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Tagged with Research
A new online mathematics tutoring program is helping students navigate virtual learning. After months of transition and adaptation, mathematics tutoring coordinators Nicole Infante and Lori Ogden recognized an opportunity to establish a fully online tutoring program for undergraduates.

Overcoming barriers to mathematics learning

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A new online mathematics tutoring program at West Virginia University is helping students navigate virtual learning.

A West Virginia University biologist is working to cultivate a bumper crop of young scientists through the study of wild orchids—and the fungi they eat. As WVU’s latest National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipient, Assistant Professor of Biology Craig Barrett is teaming up with teachers in rural West Virginia high schools to develop student-led research projects. The projects will culminate in lesson plans accessible to high school students and teachers across the U.S., with an emphasis on closing the STEM skills and interest gap in the Mountain State. The projects will use parasitic orchids to study genomics, in particular how genomes evolve across space and time.

Helping new scientists bloom

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Biologist Craig Barrett is working to cultivate a bumper crop of young scientists through the study of wild orchids—and the fungi they eat.

Thanks to facility renovations, research innovations and in-class lessons, West Virginia University’s C. Eugene Bennett Department of Chemistry has received the nation’s top undergraduate safety program award in chemistry – for a second time. The American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Health and Safety’s SafetyStratus College and University Health and Safety Award recognizes an outstanding comprehensive laboratory safety program in higher education undergraduate study.

Inspect to protect

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Thanks to facility renovations, research innovations and in-class lessons, WVU's C. Eugene Bennett Department of Chemistry has received the nation’s top undergraduate safety program award in chemistry – for a second time.

Michelle Bester

Laser focused

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Growing up in rural South Africa, Michelle Bester always aspired to pursue graduate school internationally. Today, she is living that dream as a geography student studying how remote sensing technology can help prevent and control wildfires.

While studying abroad in Nicaragua as an undergraduate student 10 years ago, Brooke Eastman observed the country’s long history of land grabbing and clashes between industries, immigrants and indigenous communities. While there have been recent efforts to restore the land, the conflicts continue. She witnessed how climate change impacts poor communities disproportionately and how both humans and the environment are simultaneously exploited. That motivated her to dedicate her career to uncovering climate change solutions. Now as a biology Ph.D. student at West Virginia University, Eastman studies how acid rain impacts forest health. She is committed to highlighting forests’ role in mitigating climate change.

Healing a wounded world

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Biology Ph.D. student Brooke Eastman studies how acid rain impacts forest health. She is committed to highlighting forests’ role in mitigating climate change.

Under the quiet surface of near-stilled campuses over the past year, West Virginia University researchers, faculty and administrators have scrambled to learn more about COVID-19 and mitigate its spread, calculated how to teach online and hybrid classes and figured out how to better ensure people on those campuses could remain safe from the virulent disease that has killed more than 500,000 U. S. citizens to date.

Lessons from the pandemic: What WVU has learned, accomplished and shared in the year of COVID-19

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Under the quiet surface of near-stilled campuses over the past year, WVU researchers, faculty and administrators have scrambled to learn more about COVID-19 and mitigate its spread, calculated how to teach online and hybrid classes and figured out how to better ensure people on those campuses could remain safe from the virulent disease that has killed more than 500,000 U. S. citizens to date.

Closed religious communities such as the Amish are high-risk populations for the spread of both infectious diseases and public health misinformation, according to sociologists from West Virginia University who are working with data from Amish and Mennonite settlements to understand the COVID-19-related beliefs and behaviors prevalent within their communities.

WVU researchers study high-risk populations in low-tech communities

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Closed religious communities such as the Amish are high-risk populations for the spread of both infectious diseases and public health misinformation, according to sociologists from West Virginia University who are working with data from Amish and Mennonite settlements to understand the COVID-19-related beliefs and behaviors prevalent within their communities.

A West Virginia University astrophysicist is among this year’s Sloan Fellows, scholars recognized as emerging leaders in science. Sarah Burke-Spolaor, an assistant professor of astronomy, is one of 128 young faculty members from the U.S. and Canada to receive the competitive award.

WVU astrophysicist recognized as emerging leader in research

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Astrophysicist Sarah Burke-Spolaor is among this year’s Sloan Fellows, scholars recognized as emerging leaders in science. She is one of 128 young faculty members from the U.S. and Canada to receive the competitive award.

New research from West Virginia University biologists shows that trees around the world are consuming more carbon dioxide than previously reported, making forests even more important in regulating the Earth’s atmosphere and forever shift how we think about climate change. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Professor Richard Thomas and alumnus Justin Mathias (BS Biology, ’13 and Ph.D. Biology, ’20) synthesized published tree ring studies. They found that increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the past century have caused an uptick in trees’ water-use efficiency, the ratio of carbon dioxide taken up by photosynthesis to the water lost by transpiration – the act of trees “breathing out” water vapor.

WVU biologists uncover forests' unexpected role in climate change

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New research from West Virginia University biologists shows that trees around the world are consuming more carbon dioxide than previously reported, making forests even more important in regulating the Earth’s atmosphere and forever shift how we think about climate change.

Maybe space is tight in your home and you share a remote office with your spouse. Or your partner asks you to step away from work to watch the children because they have an important call to jump on. Then you may wonder, ‘Well, what makes his/her job more important than mine!’ There have been no shortage of conflicts arising from the era of COVID-19, and that includes the challenges at home between married couples. In fact, the more a person felt that their spouse disrupted their daily routine, the more they viewed their relationship as turbulent, according to West Virginia University research. Kevin Knoster, a third-year doctoral student in the Department of Communication Studies, led a study examining 165 married individuals and how their partners interfered with their daily routines in April 2020, a month into the pandemic. Their findings are published in Communication Research Reports.

‘Honey, I’m home – all the time:’ Pandemic life for married couples can lead to sadness, anger

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, the more a person felt their spouse disrupted their daily routine, the more they viewed their relationship as turbulent, according to new research from the Department of Communication Studies.