Eberly News

A team of Eberly College researchers is the recipient of a $749,990 U.S. Department of Energy Genesis Mission grant that will be used to develop an artificial intelligence platform that could transform scientists’ ability to predict and engineer microbial communities.

West Virginia University researchers are developing new laser-based techniques to observe plasma behavior in unprecedented detail, opening a window into interactions that shape technologies ranging from computer chips and spacecraft engines to next-generation fusion energy systems.

Backed by $5.9 million in National Science Foundation funding, West Virginia University researchers are using stars that function like celestial clocks to search for spacetime ripples known as gravitational waves. The sources of those ripples could be supermassive black holes. They could be “cosmic strings” — cracks in the universe that have only been theorized. They could even be reverberations from the Big Bang. “Or there could be a huge surprise,” said Maura McLaughlin, Eberly Family Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy and recipient of the Shaw Prize in Astronomy.

Fowler, a research assistant professor at the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences and a member of the WVU Center for Kinetic Plasma Physics, said MAVEN’s observations advance scientists’ understanding of how the sun interacts with the solar system and especially with unmagnetized bodies like comets, Saturn’s moon Titan, Venus and Mars.

Three Eberly College students,  Daniel Campa, Rebecca Ozbolt, and Samuel Stalnaker have joined the ranks of the nation’s top emerging researchers after earning prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships. 

Each year, Eberly College honors faculty members with its Outstanding Teacher Awards, Outstanding Researcher Awards and the Award for Outstanding Outreach or Public Service. Recipients in each category receive a stipend to help further their research, teaching and service efforts.

PE Limited is extending its partnership with West Virginia University to ensure students and faculty in the University’s geology and engineering programs have access to the company’s advanced energy production modeling tools.

The company’s latest in-kind software gift — worth more than $6.5 million — benefits academics and research within the geology program at the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. “Our graduate students will be able to learn how to carry out state-of-the-art modeling of subsurface structures in a way that enhances their understanding of the Earth processes and better prepares them for their future careers in science or industry,” Jaime Toro, professor of geology. 

With World Book Day approaching on April 23, the founding director of the West Virginia University Center for Prison Education and Research says reading can be a lifeline for incarcerated people. Katy Ryan, Eberly Family Professor of Outstanding Teaching at the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, is available to discuss the impact of access to literature on those serving time in correctional facilities.

To the casual observer, the fish doesn’t look like much. It certainly doesn’t look like a zebra, despite its name. It’s an unassuming minnow, small, pale and darting. But to Eric Horstick and his students at West Virginia University, it offers an incomparable, unobstructed view of the mysteries of human brains and behaviors.

Four students from the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences were selected to receive the WVU Foundation Distinguished Doctoral Scholarship and the Carl del Signore Foundation Graduate Scholarship. The merit-based scholarship awards help students defray education and research costs as they complete their theses and dissertations.