Undergraduate Research
The “Undergraduate Research” is a very important component of the “Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development”, and indeed the entire UAPB academic program. The goal of the Undergraduate Research Office is to expose UAPB undergraduates, especially those in the STEM disciplines to “state-of-the art” research experiences on campus and off campus.
SUMMARY OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH ACTIVITIES:
- Mentor undergraduate students in research procedures – development of research ideas as well as articulating research questions.
- Mentor students in paper writing – abstracts, introduction, literature review, materials and methods, dada presentation, discussion of results, conclusions, and references.
- Train students in oral seminar presentation each semester, and critique student presenters
- Work with faculty in research proposal writing
- Coordinate/Organize weekly/monthly School-based faculty and undergraduate seminars (work in progress).
- Arrange for students’ participation in learned professional conferences or meetings.
- Coordinate with faculty and identify students who intend to apply for summer research internships – encourage and assist them with application requirements.
- Coordinate monthly meeting of undergraduate research students to share experiences.
To ensure consistency in our actions, we have divided our activities into three sections: FALL, SPRING, and SUMMER activities.
FALL ACTIVITIES: Two major events in the fall include, conference preparation and training in research. Students learn to prepare good posters. Participation in this exercise is open to all students except those in the freshman class. Students who had previously presented posters in conferences assist as mentors. A good number of the student-mentors are coached in oral presentations. On conference participation, we target one or two conferences each fall, especially the INBRE conference at UA Fayetteville, plus any other conference that requires undergraduate student participation.
SPRING ACTIVITIES: Spring is a very busy time for us. It is the period for Summer Research Internship applications, and conferences. Our goal every year is to get as many undergraduate students as possible to apply for summer research internships at universities outside of Arkansas. Our strategy is to continuously send out internship ads to faculty for distribution to their students. We follow up with reminders of deadlines. We help students to complete the applications, write letters of recommendation, and coach students in writing a half page abstract, which are sometimes required. We target four conferences or meetings in each spring, such as, UAPB faculty/staff/student research forum, Arkansas Academy of Science, undergraduate poster presentation at the Arkansas Capitol, and Emerging Researchers Network (ERN), Washington, DC.
SUMMER ACTIVITIES: We engage UAPB undergraduates in summer research internships, which are funded by government agencies, courtesy of research grant awards by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Interim Director visits other UAPB research labs during the summer to encourage research interns and to learn the activities going on in those labs. Undergraduate research activities in summer are mostly carried out in the School of Arts and Science and School of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Human Sciences.
Undergraduate Research Committee
With the goal of exposing UAPB undergraduate students to various research experiences, the committee members will steer undergraduate research in respective departments, and making sure that students participate in professional research conferences or meetings.
Dr. Joseph Onyilagha
Professor
Department of Biology
Director, Undergraduate Research Program
onyilaghaj@uapb.edu
Dr. Grant Wangila
Professor
Department of Chemistry and Physics
Dean, School of Art and Science
wangilag@uapb.edu
Dr. Grace Ramena
Associate Professor
Department of Aquaculture and Fisheries
Director, Fish Health/Diagnosis
ramenag@uapb.edu
Dr. Anna Harris
Professor
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
harrisa@uapb.edu
Dr. Sankar Devarajan
Associate Professor
Department of Human Science
devarajans@uapb.edu
Dr. Angela Andrade
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
andradea@uapb.edu
Dr. Emmanuel Asiamah
Assistant Professor
Department of Agriculture
asiamahe@uapb.edu
Dr. Vinay Raj
Assistant Professor
Department of Biology
rajv@uapb.edu
