PHILADELPHIA, PA – Three Chestnut Hill College students in the School of Undergraduate Studies had the opportunity to work on research projects with faculty mentors over the summer thanks to a grant from the Council of Independent Colleges/Foundation for Independent Higher Education UPS New Ventures Fund and the Association for Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania (AICUP) with support from the Southeastern Consortium for Higher Education (SEPCHE). 

Twenty-one students from six SEPCHE colleges and universities were selected to work with faculty mentors on research projects this past summer and later presented their research at a poster session on September 27th at the College.

Working with Ken Soprano, Ph.D., professor of biology at Chestnut Hill, juniors Sara Medacier and Allison Rae Eberly presented “Utilizing Bioinformatics to Identify Genes Whose Expression is Modulated during Differentiation of Mouse Pluripotent Stem Cells to Endodermal and Neuronal Cells” with students from Neumann University and Gwynedd Mercy University. Junior Brooks Mirabella worked with Rosemont Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Dr. John Ulrich, and four students from Rosemont College on “Captive Cultivation of Corals to Examine Changes in Natural Product Production.”

Each student in the program was required to participate in 10-12 weeks of lab, field or library research, attend colloquia, and prepare interim and final reports along with their poster materials. Faculty and students contributed collectively more than 3,000 hours to their projects, with an average number of 125 hours spent in research by the students. Students will also present their work at the SEPCHE Honors Conference in March 2014.

“SEPCHE is thrilled to receive this national vote of confidence in our collective capacity to develop exceptional professionals in the sciences, mathematics and computer sciences,” SEPCHE Executive Director Beth Moy said. “Working in faculty-student teams from multiple institutions enables students to actively build substantive, collaborative research skills and professional networks that define the way they view and approach problem solving. We are deeply grateful to The Council for Independent Colleges/Foundation for Independent Higher Education and to AICUP for enabling this powerful learning opportunity.”