ISSUED: 16 August 2022
MEDIA CONTACT: Dana Costa
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — Three Shepherd University science students presented their research this summer at the 2022 West Virginia University Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium in Morgantown.
Chemistry majors Jaime Cooperman, Martinsburg, West Virginia; Paige Kefauver, Knoxville, Maryland; and William Prudnick, Beckley, West Virginia, presented their summer research projects at the symposium in Morgantown, West Virginia, on July 28. Kefauver was a runner-up in the Physical Sciences and Engineering division of the poster session and was awarded a cash prize.
Pictured (l. to r.) are Paige Kefauver, Jaime Cooperman, and William Prudnick.
Cooperman, Kefauver, and Prudnick are in the Shepherd Opportunities to Attract Research Students (SOARS) program, which allows students to work one-on-one on research projects with professors for eight weeks in the summer. The three were mentored this summer by Dr. Haley Albright, assistant professor of chemistry, and found great value in participating in the symposium.
“This symposium put me in contact with members of the [West Virginia University] graduate school, which better prepared me for applying this coming fall,” Kefauver said. “This presentation also allowed me to practice my public speaking and taught me how to professionally discuss projects with my peers and other people.”
Prudnick said he learned how to properly design a poster display and present at a conference—skills he said are useful for most professions in the chemistry field.
“Participating in the symposium also allowed me to learn about the various areas of research done by the other presenters and to connect with people who are involved in a number of different grad schools throughout the country, allowing me to better map out my plans going forward,” Prudnick said.
“The symposium allowed me to familiarize myself with other people doing research, better my skills in communications, and gave me the opportunity to present my work and receive feedback from others in the organic chemistry field,” Cooperman said.
This is the twelfth year Shepherd has received a grant through The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission Division of Science and Research for the SOARS program, which enables science and mathematics students to work one-on-one with professors for eight weeks during the summer doing research.
“I believe that the SOARS program is extremely beneficial to the undergraduate students who are selected to participate and to the University as a whole,” Albright said. “The ability to provide funds to the students performing research over the summer allows them to dedicate all their time to the research projects when they might otherwise need to seek employment elsewhere. It also gives them a more in-depth experience into what a career in research looks like on a day-to-day basis, as compared to anything they might do during the semester.”
Albright said she was able to work closely with students this summer teaching them valuable lab skills and techniques that were otherwise not possible to cover during the regular semester.
“As a young faculty member at Shepherd, it has been extremely gratifying to really begin my research projects working side by side with students who were interested in the work and always excited to come to lab each day,” she said.
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