ISSUED: 15 April 2021
MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Owens
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — Shepherd University is hosting a virtual Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors on the Shepherd University Strategic Research Initiatives website, where students selected by various departments from across campus are presenting their work in an online format. The presentations, which are normally done in-person, had to be moved online once again this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Undergraduate students at Shepherd are engaged in a large number of research and creative projects, developing original work within their fields of study,” said Dr. Jason Best, assistant provost for distance education and strategic research initiatives. “Individual departments often host events in order to highlight student work within a single discipline, often as part of a capstone experience. In a similar spirit, this event simultaneously showcases undergraduate student research and creative efforts across numerous disciplines on the campus.”
The website features both oral and poster presentations, formats chosen in order to allow visitors to hear and see the interconnections among numerous disciplines. This year’s presentations include:
- “Colorful Turtles Lack a Preference for Plants that Maintain Stripe and Spot Color” by biology majors Logan Rothstein, Berkeley Springs, and Dominik Webster, Hedgesville.
- “Shell Disease and Carotenoid-based Color Expression in Painted Turtles (Chrysemys picta)” by Rothstein and Webster.
- “RNA Sequence Classification with Deep Learning” by John Little, CIS major, Keedysville Maryland, and Keagen Thomson, CIS major, Hedgesville.
- “Fantastic Creatures and Where to Find Them: The Animals of Emily Dickinson’s Poetry Vol. II” by Frank Santiago-Cabrera, English major, Kearneysville.
- “Philip Larkin: Selfish Man vs Selfless Nature” by Sarah Seibert, English major, Martinsburg.
- “Stuck Behind Dublin’s Window” by Madison Sites, English major, Petersburg.
“Even in these challenging times, our community of scholars has remained strong,” Best said. “Shepherd University is proud to present this collection of wonderfully diverse projects made possible by the efforts of Shepherd’s incredibly capable student scholars and their faculty mentors.”
The exhibition can be found at https://www.shepherd.edu/undergraduate-research-exhibition/.
— 30 —
