There are plenty of opportunities for geology and other science students to conduct research over the summer.
Integrated Stratigraphic and Paleoenvironmental Study of the Middle-Late Devonian Carbonate to Black Shale Transition in the Michigan Basin
Professor Jay Zambito is leading a project that aims to decipher carbon cycle and sedimentological changes that occurred during the Middle-Late Devonian (~375 million years ago) as a result of global climate change. This project is part of the Keck Geology Consortium, and summer research positions are tailored to rising seniors that plan to use the data they collect for their geology senior theses.
Devonian climate trends have long been studied within the context of biological change. For example, the End-Devonian glaciation is typically thought to be related to CO2-drawdown due to the evolution of forests during the Middle-Late Devonian. However, more recent paleoclimate reconstructions indicate that the Devonian climate story is more complex. In order to better understand these long-term patterns, a current focus within the Devonian research community is the study of the repeated, short-duration, globally-recognized events that resulted in marine anoxia, extinctions, and carbon-cycle perturbations. This project is focused on recognizing these events, and reconstructing the environmental change associated with them, in the Middle through Late Devonian strata of the Michigan Basin.
Summer Science Research
Each summer, there are opportunities for Beloit College students to work with science faculty on their research or through the Pakula Biomedical Fellowship Program. These opportunities are either 4 weeks or 8 weeks in length. Students receive college credit and a stipend for their work. All participating students live on campus.
The Summer 2024 research opportunities are listed below. All of these projects are part of the Pakula Biomedical Fellowship Program. Please note the length of the projects: 4 weeks (June 3 - June 28, 2024) and 8 weeks (June 3 - July 26, 2024). Students will work with a faculty mentor to develop a research question and participate in the weekly 2-hr professional development seminar (0.5-1 unit of special project). Fellows will receive a stipend of $2750 (4 weeks) or $5500 (8 weeks), to help offset the costs of summer tuition, and room and board. To review the available projects, click on the topics below. For more details, contact the principal investigator for each project directly. For general questions about the Pakula Biomedical Fellowship program, contact Dr. Tawnya Cary (caryt@beloit.edu).
Students interested in working in other STEM disciplines should check the respective discipline website or contact individual faculty members.
Projects
This project is part of the Pakula Biomedical Fellowship Program.
Pigments have been used for millennia for artistic expression, however there are pigments that were widely used that have adverse health affects. This project will focus on developing classroom lab procedures for synthesizing and characterizing pigments. Student researchers will synthesize toxic pigments as will as the compounds that replaced them. Students will gain an understanding for why these compounds are toxic to humans and develop lab content around these concepts.
Focus Areas: Chemistry
Project Duration: 8 weeks (06/03/23 - 07/26/23)
Prerequisite Courses: CHEM 220 or CHEM 230
Preferred Courses: (None)
Number of Student Positions: 2
Principal Investigator
Corbin Livingston
This project is part of the Pakula Biomedical Fellowship Program.
Forensic investigators have begun to use technologies such as Computed Tomography (CT) studies to assess Bone Mineral Density (BMD) differences amongst age, sex, and pathology of decedents under their care. This research has the potential to help greatly with the identification of unknown decedents. However, the integration of these studies with archaeological and microbiological research regarding the changes of a body during the Post-Mortem Interval (PMI) and across levels of decomposition has been lacking. More knowledge regarding bone density changes after death is necessary in order for the use of BMD data to be applied appropriately to unknown decedents. This project will use the CT studies from a consenting donor database to measure the BMD of decedents at different levels of decomposition.
Focus Areas: Biology
Project Duration: 8 weeks (06/03/23 - 07/26/23)
Prerequisite Courses: Taken one of the following: BIOL 256 Anatomy, ANTH 230 Human Osteology, or HEAL 301 Anatomy of Kinesiology and Somatics for Movers
Preferred Courses: Taken more than one of the courses listed above
Number of Student Positions: 1
Principal Investigator
Helen Werner
This project is part of the Pakula Biomedical Fellowship Program.
My research is in the area of antibiotic discovery, with the goal of discovering new molecules that could be used as antibiotics (medicines to treat bacterial infections). I collaborate with the international Tiny Earth network of scientists and students working to mitigate the antibiotic crisis. This work draws upon skills and techniques from many disciplines: organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, microbiology, biochemistry, and genetics. The Tiny Earth Chemistry Hub at UW-Madison has identified many “high priority” bacterial isolates with antibiotic activity, and this collaborative project would include conducting bioassays to screen these isolates for antibiotic activity and performing genomic DNA extractions for future sequencing analysis.
Project Duration: 4 weeks (06/03/23- 06/28/23)
Prerequisite Courses: CHEM 117 (Introductory Chemistry) and BIOL 208 (Microbiology)
Preferred Courses: CHEM/BIOL 260 (Nutrition and Metabolism)
Number of Student Positions: 1
Principal Investigator
Kristin Labby
This project is part of the Pakula Biomedical Fellowship Program.
Disease has been implicated as a contributing factor in the ongoing decline in global amphibian population sizes. In addition to disease, another factor threatening global amphibian populations is environmental contamination. A leading hypothesis to explain these declines is that environmental pollutants weaken amphibian immune function such that subsequent exposure to pathogens results in increased disease susceptibility and death. Therefore, measures of immune function provide a way to analyze how contaminant exposure may be linked to disease susceptibility. Previous research has found that polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB-126) exposure during the tadpole life stage (but not the juvenile stage alone) decreased innate and adaptive immunity in juvenile frogs following metamorphosis. However, the mechanisms underlying this life-stage specific immunotoxicity are not well understood. We will expose native tadpoles to PCB-126 and employ molecular techniques like polymerase chain reaction (PCR), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and/or RNA sequencing to identify genes and proteins that might be dysregulated in response to PCB-126. The findings of this research will help elucidate the mechanisms involved in PCB-126 toxicity in tadpoles.
Focus Areas: Biology
Project Duration: 4 weeks (06/03/23- 06/28/23)
Prerequisite Courses: 100-level BIOL, CHEM 117, and BIOL 247 (Biometrics)
