My experience proves one of the best things about Appalachian: you can have close, personal relationships with professors and that really benefits your education. – pre-med major Margo Pray (right), Class of 2013. She conducted molecular biology research as part of her professor’s National Science Foundation grant. She was selected to present her findings at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research.
Undergraduate research Appalachian encourages undergraduates to make new discoveries, and its Office of Student Research provides more than $100,000 in grants each year to support their endeavors. The opportunity to work alongside a professor on a research project expands instruction and gives valuable experience for jobs and graduate school. Students frequently present their findings at local, regional and national professional meetings.
osr.appstate.edu Recent national attention includes: The highly competitive National Conference on Undergraduate Research invited 29 Appalachian students in both 2012 and 2013 to present their abstracts. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s P3: People, Prosperity and the Planet student design competition has funded nearly a dozen Appalachian projects in the past five years. appstate.edu/p3-projects
Dr. Ellen Cowan
Professor, Department of Geology B.A., Albion College M.S., Ph.D., Northern Illinois University
Among the university’s top researchers is sedimentologist Dr. Ellen Cowan. She was among a select, international group of scientists who drilled the Antarctic sea floor for indications of how global warming affected our planet in the past as part of the multinational collaboration called ANDRILL (ANtarctic geological DRILLing). The scientists collected core samples dating back 10 million years. She studies the cores in Appalachian’s laboratories to predict change related to today’s global warming, an ongoing project that extends rich opportunities to her students. 9