This week’s Undergraduate STEM Research Seminar will be given by University of Michigan graduate student Felicity Hills. In her talk A Graduate Student Journey: From Biomathematics to a Search for the Neutron’s Electric Dipole Moment, Felicity will describe how as a graduate student she is contributing to a worldwide effort aimed at better understanding fundamental aspects of the universe by searching for the neutron’s electric dipole moment. That’s not what she started out studying, however, so Felicity will also talk about how she found her way to this particular research. The seminar will be this Friday at 4pm in Bruner Hall 210 with snacks served starting at 3:30pm. These seminars are geared for undergraduates from any STEM major, but graduate students and faculty are also encouraged to attend! (And if you do any sort of undergraduate research at TTU and would like to talk about your work as part of this seminar series, please send an email to Dr. Holley, aholley@tntech.edu.)

Among Dr. Bradley Cohen’s many research accomplishments, he can add three published journal articles in the past three months! Cohen, associate professor of Biology, currently has nine active grants with cumulative value, thus far, of over $2 million. Granting agencies include U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, Ducks Unlimited – Canada, Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, and Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. At one point recently, he had eleven active grants. With all of this research, he still manages to teach students from undergraduate through Ph.D. Many of his students obtain first-hand experience working with him these projects.

Cohen’s most recently published articles include:

• Blake-Bradshaw, A. G., N. M. Masto, C. J. Highway, A. C. Keever, J. C. Feddersen, H. M. Hagy, and B. S. Cohen. 2023. Influence of sanctuary disturbance, weather, and landscape characteristics on waterfowl hunter harvest opportunity. Journal of Wildlife Management. https://doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.22470.
• Teitelbaum, C. S., N. M. Matso, J. D. Sullivan, A. C. Keever, R. L. Poulson, D. L. Carter, A. G. Blake-Bradshaw, C. J. Highway, J. C. Feddersen, H. M. Hagy, R. W. Gerhold, B. S. Cohen, and D. J. Prosser. 2023. North American mallards naturally infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza show few signs of altered local or migratory movements. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-40921-z.
• Nelson, S. D., A. C. Keever, P. H. Wightman, N. W. Bakner, B. A. Collier, M. J. Chamberlain, and B. S. Cohen. 2023. Age-based shifts in habitat selection of wild turkey broods. Journal of Wildlife Management. https://doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.22494.

Wings up, Dr. Cohen, for bringing research dollars to Tennessee Tech and getting your students involved!

Dr. Ranil Gurusinghe (Chemistry) recently received an American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Grant. The granted funding will support the investigation of the chemistry of extremely reactive hydrocarbon radicals that play key roles in combustion, pyrolysis, and astrochemical environments. Gurusinghe’s lab will combine laser photolysis, microwave spectroscopy, and quantum chemical calculations to generate, probe, and characterize radical species inside a supersonically cooled molecular beam. Our results will demonstrate a versatile strategy for characterizing multichannel reaction mechanisms in hydrocarbon-rich environments.

Wings Up and congratulations on this award, Dr. Gurusinghe. Best of luck with your investigations!

This week’s Undergraduate STEM Research Seminar will be given by TTU physics majors Gabriel Adams and Michael Potts. Both Gabriel’s talk, Analyzing Decay Patterns of Xenon-134, and Michael’s talk, Simulating Self Absorption Due to Neutron Inelastic Scattering in Xenon 134, will present different aspects of studies to understand background processes that can complicate the search for an extremely rare nuclear process called neutrinoless double beta decay. The seminar will be this Friday at 4pm in Bruner Hall 210 with snacks served starting at 3:30pm. These seminars are geared for undergraduates from any STEM major, but graduate students and faculty are also encouraged to attend. (And if you do any sort of undergraduate research at TTU and would like to talk about your work as part of this seminar series, please send an email to Dr. Holley, aholley@tntech.edu!)

Dr. Kyle Murphy (Chemistry) has received a grant from the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Petroleum Research Fund for Undergraduate New Investigators. This grant will provide stipends for up to four undergraduate students to work in the Murphy Lab over the next two summers, as well as for two undergraduates in the upcoming fall and spring semesters.

Students in the Murphy Lab will synthesize novel porphyrin-like macrocycles and investigate their interactions with asphaltenes found in water bodies from natural petroleum reservoirs. The goal of this research is to learn more about the variety of asphaltenes found in petroleum, and to utilize the macrocycles in aiding removal of these impurities from water bodies. Please contact Dr. Murphy if interested kmurphy@tntech.edu!

This week’s Undergraduate STEM Research Seminar will be given by TTU physics major Luke Parsons. In his talk Measurements of the 134Xe Neutron Capture Cross-Section Between 0.43 and 5.5 MeV, Luke will start off with a brief explanation of how “detectors” are used to obtain information about the physical world. He will then describe the use of HPGe radiation detectors at Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL) on the Duke campus in North Carolina to measure the probability of nuclear processes important in the search for extremely rare events that can provide insight into new physical principles. The seminar will be this Friday at 4pm in Bruner Hall 210 with snacks served starting at 3:30pm. These seminars are geared for undergraduates from any STEM major, but graduate students and faculty are also encouraged to attend! (And if you are an undergraduate researcher at TTU who would like to talk about your research as part of this seminar series, please send an email to Dr. Holley, aholley@tntech.edu.)

Dr. Gourab Bhattacharya (Earth Sciences) recently received a grant from the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Petroleum Research Fund. This ACS research grant will span 2 years and fund 4-6 undergraduate students.

Dr. Bhattacharya and his students will investigate the timing and intensity of paleo-thermal events within the rocks of the Cumberland Plateau. This research will enhance our comprehension of the geological evolution of the hydrocarbon-rich southern Appalachian Basin, specifically the portion situated in Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau.

Congratulations, Dr. Bhattacharya on receiving this grant, and wings up for involving undergraduates in your research!