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SMCM Faculty and Staff Working to Transform Undergraduate Research

St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM) was well represented and very well received at the second annual meeting of the Council on Undergraduate Research Transformations Project (CUR-T), funded by the National Science Foundation (Award no. 1625354). The inter-disciplinary SMCM team attending the conference included Drs. Mertz, Neiles, Bowers, Dillingham, Wooley, Koenig, and Foster.

SMCM faculty and staff at the November 2018 CUR conference

SMCM CUR Transformations Project Team Members at 2018 Conference (L to R: Drs. Mertz, Neiles, Bowers, Dillingham, Wooley, Koenig, and Foster)

The CUR Transformations Project aims to understand and incorporate successful strategies to integrate high-quality undergraduate research (UGR) throughout four-year undergraduate STEM curricula. SMCM’s contribution to this ambitious nation-wide endeavor focuses on undergraduate research integration in the disciplines of psychology and chemistry & biochemistry, and we have a committed team of 16 faculty and administrators working toward this goal.

The 2018 annual meeting allowed all 12 institutions participating in the CUR-T project to highlight their progress toward achieving project goals, and by all accounts our SMCM psychology and chemistry/biochemistry teams excelled and impressed. Congratulations to all of them, and please feel free to ask them about their CUR-T-related progress and insights. Each team works to create a more research-rich, connected, and scaffolded curriculum, and contributes to two major research questions: 1) What effect do student characteristics (e.g., preexisting academic preparation) have on scaffolded integration of UGR into the curriculum and student learning outcomes? 2) How do different STEM disciplines/departments effectively integrate the components and outcomes of high-quality UGR to reach more students? The CUR-T principal investigators received NSF funding to answer these pertinent questions in order to advance the academy’s understanding of effective teaching and learning and the disciplinary and cultural factors necessary for curricular integration and transformation. Collectively, we are at the cutting edge of STEM curricular transformations.

SMCM Chemistry CUR Conference PosterSMCM Chemistry Department CUR Transformations Project - November 2018 Poster

SMCM Psychology CUR Conference Poster

SMCM Psychology Department CUR Transformations Project - November 2018 Poster

 

Two SMCM Students Participate in Mathematics REU

Congratulations to the 12 students who presented their research on July 27, 2018 to conclude the SMCM Mathematics REU, a 7-week NSF-funded research experience for underrepresented students in mathematics who are early in their college careers. Over 100 students from across the country applied for the 12 positions. Two of the participants, Mariel Santos ’20 and Beth Thomas ’21, are undergraduates at SMCM. Santos’ team presented “Knots & Links: Local Moves & Polynomial Invariants.” Thomas’ team presented “Combating Tuberculosis: Using Time-Dependent Sensitivity Analysis to Develop Strategies for Treatment and Prevention.”

Mariel Santos (left) and Beth Thomas (right), just after presenting their REU research at SMCM

The Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program supports active research participation by undergraduate students in any of the areas of research funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). REU projects involve students in meaningful ways in ongoing research programs or in research projects specifically designed for the REU program.

Angela Johnson awarded grant to study women of color in STEM

Angela C Johnson, professor and department chair of Educational Studies, is interested in the challenges that women of color face in physics, math, computer science, and other similar fields. In preliminary research, Dr. Johnson has found that St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM) may be on the right track in supporting these historically underrepresented students.

Johnson recently finalized a subaward agreement to serve as co-principal investigator on an NSF-funded project titled: Centering Women of Color in STEM: Identifying and Scaling Up What Helps Women of Color Thrive. Dr. Johnson is partnering with Dr. Apriel K Hodari of Eureka Scientific, Inc. on the project which will use data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) to compare the inclusivity and success of women of color across college campuses.

Johnson will co-lead the overall project, manage the quantitative data collection, and contribute to data collection, coding, and analysis, and report production. Two SMCM students, Rose Young and Elizabeth Mulvey, will assist with data collection, including conducting interviews with women of color in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Ultimately, the researchers hope to provide information to help guide organizations committed to creating supportive environments for women of color to thrive in STEM fields. The two-year project is scheduled to run through the summer of 2019.

St. Mary’s College Professor Collaborates on Research of Dryland Mosses

Kirsten Deane-Coe, Assistant Professor of Biology

Kirsten Deane-Coe, Assistant Professor of Biology

Kirsten Deane-Coe, Assistant Professor of Biology for St. Mary’s College of Maryland, was awarded $130,079 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Dimensions of Biodiversity Program. She will be working with collaborators to investigate the drivers of diversity in an ecologically important clade of dryland mosses.

Syntrichia is a large and diverse genus of mosses occurring worldwide and generally in dryland habitats. Despite its dominance in certain communities such as biological soil crusts, surprisingly little is known about the drivers of biodiversity in this clade according to the grant proposal.

Deane-Coe is a physiological ecologist and has spent much of her career studying dryland mosses. She explained that mosses are the second most diverse group of land plants next to angiosperms (flowering plants), and they play important ecological roles in terrestrial ecosystems.

“My role on the grant is to lead research that helps us gain insight into the comparative physiology of these dryland mosses with regard to the trait of desiccation tolerance.”

This important trait – the capability to dry without dying – allows many mosses to survive and reproduce even in drylands and may be the key to their survival in the face of rapid climate change.

The overall goal of the project is to understand the evolutionary and ecological mechanisms that have produced and maintained diversity at different levels of organization (i.e. genes to ecosystems). The approach will include examining tradeoffs between asexual and sexual reproduction and between phenotypic plasticity and canalization into specialized genotypes.

“This is cutting edge research because my lab will be using novel imaging fluorescence techniques coupled with infrared gas analysis to examine variability in photosynthetic capacity in a diverse but understudied clade of dryland mosses,” says Deane-Coe. “We believe photosynthetic capacity under various hydration regimes directly relates to the degree of desiccation tolerance, a key trait that may give us insight into the drivers of biodiversity in these organisms.”

Deane-Coe is looking forward to the opportunity to involve students in the research, exposing them to unique organisms and plant physiology techniques they likely haven’t interacted with before.

St. Mary’s College of Maryland, designated the Maryland state honors college in 1992, is ranked one of the best public liberal arts schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Approximately 1,700 students attend the college, nestled on the St. Mary’s River in Southern Maryland.

The St. Mary’s College of Maryland Emerging Scholars Program – Research Experience for Undergraduates

St. Mary’s College of Maryland Professor of Mathematics Sandy Ganzell and Associate Professor of Mathematics Casey Douglas were awarded an important grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant supports a research program for undergraduate students, held at St. Mary’s College in 2016, 2018 and 2020. The seven-week program is funded by NSF’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. The first cohort of students completed the program on July 29th.

The words Math R. E. U. are spelled out with sparklers at night

Students in the Emerging Scholars Program spell out “Math REU” with sparklers at night

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