project, “Environmental Intelligence: Signage Influence on Point of Use Choices”.

Nathalie Spita, a Biology major, will work with Dr. Andrew Ottens on their project, “Diagnostics of Brain Injury Rehabilitation”.

Min Im, a Mathematics major, will team up with Dr. Norma Ortiz-Robinson on their project titled “Application of Optimal Control methods to the determination of a “best” control scheme to suppress arrhythmia”

Courtney Belmonte, a Psychology major, will work with Prof. Jennifer Wartella on their project “Using The Life Story to Promote Identity Formation and Career Decision-Making in an Undergraduate Population”.

Vanessa Fuentes, a Psychology major, will team up with Dr. Rosalie Corona on their project “How Does Culture Affect Latino College Students’ Mental Health?”.

Stuart Jennings, a Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering major, will partner with Dr. James G. Miller on their project entitled “Nuclear Power Plant Simulator”.

David Presnall, a Chemical and Life Sciences Engineering major, will team up with Dr. Xuejun Wen on their project “Prevention of Healthcare – Associated infections (HAIs) with a Novel Albumin PLASTIC coating”.

Tiffany Wong, a Biomedical Engineering major, will work with Dr. Christopher A. Lemmon on their project “Fibronectin Fragment Effects on Pluripotent Stem Cells using Microcontact Printing Arrays”.

Tenesha Bottoms, a Nursing major, will work with Dr. Mary Jo Grap on their project “Effect of Stimulated Events on Level of =Sedation in Mechanically Ventilated Patients “.

‘We Expect You to be Your Very Best’

Note this is a repost of a VCU News article written by Bianca Simpson, Student Contributor, University Public Affairs

VCU’s Third Annual Student Research Week celebrated the research and scholarship of undergraduate and graduate students during a series of events from April 19 to April 27.

Students from an array of disciplines shared their research experiences with academic peers, faculty members, community members and friends and family.

“This is a week to profile the hard work these students are pursuing through their scholarly and research endeavors,” said Herb Hill, event organizer and coordinator of Undergraduate Research Opportunities in the VCU Office of Research.

“Student engagement doesn’t seem to be a problem when it comes to research at VCU. We’re happy to see Research Week expanding and really happy to see the numbers grow with the students getting not just the opportunity to present these projects, but to get engaged with research and to have the opportunity to pursue that kind of experience at VCU.”

The kick-off event for this year’s Research Week was the School of Engineering Senior Design Expo at the Science Museum of Virginia. During the expo, undergraduate engineering students presented and discussed their capstone senior projects with the greater Richmond community, which included middle and high school students learning about the engineering field.

On day two, the Virginia/North Carolina Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Research Symposium allowed minority undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines to share their research experience with other alliance institution members and the university community at large.

Alliance member institutions include Bennett College (Greensboro, N.C.), Elizabeth City State University (Elizabeth City, N.C.), George Mason University (Fairfax), Johnson C. Smith University (Charlotte, N.C.), Piedmont Virginia Community College (Charlottesville), Saint Augustine’s University (Raleigh, N.C.), University of Virginia (Charlottesville), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Blacksburg) and VCU.

Graduate students took the opportunity to present their research at the Graduate Student Research Symposium later in the week. The VCU Graduate Student Association sponsors the annual forum.

Natasha Cole, a second-year graduate student in the counseling psychology program, presented her project titled, “Ego Resilience and Mindfulness on the Relationship between Academic Stress and Psychological Well Being.” She finds research to be taxing, but the end result to be rewarding.

“I think VCU definitely fosters opportunities for research,” said Cole. “We have access to such a diverse student population, a diverse community and the MCV campus is up the street giving us access to a medical community as well.”

Another opportunity for students to present their research was the Fifth Annual Poster Symposium for Undergraduate Research and Creativity. During the event, the Office of Research announced the 2013 cohort of students awarded the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program Summer Fellowship.

Read the rest of Bianca Simpson’s article HERE

Thank you for your support of Spit for Science: The VCU Student Survey! We invite you to celebrate the close of another successful semester of the Spit for Science research project. Members of our undergraduate research team will present analyses based on Spit for Science data in a symposium open to the whole university on Tuesday, April 30th, 4:00-5:00 PM in the University Student Commons, Common Ground room. Presentation topics include the role of parents, peers, stress, religiosity, and engagement in student organizations on the use of alcohol and drugs during the first year of college.

The symposium will be followed by a Jimmy John’s reception in the Common Ground Room. Learn about the project, meet the research team and receive a free T-shirt and food.

About the project: The goal of Spit for Science: the VCU Student Survey (www.spit4science.vcu.edu) is to understand how genetic and environmental factors come together to influence a variety of health-related outcomes in the VCU undergraduate population.  The project, launched in the fall of 2011, is following the 2011 VCU freshman class across is its college years, and will also enroll new VCU freshman classes over the next few years.

Dear members of the VCU community, please join us this Wednesday, April 24th for our Annual Poster Symposium for Undergraduate Research and Creativity.  Undergraduate students will present their research endeavors to their academic peers, members of the VCU faculty, community members and friends and family.  Projects include research and scholarly work from a wide variety of academic disciplines including the College of Humanities & Sciences and the schools of Allied Health Professions, Arts, Business, Education, Engineering, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Social Work and Interdisciplinary Studies.

The symposium will take place from 11am-2pm in the Commonwealth Ballrooms and Richmond Salons on the second floor of the Student Commons building.  Remarks from VCU President Michael Rao, Provost Beverly Warren and Vice President for Research Frank Macrina will begin at 12:30pm.

This is a reprint of “Alien Invasion of the Trees”, written by Taylor Beck, VCU News Contributor

In the worst seasons, you can hear caterpillar droppings pouring from the naked trees.

“The rain of poop,” as entomologist Derek Johnson, Ph.D., describes it, is the most visceral sign of the gypsy moth, the invasive pest that has been Johnson’s specialty for ten years.

The mystery is this: while the moths have spread across much of the United States, destroying forest, they are dwindling on Virginia’s coastal plain east of Richmond. If scientists can understand what is hindering the moths in this area – be it food scarcity, parasites, predators or weather – they may be able to suppress the moth from stripping America’s woods.

It’s a mystery Stephanie Roddy, an enthusiastic undergraduate researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University, would like to solve. Roddy has joined her mentors, Johnson, an assistant professor of population and invasion biology at VCU, and entomologist Karen Kester, Ph.D., an associate professor of biology, in the search for answers.

Through a fellowship from the university’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), Roddy has been studying gypsy moth pupae at six locations across Virginia. Roddy, together with Johnson, has tracked how the moths are affected by predators, parasites and weather factors, offering answers to the question of what is, and what is not, killing the moths.

Read Taylor Beck’s full article here: http://news.vcu.edu/news/Alien_Invasion_of_the_Trees

Dear Students, Colleagues, and members of the VCU community,

Beginning this Friday, VCU hosts its third annual Student Research Week, a series of events that brings together undergraduates, graduate students and faculty from across disciplines to celebrate research and creative scholarly projects. Events will take place April 19th-27th.

A schedule of events and locations can be found at the website below. Projects span many academic disciplines, including work from Community Engagement, the College of Humanities and Sciences and the schools of Allied Health Professions, Arts, Business, Education, Engineering, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Social Work and Interdisciplinary Studies. Students will be available to demonstrate and discuss their projects in a variety of presentations.  I hope you will join us for this exciting series of events!

For more information, contact me at hhill@vcu.edu or visit http://www.research.vcu.edu/vpr/ugresources/research-week_2013.htm.

VCU Student Research Organization Meeting

Where: VCU Student Commons – Forum Room

When: Wednesday April 17th, 2013 at 5pm

The Student Research Organization (SRO) exists to raise awareness of undergraduate research through educational programs, workshops, and by providing avenues to become more involved in research.

The meeting will take place Wednesday April 17th, 2013 at 5pm in the Student Commons Forum Room. We will be recruiting to fill our leadership positions for next year, so if you are interested in serving on the executive board of the SRO make sure to come out and express your interest.  Email srovcu@gmail.com if you are interested in applying.

This is a reprint of “Virus Fighters”, written by Taylor Beck, VCU News Contrubitor

If not for viruses, Joanna Kettlewell might still be folding towels in a nursing home. That’s what she was doing for a part-time job in the fall of 2010, when she stumbled on the class that changed the course of her college career and transformed her into a scientist.

Allison Johnson, Ph.D., the instructor of a class on phages, or bacterial viruses, at Virginia Commonwealth University, inspired Kettlewell, a sophomore at the time, to focus her undergraduate research on one virus. That virus, the focus of Johnson’s current work, represents one of the world’s greatest public health crises: human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which kills about 2 million people per year.

Thanks to a summer fellowship through the VCU Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), Kettlewell, a biology major and chemistry minor in the College of Humanities and Sciences,  has explored what it means to be a scientist by studying one of the enzymes that gives HIV its bite. Her efforts represent one of many student research success stories at VCU, which celebrates its Third Annual Research Week from April 19 to April 27. (A complete list of Research Week events can be found here.)

Kettlewell and her mentors, Johnson, assistant professor and assistant director of the Center for the Study of Biological Complexity in VCU Life Sciences, and Vamsi Yadavali, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemical and life sciences engineering in the VCU School of Engineering, hope their work ultimately may help scientists better understand how current HIV medications work so that they can design better drugs to fight the epidemic.

Read Taylor Beck’s full article “Virus Fighters” on the VCU News Center website.

The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program will be hosting its next poster session:

Thursday, April, at 3pm in room 430 of Hibbs Hall

The workshop will focus on the significance of a poster as a vehicle for research presentation while covering some of the technical aspects of poster creation from design to printing.

Completion of the workshop will assist in preparing undergrads to present their work, whether for the Poster Symposium for Undergraduate Research and Creativity taking place on campus April 24, 2013, or for any other national conferences related to undergraduate research.

In order to participate in the workshop, students must first register with Herb Hill at hhill@vcu.edu to ensure sufficient space.  If you would like to workshop your poster, but are unable to attend any of the announced sessions, please contact Herb Hill to schedule an alternate meeting time.

The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program will be hosting its next poster session:

Thursday, March 28, at 3pm in room 430 of Hibbs Hall

The workshop will focus on the significance of a poster as a vehicle for research presentation while covering some of the technical aspects of poster creation from design to printing.

Completion of the workshop will assist in preparing undergrads to present their work, whether for the Poster Symposium for Undergraduate Research and Creativity taking place on campus April 24, 2013, or for any other national conferences related to undergraduate research.

In order to participate in the workshop, students must first register with Herb Hill at hhill@vcu.edu to ensure sufficient space.  If you would like to workshop your poster, but are unable to attend any of the announced sessions, please contact Herb Hill to schedule an alternate meeting time.