Find out what's next after middle and high school research experiences. We've assembled a panel of undergraduate and graduate student scientists to share their experiences and advice with Junior Academy participants.
ZaKylah Bryant a sophomore at Kentucky State University. ZaKylah is from Lexington, Kentucky, and aspires to be an M.D and specialize in obstetrics and gynecology. ZaKylah is doing research with mentor Dr. Lai, gathering data for total number of cases over a period of time among all the Kentucky universities and comparing results.Their research is looking at total covid-19 cases data for 5 Kentucky counties, Kentucky and surrounding states, and 5 countries including the US. ZaKylah has created graphs to see the increase or decrease amongst each county, country, or university. The purpose of the data is to observe which area has more cases and figure out why they have many cases.
Kylea Garces, University of Louisville. As a first-generation college student and Filipino woman in science, Kylea has had a non-traditional path into the sciences. Her academic career started at a community college in her hometown in California as it was a cheaper alternative and allowed her to transfer to her dream college at University of Oregon. Although she had a rocky start feeling unprepared for university life, she found a passion for the sciences in a field-based mycology course. The more she learned about fungi, the more curious she became, which has led her to the University of Louisville to pursue my doctoral degree. At U of L she is working with Dr. Sarah Emery and Dr. Natalie Christian, focusing on fungal-plant interactions in Great Lake Dune ecosystems and their responses to global change factors, specifically nitrogen deposition. Furthermore, Kylea asks questions of how fungal communities assemble and what conditions allow for species coexistence. Despite a non-linear path into the sciences, Kylea is now funded by the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship and continues to explore key plant relationships altered by the tiniest of fungal partners.
Bailey Harrod, Kentucky State University
Lars Hebenstiel attended Gatton Academy from 2018 to 2020, and afterwards decided to stay at WKU to pursue my undergraduate degree in Applied Math and in Physics. During his time at Gatton, he started working with Dr. Ivan Novikov to study the Duffing Oscillator. Initially they did this numerically, and presented those results at the KAS 2019 meeting. After that, the research team applied for the Undergraduate Summer Research Grant from KAS and we were funded to do an experimental study of this oscillator.
Nick Koenig is a botanist at Eastern Kentucky University, interested in a wide range of botanical research projects, but specifically herbarium work, florisitics, and phylogenetics. Nick is headed to graduate school next year at the University of Cambridge.
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Miana Wallace is a junior biology major at Kentucky State University. Miana is from Kansas City, Missouri and aspires to be an M.D. She is doing research with mentor Dr.Khatiwada, and is looking to analyze the effect of radiation on healthy cells and cancer cells of the same origin. Ultimately, the purpose of this research is to determine how radiation effects differentiated and undifferentiated cells.