U Research News

UResearch Fall 2023 Newsletter

The UResearch Fall 2023 Newsletter is here. You can read about our activities, current projects, researchers, and courses with this link.


Ms. Murray Goes to Washington!

erin murray

Erin Murray is one of the only three Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship awardees at OSU that is selected by the  Council on Undergraduate Research  Advocacy Program, Scholars Transforming Through Research. 

The program is a six-month  professional development  opportunity for undergraduate students by conveying their research journey and academic experience to  funding agencies, elected officials, future employers, and local communities to increase the impact of their research. Her training will include engagement with  government agencies and congressional meetings in Washington D.C.
Congratulations, Erin!


Instructor Spotlight

Zeynep has been featured in the Instructor Spotlight series by the  Office of Distance Education, College of Arts and Sciences for her online course development and delivery methods.

For this piece,  the Office of Distance Education's Sarah Dove  interviewed Zeynep on the role distance education plays in higher academic institutions in terms of student outcomes and increased opportunities for atypical populations, technological advances distance education may bring, where the greatest potential for such innovation may lie, the best pedagogical strategies for online learning, and the importance of incorporating themes of global, national, and personal interest into course designs.

You can access the interview on the Office of Distance Education's website .


UResearch Fall 2022 Newsletter

The UResearch Fall 2022 Newsletter is here. You can read about our activities, current projects, researchers, and courses with this link.


Public Talks

UResearch_elephants

Inspired by one of our research themes, Zeynep has started a new series of public talks on ingroup and outgroup bias in humans and nonhuman animals. We must ask: Did you know that elephants can detect ethnicity, zebrafish larvae can tell kin from non-kin, and naked mole rats form local dialects and violently expel "speakers" of other dialects? We didn't and we wanted to know more. The first talk was at the  Grandview Heights Public Library  on October 13, 2022. The next will be on December 7th, 2022 as part of the Brewery Science Outreach Events. Stayed tuned for more events.

 

 


Innovate Conference

innovate graphic

Our lab was a panelist on Pandemic Lessons Learned : Taking Research and Lab Activities Online at the nationwide  Innovate Conference  virtually held on May 4, 2022. Our team consisted of undergraduate students who have gone through the UResearch courses both as students and as TAs (Fauna Whitesell and Eleanor MacDonald), an instructional designer from the Office of Distance Education (ODE) in Arts and Sciences (Jessica Henderson) and Zeynep Benderlioglu.

 


New Summer Online Course!

Digital art rendering of a coronavirus on a microscale

EEOB 3194 "INFECTIOUS DISEASE ECOLOGY, EVOLUTION, AND TRANSMISSION”  

We are pleased to announce that our lab has rapidly responded to the lost research opportunities for undergraduates during campus shutdown this summer. We’ve launched an online infectious disease research course focusing on COVID-19. Every week, we are combing through available COVID-19 data and science news from resource hubs around the world and make them available to the interested students and help them design individual research projects.

The peer mentors in UResearch facilitate and independently run virtual data and research design labs during the term. We have also hosted webinars interviewing a variety of experts. Our guests included Katie Cibulskas, an epidemiologist at the Ohio Department of Health, Dr. Amber Singh, a veterinarian also with the Ohio Department of Health, and Dr. Jim Harris- an OSU Historian specializing on the History of Pandemics. UResearch students moderated these sessions and interviewed the experts.

We will end the summer term with a virtual research symposium that will highlight student research projects.


UResearch featured in ASCENT

ascent

The Undergraduate Research Lab-UResearch has been featured in ASCENT Magazine Autumn 2018 issue. The article highlights student research on bonobos and other lab activities.

Read more here.

 


UResearch Students at the 2018 OSU Denman Forum

Sophie & Maddie
Jamie & Chelsea

UResearch Students Sophie, Maddie, Jamie, and Chelsea presented their bonobo research findings at the 2018 OSU Denman Forum


UResearch student featured in ASC Spotlight

gensheimer

Bailey Gensheimer, an undergraduate in Zoology, shares her insights on undergraduate research in ASC Spotlight. Read more here.

 


UResearch student wins at Denman

Bailey Gensheimer

Bailey Gensheimer, a Zoology major and UResearch student has won 4th place in the Biology category at the Denman Undergraduate Research Forum.

Her project is titled: Exposure to Stress and Wound Healing in the African Spiny Mouse, Acomys: Implications for Skin Regeneration in Mammals (advisor: Zeynep Benderlioglu). This is Uresearch students' second award in Denman in the last two years. Last year's first prize winner was Jacob Miller.

Congratulations, Bailey!


UResearch Students Win Research Scholarships

Gensheimer & Gray

Autumn Gray and Bailey Gensheimer, undergraduate students in UResearch are the recipients of ASC Honors and Undergraduate Research Office scholarships, respectively. Autumn, a Biology major, studies the effect of early life stressors, including socio-economic factors on dentition and oral health in children. Bailey, a Zoology major, explores the effect of predation stress on physiology and behavior in the African Spiny Mouse

 


Beetles Under the Stars

UResearch was invited to Science Saturdays with Ohio 4-H Youth Development to present its popular "Beetles under the Stars" program. Grade school children worked with researchers from the lab and the Center for Cosmology and Astro Particle Physics to learn how dung beetles use polarized light from celestial objects and help us fight global warming.


UResearch Brings Beetles to Elementary School to Teach Basic Science

UResearch faculty and students worked with Wellington School 3rd graders to teach them about experimental research by using bean beetles. The students first observed the beetles, made predictions about their behavior, conduct experiments testing various hypotheses, charted and analyzed their data, and then discussed the results. Science was indeed so much fun for both UResearchers and Wellington students!

 


UResearch at the OSU Outreach and Engagement Forum

UResearch presented its outreach programs at the OSU’s forum on May 2, 2014. The forum featured 125 outreach and engagement programs across the university and community. Outreach events in UResearch are part of the formal coursework. Since 2012, UResearch members have served more than 1,300 children and families exploring basic science and animal diversity. UResearch partners are Columbus Metroparks, OSU Planetarium, and local schools.


UResearch Student is a Winner at Denman!

Jacob Miller, a UResearch student, has won the 1st prize with his poster presentation at the annual Denman Undergraduate Research Forum. Jacob’s project combined math, biology, computer science, and linguistics to form analytic approaches to biology education (Project Title: New Tools for Quantifying Textbook Design in Biology Education, Advisor: Zeynep Benderlioglu).

Congratulations Jacob!

 


UResearch at NMS Forum

UResearch members, Britanny Coovert and Madi Stuhlreyer presented their project in the Natural and Mathematical Sciences Forum on March 5th. They found that the cowpea beetles play possum under predation risk in cold temperatures, presumably an adaptive response.
Great job Brittany and Madi!

 


2014 Breakfast of Science Champions visited UResearch

UResearch was one of the host sites for Breakfast of Science Champions, an OSU-wide STEM activity. Each year more than 400 local schools in the greater Columbus area visit labs, centers, and various units at Ohio State, including Bryd Polar Center, Planetarium, and Center for Emerging Materials. This year the Metro School visited UResearch, learned about career opportunities, attending college, and engaged in hands-on research with live animals. Outreach activities in UResearch are part of the formal coursework. Read more...


Evolution & Ecology Major awarded Semester at Sea Presidential Fellowship

Dawn Musil, a UResearch student in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology is the recipient of a $30,000 presidential fellowship, which is sponsored by the University of Virginia and Institute for Shipboard Education. As part of the fellowship, she will extend her Uresearch project on finger length patterns, namely digit ratios, as markers of prenatal hormone exposure. She will spend a semester on board traveling around the world, participating in classes, and studying digit ratios across nations. She will be sailing on January 9th, 2014.

Have a nice trip Dawn!