Expanding the Learning Experience

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Doran took Zhang’s pretreatment process for biofuel conversion of corn stover and researched ways to adapt it for a similar process for switchgrass. Zhang explains that learning in the classroom is different than learning in a laboratory because no one knows the answer in advance in a lab. He adds that successful undergraduate students, such as Doran, “need to understand how to get good results and what is behind the results.”

Not all research takes place in a laboratory setting, though. Kyle Cromer, a junior animal and poultry sciences major from Churchville, Va., learned the value and importance of field research early in his college career. “I was interested in cattle,” he recalls. “I wanted to do hands-on research with cattle, but I didn’t want anything too highly technical because I was a freshman.”

Cromer approached Bill Beal, a professor of animal and poultry sciences, about research opportunities in the department. Beal suggested Cromer conduct a study that explores the effectiveness of freeze branding methods on crossbred beef heifers. Freeze branding is the process of permanently identifying an animal using a super-cooled branding iron instead of a traditional hot iron.

“I like to have undergraduate students tackle a problem that is practical to the livestock industry,” Beal says. “We take a problem that is common within the industry and try to solve it with research.”

Field research does not always take place near Virginia Tech’s campus, though. Christine George, a senior biological sciences major from Manassas, Va., confirmed her interest in international health work when she conducted research on vector-borne diseases last summer in Mali with Zach Adelman, an assistant professor of entomology.

“The key to this project is that no data had been collected in this country for dengue and yellow fever in the mosquito population,” George says. “We collected mosquito samples and human serum samples from five sites on the southern part of the country, where the risk for mosquito transmission of these viruses is high.”

George raised $25,000 in only a few months through creative fundraising at Virginia Tech to begin her research with the Malaria Research and Training Center in Bamako, Mali. The mosquito samples will be sent to an infectious disease laboratory run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in San Juan, Puerto Rico, for further testing.

The Department of Entomology, which does not have an undergraduate program, encourages students in other majors, such as George, to assist with their research. Adelman says that performing research for two years as an undergraduate student convinced him to pursue his career. “And now here I am, 13 years after setting foot in a lab for the first time, in a position to have the same impact on someone else,” he says. “It’s brilliant.”

For another example of an undergraduate research project
helping Virginians across the commonwealth, see “Farmers’
Markets from Diverse Communities Benefit from Sharing.”

 

 

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Kyle Cromer freeeze brands a heifer
Kyle Cromer freeze brands a heifer using the dry ice branding method. His research compares freeze branding methods.
Christine George in Mali
Christine George’s study on Aedes mosquitoes in Mali aims to determine high-risk areas of dengue and yellow fever transmission.

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