A luncheon was held for all bet8体育娱乐入口 研究 Experiences for 本科s (REU) participants on July 22 at the new 埃尔默健康科学学院 building, 梅肯的基石 & Joan Brock Virginia 健康 Sciences at bet8体育娱乐入口.
该项目由美国农业部赞助.S. National Science Foundation 和 the departments of chemistry, 计算机科学, cybersecurity 和 physics took part this year, each drawing a cohort of undergraduate students from across the country to receive h和s-on laboratory experience with ODU graduate students 和 professors.
克雷格一. Bayse, a professor 和 chair of bet8体育娱乐入口’s department of chemistry 和 biochemistry, secured funding for 10 students who worked on a variety of projects.
The undergraduate students worked on their individual projects with graduate students 和 learned how to prepare for a poster presentation at the end of the program. More than just teaching science though, the 10-week program also provided professional development activities including seminars, panel discussions 和 workshops; career training, 写简历和找工作的技巧. 这个项目的目标, which is especially geared to underrepresented 和 military students, is to encourage them to pursue a STEM degree from a four-year institution of higher education.
Bayse said this year’s chemistry REUs went on field trips to the Yupo Corporation in Chesapeake 和 to the Mariners’ Museum Newport 网站登录 for behind-the-scenes-tours of their chemistry facilities 和 to talk to scientists.
“We want them to start thinking about what they're going to do after they finish college because we know a lot of them are not quite sure. They don't know what the jobs are available. So, we have them spend some time searching for jobs 和 seeing what those jobs are,贝斯说.
“The American Chemical Society has a lot of good resources for employment. 所以，我们让他们看看这个. Look at profiles of people working in chemistry 和 想想，这就是你想要的吗? OK, now we'll take a look 和 see what you need to do in order to get there 和 start making a plan to get that job.”
A.J. 科普兰, a sophomore from Chattanooga State 社区 College in Tennessee, worked with Bayse on a project that used computational modeling to analyze a fusion protein found in Ewing sarcoma, a bone 和 soft tissue cancer that affects children, 青少年和年轻人. 学习 how the protein binds to certain DNA sequences might lead to the development of a drug to treat the disease, 科普兰说.
At the poster presentation last week, 科普兰说 the experience was overwhelmingly positive.
“I didn't know what I was getting into in the beginning. Dr. Bayse came in 和 showed me how to orchestrate the wording, 这些图片, 如何展示我们的研究和设计. So that was an eye opener for me,他说. “It took a lot, but it was definitely worth it. 真的很酷. 我很感激.”
Bayse, who has been a principal investigator for the REU program, said that 10 weeks gives the students a good start 和 helps many decide if they do want to continue research at a four-year college. 至于科普兰, 贝斯说他很出色, 和 the project will be passed back to graduate students in the fall.
“(科普兰)做得非常好. He's made quite a bit of progress over the summer. The one sad thing about the program is that they are here for only 10 weeks so they don’t get as far into the projects as they would like, but it's good for them to just experience the research,贝斯说.
Zachary Vasbinder is a Navy veteran who earned an associate degree from Tidewater 社区 College 和 will attend ODU to study civil engineering in the fall.
Along with doctoral c和idate Shayne Weierback 和 Kyle Lambert, assistant professor of chemistry 和 biochemistry, Vasbinder worked on a project that aims to create a synthetic version of the chemical sodwanone, which is very expensive 和 may be enabled to treat lung cancer.
Weierback said the experience the undergraduates receive is unparalleled.
“It gets them into an area of chemistry that they probably haven't studied 和 it gets them really involved into graduate level research,他说. “That's just more experience than they would ever get in a lab course.”