FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Contact: Susan Tams, Director of Editorial Services, 304-746-2038
 

Marshall Undergraduate Students Awarded Summer Research Funds

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. -- Ten Marshall University undergraduate students will conduct original scientific research by participating in the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) fellowship beginning May 18 and continuing through July 31.

“We want students to know how strongly Marshall supports undergraduate research,” said Dr. Michael Norton, professor of chemistry at Marshall and director of the program. “This is the time when these young minds start utilizing their research skills in preparation for graduate school.”

Students will receive stipends totaling $4,000 each and supplies for their research for a period of ten weeks uninterrupted by classes during the summer.

Marshall has received funds for SURE, now in its 4th year, from West Virginia’s Research Challenge Fund to advance research in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics through the support of undergraduate research. This year, SURE will fund ten research projects that have been selected for support by the proposal evaluation committee.

This year, the awardees and their projects are:

  • Amber Inman from Princeton, W.Va. Biology, Functional Distribution of Dopamine and Serotonin in the Crayfish CNS. Mentor: Dr. Brian Antonsen.
  • Hannah Mick from Ripley, W.Va. Biology, Identification and Enrichment of Cancer Stem Cells. Mentor: Dr. Jagan Valluri.
  • Hayden Hedrick from Huntington. Biology, Water Quality Analysis Based on Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Found in Local Lakes. Mentor: Dr. Charles Somerville.
  • Mallory Douthitt from Cumberland, Md. Biology, Investigation of Acanthamoeba Diversity. Mentor: Dr. Wendy Trzyna.
  • Natalie Elkins from Huntington. Chemistry, Ab initio investigation of pre-reactive complexes of hydroxyl radical. Mentor: Dr. Rudolf Burcl.
  • Nicholas Gardner from Keyser, W.Va. Biology, Digital Morphology of the skull of the basal diapsid reptile Youngina capensis: an anatomical foundation for the study of the reptilian head. Mentor: Dr. F.  Robin O'Keefe.
  • Robert Demuth from Pamplin, Va.; Anthropology, The efficacy of controlled surface collection in archaeological research. Mentor: Dr. Nicholas Freidin.
  • Samantha Fox from Elkins, W.Va. Psychology, Encoding of Location Information: Automatic or Effortful? Mentor: Dr. Steven Mewaldt.
  • Stephen Pennington from Charleston, W.Va.; Biology, The functional distribution of dopamine in the crayfish CNS. Mentor: Dr. Brian Antonsen.
  • Tiffany Bell from Wake Forest, N.C. Biochemistry, Examination of Upregulation of Cytoplasmic Prohibitin in Cancerous Cells. Mentor: Dr. Leslie Frost.

For more information, persons may visit the SURE program’s Web site at www.marshall.edu/sure, or contact Norton at Norton@marshall.edu.

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