The deadline for submitting Faculty nominations for the 2023-24 Scholar Mentor Award is Friday, November 17, 2023. Complete guidelines and the nomination form are contained on the Office of Research and Economic Development’s home page at the link below. Please send the completed forms to Bethany Jones at bjjones@tntech.edu.
https://www.tntech.edu/research/committees/scholar-mentor-award.php
Due to habitat alteration, emerging infectious diseases, and rapid climate change, biodiversity is rapidly declining across the globe. Some species, like amphibians, are particularly vulnerable to these aspects of global change and warrant state- or federal-level protection to prevent population declines or extinction. The streamside salamander (Ambystoma barbouri) is listed as endangered in the state of Tennessee and is currently undergoing a species status assessment by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife department. Multiple Tennessee agencies (TWRA, TDEC), universities (Tennessee Tech, Tennessee State and Middle Tennessee State), as well as the Nashville Zoo are collaborating to understand existing threats of streamside salamanders in Tennessee and prioritize populations for conservation efforts.
Dr. Joshua Hall of TN Tech recently received a grant from TWRA to consider how Tennessee populations of streamside salamanders will respond to rising temperatures due to global change. In particular, his research group is comparing Tennessee populations of salamanders to populations from the northern portion of the range in Kentucky and Ohio. This work will demonstrate if and how Tennessee populations differ from those elsewhere in the range in their responses to temperature. This knowledge will help stakeholders at the state and federal level make conservation decisions regarding the species.
Critical to the success of this work is Dr. Hall’s graduate student, Julia Thulander, who is conducting this research for her master’s thesis. Additionally, the research could not take place without the work of numerous undergraduate students who are currently helping with data collection and animal care.
Wings up, Dr. Hall, for your efforts in protecting and understanding this species and for involving students in your research!
In rural Tennessee, the “Spring Into Health and Wellness” Pop-Up Event, funded by a $20,398 grant from Tennessee Tech’s Rural Reimagined Faculty Grant program, aimed to enhance community well-being by addressing challenges such as food deserts and limited access to financial services. The initiative involved Tennessee Tech faculty from various fields, including Dr. Hannah Upole, Dr. Samantha Hutson, Ms. Allison Coutinho, and Ms. Amber Buckner. It also emphasized student involvement and culminated in a presentation at a national nutrition conference, with the goal of inspiring others to replicate their approach in underserved communities. This project illustrates the potential to make a positive impact on numerous rural communities and serve as a model for addressing their needs, fostering health, and wellness. Read the full story here.
The deadline for submitting your proposals for the Rural Reimagined Faculty Grant Program is quickly approaching! The application window remains open this week until Friday, November 10, 2023, at 4:30 p.m.. This is your chance to secure up to $25,000 in research funding to address rural challenges. For comprehensive information and proposal submission, please visit the Rural Reimagined Faculty Grant Program webpage. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact Michael Aikens, Director of the Center for Rural Innovation, at maikens@tntech.edu. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to make a significant impact on rural communities. Submit your proposal now!
Nominate a Faculty Member for Scholar-Mentor Award
The University established the Scholar-Mentor Award to honor TTU’s long history of close relationships between faculty and their students. The award honors a faculty member who displays outstanding mentorship, integrating scholarship, research and teaching excellence. The deadline for submitting nominations for the 2023-24 Scholar Mentor Award is Friday, November 17, 2023. Complete guidelines and the nomination form are contained on the Office of Research’s home page at the link below. Please send the forms to Bethany Jones at bjjones@tntech.edu.
https://www.tntech.edu/research/committees/scholar-mentor-award.php
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:
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!