Eberly News

Researchers at West Virginia University are working to ensure small landowners and local communities, instead of large corporations, profit from the ability of Central Appalachian forests to remove greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

A West Virginia University researcher says Tuesday’s (July 23) surprise hydrothermal explosion at Yellowstone National Park’s Biscuit Basin doesn’t mean a larger eruption of the Yellowstone Supervolcano is imminent. The explosion, captured on video by park visitors, launched debris into the air and damaged the boardwalk, but no one was injured.

Natural history collections provide irreplaceable resources in many arenas, both scientific and societal. These collections, including the WVU Herbarium, provide information on biodiversity, ecosystems, species distributions, climate change, and most recently, genomes. 

West Virginia University research is strengthening national security by ensuring policymakers, military institutions, think tanks, academics and journalists have access to substantial, up-to-date information on international conflicts when they need it. A $555,647 grant from the National Science Foundation supports the three-year expansion of the Correlates of War Project’s Militarized Interstate Dispute Data, led by Vito D’Orazio, associate professor of political science and data sciences at the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.

Research from a West Virginia University scholar of rural Appalachia shows how even the most marginalized communities can assert power and create change when they come together to form coalitions.

Maura McLaughlin, Eberly Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy, has been selected as a new member of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors in the scientific world. She is the first WVU researcher to join the prestigious group.

As Jayla Boyd and Lillian Floyd would describe it, they were in uncharted territory when they arrived on the West Virginia University campus for Brain Camp. By the end of the week, the soon-to-be high school seniors had discovered the complex world of neuroscience and were hooked.

Two Eberly College students have joined an elite group of researchers who’ve been awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, a program aimed at supporting graduate education in STEM-based fields.

Drylands in the western United States are currently in the grips of a 23-year “megadrought,” and one West Virginia University researcher is working to gain a better understanding of this extreme climate event.

Mariya Cherkasova, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, will spend the next two years reverse engineering certain structural characteristics of slot machines to find out what makes them an immersive product. Her research is supported by the International Center for Responsible Gaming.