Professor: Sarah Blythe – Can exercise ameliorate diet-induced ovarian dysfunction in rats?
Department: Biology
Starting date: 6-1-2024
Length: 10 Weeks
Student Openings: 3
Description: The Blythe lab will be exploring the effects of diet and exercise on ovarian function. Students will learn animal handling, behavioral testing, and more.
Professor: Natalia Toporikova – Circadian clocks in spiders
Department: Biology, Data Science
Starting date: 6-1-2024
Length: 10 Weeks
Student Openings: 2
Description: Investigation of circadian rhythms in spiders through the simulation of different day durations and research on spider locomotion.
Professor: Alicia Reigel – Impacts of Stress on Marine Invert Microbiomes
Department: Biology
Starting date: 6-10-2024
Length: 8 Weeks
Student Openings: 2
Description: Projects examining human-induced stressors on microbiomes and metabolic responses of oysters and sponges.
Professor: Bill Hamilton – Grasslands and Bison are cool
Department: Biology
Starting date: 6-1-2024
Length: 8 Weeks
Student Openings: 3
Description: Working with the National Park Service Bison Management group to collect plant and soil samples and measure soil carbon dynamics.
Professor: Robert Humston – Determining Causes of Trout Population Declines
Department: Biology
Starting date: 6-10-2024
Length: 8 Weeks
Student Openings: 2
Description: Investigating declines in wild trout populations, surveying habitats, and collecting macroinvertebrate samples.
Professor: Leah Lanier – Impact of pesticides on the gut microbiome of tadpoles
Department: Biology
Starting date: 6-10-2024
Length: 8 Weeks
Student Openings: 2
Description: This summer Dr. Lanier is looking for two students to begin an investigation into the potential impact of pesticides…
Professor: Nadia Ayoub – Spider silk and circadian genetics
Department: Biology
Starting date: 6-3-2024
Length: 10 Weeks
Student Openings: 2
Description: Dr. Ayoub’s Spider Team needs two new members who have interests in spider care, spider collecting, molecular genetics…
Professor: Fiona Watson – Regeneration in the optic nerve
Department: Biology
Starting date: 6-10-2024
Length: 8 weeks
Student openings: 3
Topic: Regeneration in the optic nerve
Description: The lab is interested in the mechanisms underlying the regrowth of optic nerve axons following a nerve injury. Why study this in the frog? Because frogs and fish can regain their vision after an injury to the optic nerve but mammals cannot; they simply go blind. Using a genomics-based approach, we identified several genes that may play a role in the regeneration process.
Professor: David Marsh – Urbanization and expansion of non-native reptile populations in the southeastern U.S.
Department: Biology
Starting date: 6-1-2024
Length: 9 weeks
Student openings: 2
Description: Most non-native reptiles in the U.S. have come from tropical regions, either as escaped pets or as hitchhikers on ornamental plants. As tropical species, their northern range limit will likely be set by winter temperatures. However, urban areas may be substantially warmer than their surroundings, which could allow reptiles to move further north than would otherwise be possible. We will use a large database of reptile observations, along with mapping software and spatial data analysis to determine whether non-native reptiles become increasingly restricted to urban areas as they move further north. Our research should have implications for urban ecology and for our understanding of climate effects on non-native species.
Professor: Charles Winder – Genetic diversity in the Greenland stitchwort…
Department: Biology
Starting date: 6-10-2024
Length: 10 weeks
Student openings: 2
Description: The Appalachian stitchworts are a group of rare plants that are adapted to live in very specific and unusual habitats such as mountain summits, rocky forest clearings, and underneath rock ledges. The ecological diversity and specialization within this group of closely related plants suggests a complex evolutionary history in response to dramatic climate changes in the Appalachians during the ice ages of the Pleistocene. By studying existing patterns of genetic diversity in these plants, we can improve our understanding of how plants might respond in the face of future changes in climate. Also, since the Appalachian stitchworts live in very fragmented and fragile habitats, they are at special risk of decline and extinction. Understanding how genetic diversity is distributed within and among their populations is an important part of conserving them.
Professor: Erin Gray – Illuminating New Catalytic Transformations
Department: Chemistry and Biochemistry
Starting date: 6-3-2024
Length: 9 weeks
Student openings: 2
Description: The Gray Group designs new catalytic transformations for the synthesis of complex molecules. To identify novel chemical bond-forming and bond-breaking methods, we harness the activity of catalysts and visible light.
Professor: Kyle Friend – ChemTutor: a place to practice chemistry
Department: Chemistry and Biochemistry
Starting date: 6-3-2024
Length: 8 weeks
Student openings: 2
Description: We have developed and seek to improve a web application which provides tutorials and online practice for introductory college-level chemistry.
Professor: Erich Uffelman – Technical Examination of Cultural Heritage Objects
Department: Chemistry and Biochemistry
Description: The Uffelman group uses noninvasive techniques such as infrared imaging, infrared multispectral reflectance imaging spectroscopy, visible-near infrared hyperspectral reflectance imaging spectroscopy, fiber optic reflectance spectroscopy, and portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to examine cultural heritage objects at W&L and collaborating museums and institutions.
Professor: Jacob Gibson – LGBTQIA Target and Judge Data Collection/Science of Magic Replication
Department: Cognitive and Behavioral Science
Starting date: 6-3-2024
Length: 10 weeks
Student openings: 3
Description: We are going to continue our work last summer by interviewing members of the LGBTQIA community. We will then show these interviews to a different set of participants and analyze how accurate their judgments are. We are also beginning a project to replicate some of the work published in conjunction with the Science of Magic Association.
Professor: Margaret Anne Hinkle – Mycoremediation of emerging contaminants
Department: Earth and Environmental Geoscience
Starting date: 6-17-2024
Length: 10 weeks
Student openings: 3
Description: Using both biomineralizing fungi as well as the resulting biominerals, we aim to continue our work on manganese remediation from coal mine drainage and apply these same principles potentially to rare earth elements or PFAS, depending on student interest and site availability.
Professor: Nicholas Barber – Magmatic Architecture and Geology of Ijen Caldera (M.A.G.I.C.)
Department: Earth and Environmental Geoscience
Starting date: 6-7-2024
Length: 8 weeks
Student openings: 2
Research timeline (tentative): Two weeks in the field (June 3rd to June 17th), six to eight weeks in the lab (June 17th to August 16th)
Description: You will join Prof. Barber’s Volcanology and Igneous Petrology (V.I.P.) research lab on an international trip to Ijen caldera, Indonesia. We are attempting to reconstruct the eruptive history of Ijen’s ancient and modern volcanism, with the goal of answering the basic question: how and why did this volcano form? You will catalogue samples in the field, build geological maps, prepare your samples, and then analyze them using geochemical and microstructural tools in collaboration with our local (Virginia Tech) and international (Cambridge, McGill, Gadjah Mada) partners. You also can participate in professional scientific conferences like Goldschmidt and GSA.
Professor: David Harbor – Experimental studies of erosion by plucking
Department: Earth and Environmental Geoscience
Starting date: 6-17-2024
Length: 8 weeks
Student openings: 2
Topic: Experimental studies of erosion by plucking
Description: Plucking is the removal of bedrock from a river or concrete from a spillway by fluid forces alone. Students will construct a flume in which to experimentally reproduce erosion by plucking and make multiple experiments varying channel slope, water discharge, block shapes and sizes, step height and more. Each experiment will have video and instrumental analysis of flow turbulence above the blocks, dye flow in the rock cracks, flow velocity, block motion, free surface and water pressure in the rock cracks. The setup and analysis will take many types of skills, including construction, coding and data analysis, and in addition, considerable resilience. A field trip to see dams and natural channels in the Sierra Nevadas is planned for 2024.
Professor: Elizabeth Denne – Folded ribbon knots in the plane
Department: Mathematics
Starting date: 6-3-2024
Length: 9 weeks
Student openings: 3
Topic: Folded ribbon knots in the plane
Description: There are many possible research projects, depending on your interest.
Ribbonlength Problem:
What are upper and lower bounds on the folded ribbonlength?
Can we improve these bounds for certain families of knots? For example: torus knots, pretzel knots, etc.
Is there a relationship between ribbonlength and other knot invariants?
How does folded ribbonlength depend on
– the number of sides of the polygonal knot diagram?
– the number and type of folds?
Professor: Michael Bush – Periods of Recurrence Sequences
Department: Mathematics
Starting date: 6-3-2024
Length: 10 weeks
Student openings: 2
Topic: Periods of Recurrence Sequences
Description: We will explore the periods of recurrence sequences defined in various (finite) algebraic structures, including various families of finite groups, using computational tools to help us see patterns and make conjectures. Some flavor of the sorts of questions we might consider can be found in the introduction of the following paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.03238.
Professor: Carrie Finch-Smith – Number Theory
Department: Mathematics
Length: TBD
Student openings: TBD
Topic: Number Theory
Description: Prof. Finch-Smith works on research projects in number theory. In particular, her research group searches for families of positive integers with special properties. The only requirements to work with Prof. Finch are arithmetic skills and a sense of curiosity and wonder. The best part of the Finch-Smith lab is getting to work with Victor!