News Archive
Last year, the Office of Student Research (OSR) successfully pivoted the 2020 Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) to a virtual format due to the COVID pandemic. The 2020 SURE program funded 77 projects, with participants spanning 37 different majors. Ann Gosky, director of the OSR in the Division of Research and Sponsored Programs, hopes to see more growth for the upcoming summer.
ѿappUniversity has recently received a flurry of grants totaling more than $3 million in funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which will support research and innovation in a wide range of fields within the College of Arts and Sciences.
There are just a handful of chemists worldwide with h-indices above 200. The h-indices of chemists awarded the Nobel Prize during the last five years range from about 30 to 160. Mietek Jaroniec, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has an h-index of 125, which places him among the top chemists worldwide.
To infinity and beyond seems to be the goal for a dedicated faculty member committed to providing the next generation of STEM students with the resources and knowledge to lay the foundation for their future accomplishments within the field. Joanne Caniglia, professor in the School of Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Studies, recently received funding from the NASA Glenn Research Center, an institute located in Cleveland, to provide K-12 students with an immersive and educational experience focused on critical thinking, observation and innovation within the field of science and engineering.
For students going into the medical research field, having a chance to learn, succeed, fail and be inspired under the supervision of an accomplished researcher during their education is a priceless experience. This experiential learning would not be possible without outside funding, and now, students in Manabu Kurokawa’s lab can elevate their efforts thanks to a grant awarded to the group.
The state of Ohio and the Ohio Department of Higher Education announced that ѿappUniversity has been awarded Choose Ohio First grants totaling $3.5 million to support students in the critical fields of science (including health professions), technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
One of ѿappUniversity’s newest faculty members in the Department of Geology has already made her mark with the recent publication of her and her colleagues’ work to better understand the effects of global warming as it relates to the arctic ocean. Allyson Tessin, assistant professor, specializes in biochemistry, oceanography and sedimentary geology. She is currently studying the relationship between the chemistry of the ocean and climate change.
COVID-19 has undoubtedly changed the way people experience their education. Over the summer of 2020, ѿappUniversity’s eight-week Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program transitioned to a completely remote environment, and the results were surprising.
As the COVID-19 pandemic approaches a one-year mile marker, the temptation and opportunity to socialize, party, and indulge in public events grows increasingly stronger. Associate Professor Clarissa Thompson received a grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences to reinforce the dangers of the virus to the public.
Faculty researchers from ѿappUniversity’s College of Nursing were recently funded by the prestigious Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation with a yearlong President’s Grant award totaling $35,000. The goal of their study is to help ensure the competencies of new healthcare providers to facilitate vital family communication at the end of life.
In the medical field, demand for technological advances that can speed data analysis and be less prone to human error continues to increase. Robert Clements recently received a federal grant to continue his work creating a more efficient and improved system to analyze medical data that will benefit not only the biomedical industry but also students at Kent State.
“The pessimistic estimate is that by 2050, antibiotics could be obsolete,'' said Songping Huang, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences. Huang and his ѿappteam, including Min-Ho Kim, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, are working on closing that chasm with the development of new antimicrobials.
Honors College alumna Jessica Maisano, ’94, B.A., started her career at ѿappas a fashion merchandising student before realizing her passion for dinosaurs and dirt was a viable career option. One ѿappprofessor would show Maisano that childhood dreams are actually within reach.
Ryan Claassen, professor of political science at Kent State, conducted research during the fall semester finding that American voters think politicians view situations differently depending on party affiliation. Claassen’s research was recently featured in an article from the Record-Courier.
Congratulations are in order for Sooraj Radhakrishnan, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the ѿappUniversity College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Physics who performs research in experimental nuclear physics. His data analysis of some rare particles called “charm quarks” that may have existed in the first microsecond of the Big Bang, the emerging point of our universe, was highlighted in a recent issue of the .
A liquid crystal research group at ѿappled by Oleg Lavrentovich, Ph.D., is knocking on the doors of the biomedical industry with its current project. The recent publication of research explains a technique of controlling bacteria movement with liquid crystal structures that could have a potential impact in many areas of research and medical care.
Three faculty members in ѿappUniversity's Department of Biological Sciences recently co-authored a 384-page hardcover book, “Problem Plants of Ohio,” published by the ѿappUniversity Press.
Researchers Andrew Lepp, Ph.D., and Jacob Barkley, Ph.D., from ѿappUniversity’s College of Education, Health and Human Services suspected a relationship between boredom and social media use but wondered about cause and effect. Does social media use cause boredom? Or does boredom cause social media use? To answer these questions, they designed an experiment.
Jonathan V. Selinger, professor and Ohio Eminent Scholar in ѿappUniversity’s Department of Physics, in the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science.
Since March, COVID-19 has become a widespread topic of conversation. Finding ways to explain what this virus is, how one can treat it and how to slow the spread of the virus are just a few commonly asked questions with few clear answers. Xiaozhen Mou, associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, and her research team recently received funding for their hard work as part of Ohio’s statewide collective effort to discover traces of COVID-19 virus particles in wastewater.