Pictured above is Grace Muna (center) with two IU Kokomo faculty members while at Bloomington’s symposium on Undergraduate Research and Capstone Experiences on September 20. The focus of the symposium was on the implementation of Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) and panelists (Muna was one) were given about five minutes each to speak about the state of undergraduate research at their campus. Muna shared about the LSAMP and SMART programs that support our students to do research over the summer. The invited speaker, Sarah E. Brownell, from Arizona State University has done a lot of research on CUREs and she shared on the benefits students get from CUREs and ways to incorporate CUREs in courses. Muna plans to incorporate CUREs during the last three weeks of her course CHEM-C 410 Instrumental Analysis to give the students an opportunity to apply what they have learned during the semester to solve a particular analytical problem.
Just two days prior, Shahir Rizk (below) attended the IU Innovation and Commercialization Conference at IUPUI. Rizk was invited to attend based on his recent work developing a fluorescent biosensor for detecting the herbicide glyphosate. (Perhaps you've seen commercials encouraging viewers to participate in a class-action lawsuit against the company that produces Round-Up [brand name for glyphosate] alleging that the herbicide contributed to cancer.) Rizk is currently pursing a patent for his group's biosensor.
