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Project - Creating a User Interface to Aid People with Visual Disabilities

Project Description

Completing forms is often a challenging task for individuals with visual impairments (Feiz et al., 2019). Many forms, whether in paper format or as scanned electronic documents, lack the structural information necessary for assistive technologies to interpret and make them accessible. While prior research (Feiz et al., 2019; Billah et al., 2018) has developed solutions to help individuals locate specific fields on paper forms, these approaches are not helpful for users who are unable to write legibly on paper or interact with electronic forms.

This project aims to create a user interface (UI) designed specifically for individuals who are blind, have physical disabilities, or face other barriers to completing forms. The proposed UI will support multimodal interactions, incorporating features such as voice commands and tactile feedback to enable users to complete both paper and electronic forms. It will include prompts to guide users through the process and mechanisms for receiving their input, addressing the limitations of existing systems and ensuring accessibility for a wider range of users.

Referenes: Billah, S. M., Ashok, V., & Ramakrishnan, I. V. (2018). Write-it-yourself with the aid of smartwatches: A Wizard-of-Oz experiment with blind people. 23rd International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, 427–431. Tokyo, Japan. Feiz, S., Billah, S. M., Ashok, V., Shilkrot, R., & Ramakrishnan, I. V. (2019). Towards enabling blind people to independently write on printed forms. Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–12. Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

Project - Comparative Narrative Analysis of Large Language Models: Evaluating Summarization Performance and Prompt Design Impact 

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Dongji Feng

Project Description

Large language models (LLMs) have made large leaps in the Natural language processing community over the past couple years by being able to do a wide range of tasks. Despite these leaps, there is still not a clear understanding of how LLMs handle diverse perspectives under limitations and how they handle those limitations. The comparison between different LLMs performance also remains a point of interest to the NLP community as there is no prompt engineering standard to compare how they handle specific instructions and how they respond to that. In our research, we will conduct Comparative narrative analysis (CNA) on multiple LLMs, such as GPT-3.5-turbo, Google PaLM2, and Meta Llama2. We will do this by giving them all an identical prompt based on the prompt engineering style of the TeLER Taxonomy. This will create a fair and unbiased comparison of their outputs for specific summarization tasks. Our goal is to gain a deeper understanding of how LLMs perform for different summarization tasks as well as understand more about prompt designs' effect on outputs. 

Course Pre-requisites: None

Project - Investigating novel mutations in telomere associated protein Ten1

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Katie Leehy

Project Description

CRISPR/Cas9 genome engineering has opened up a world of genome editing that scientists could only dream of just a decade ago. The FYRE projects in the Leehy lab during the summer of 2024 will utilize this ground-breaking technology to interrogate gene function through the identification and characterization of novel mutations in genes. Students will have the opportunity to work on two different projects in the model system Arabidopsis thaliana. Students will learn techniques in molecular biology, bioinformatics, cell biology, and microbiology.

Failure to precisely regulate telomeres can result in human diseases such as premature aging, chronic fatigue syndrome, and cancer. Telomeres are repetitive DNA elements found at the ends of linear chromosomes that are protected by a suite of specific proteins. These proteins prevent telomere degradation, prevent illicit DNA repair at chromosome ends, and promote telomere elongation during cell division. This first research project focuses on understanding how the telomere protein, TEN1, performs protective and maintenance roles. To elucidate this role, the student will characterize a novel ten1 mutant recently created in the Leehy lab. The student will characterize telomeres in mutant plants to determine the role of TEN1 in telomere protection and maintenance.

Climate change is already reshaping our world and having devastating effects on the production of crops all over the world. In order to feed the world’s growing population scientists and farmers need to work together to develop crops that can withstand increasingly extreme weather patterns. For the second project, students will screen previously transformed plants to identify CRSPR/Cas9 gene edited plants. We will be utilizing high-throughput phenotyping to investigate the effects of stress on mutant plants identified in screens. Students will also get to create their own CRISPR/Cas9 targets to eliminate novel genes of interest to understand their function in relation to plant stress tolerance.

Students can pick which of the projects they would like to work on or elect to work on both. Interested students have the opportunity to learn basic programming with R and command line for development of the high throughput phenotyping data collection and analysis.

Course Pre-requisites: BIO 110/111

Project - New tricks for an old dog – bringing big data to liquid chromatography

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Dwight Stoll

Project Description

Students participating in this project will join the wikiChrom team in the Stoll Laboratory. The primary aim of the “wikiChrom Project” (https://wikichrom.multidlc.org/) is to dramatically increase the rate of acquisition of retention data for the field of liquid chromatography, to ultimately deepen fundamental understanding about how liquid chromatography works, and accelerate method development in fields ranging from the life sciences to environmental science. Historically, a “large” dataset in the field of LC has been a hundred measurements. We are aiming to increase the size of these datasets by 100- to 1,000-fold, and are enthusiastic about the level of understanding and the pace of innovation that could be unlocked by this change. Students can contribute to this effort in many different ways, ranging from programming (i.e., coding) to improve our current data acquisition workflows and develop new ones, development of new instrumentation components and methodology to improve throughput and measurement precision, and data analysis exploration to build and apply new retention models in fields including pharmaceutical analysis and the chemical industry.

Course Pre-requisites: CHE 105/106 or CHE 110/111
 

Project - Characterization of Green(er) Alternatives for Solvents used in Chemical Analysis

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Dwight Stoll

Major shifts are underway in a several industries to improve upon the sustainability of industrial processes, with ultimate goals of net zero emissions by 2050, and a circular economy. Currently, many analytical methods used in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries are far from green, and involve highly toxic solvents with high environmental and energy costs (e.g. chlorinated solvents). Several research groups have begun working with alkyl carbonates (e.g., dimethyl carbonate, and propylene carbonate) as potential replacements for solvents such as acetonitrile. In this project we will characterize the performance of these carbonate solvents for use in applications including liquid chromatography, and as extraction solvents for studying the composition of polymers, for example. Students contributing to this work can expect to learn liquid chromatography and other analytical methods that will be used to characterize the performance of potential green(er) solvents.

Course Pre-requisites: CHE 105/106 or CHE 110/111

Project - Morphology-environment relationships in stromatolites 

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Julie Bartley

Project Description

This summer, students in my lab will be working on the following project: Stromatolites and Microbialites are fossil structures built by the interaction of microbes and mineral precipitation. The physical environment (e.g., water depth, water movement), chemical environment (e.g., salinity, oxygen levels), and the biologic processes (e.g., microbial
community) all influence the form of stromatolites and microbialites, though the relationships between processes and form are not well understood. Students working in my lab summer will continue work started last summer in investigating the relationship between stromatolite form and environment in a ~475-million-year-old geologic unit exposed in eastern Minnesota and Wisconsin. The project will involve a few days of fieldwork, followed by laboratory work that might include microscopy, electron microscopy, and geochemistry, depending on student interests.

Course Pre-requisites: Any introductory science course 

Project - Conversion of an early hybrid car to a plug-in hybrid 

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Jeff Jeremiason

Project Description

The Generation One Honda Insight was the first gas/electric hybrid vehicle sold in the United States. Battery technology has advanced dramatically since the first Insights were sold in 1999. It is now possible to replace the original nickel metal hydride batteries with more energy-dense lithium-ion batteries, allowing the car to operate on 100% electricity for over fifty miles. In this project, a student will explore the advancement of battery chemistries, install lithium-ion batteries and a battery control module (BCM) into an Insight, and program the BCM to run synchronously and independently from the gas engine. An independent throttle and battery regeneration joystick will also be installed to allow hand operation of the electric motor. This project is ideal for a student interested in electrical engineering, computer programming, and electrochemistry. An interest in cars and understanding their electrical components is also desirable.

Course Pre-requisites: None

Project - Ombrotrophic Bogs, Climate Change, and Metal Transport

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Jeff Jeremiason

Ombrotrophic bogs are unique ecosystems that only receive nutrients from the atmosphere. They also store large amounts of carbon. Approximately 30% of soil carbon in the world is contained in peatlands, which include ombrotrophic bogs. Peatland ecosystems have been studied at the Marcell Experimental Forest (MEF), north of Grand Rapids, MN, since the 1960s. This project involves two ongoing projects at the MEF. The first one is a recent climate change experiment called SPRUCE (Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Changing Environments). In this experiment, large enclosures in a peatland at MEF were constructed where temperature and carbon dioxide levels are controlled. The primary objective is understanding if peatlands will begin giving up their large carbon stores and contribute to climate change. As part of this experiment, carbon flows within the peatland are being measured, and this project will measure Pb and other metals in the porewaters of the SPRUCE enclosures. The second project examines carbon flows from another peatland at the MEF. The �鶹��Ƶ Environmental Chemistry laboratory has measured Pb and Hg flows from this peatland since 2009. One goal is to understand how carbon flows from the peatland are impacted by rising temperatures and relate these changes to the transport of metals from the peatland.

Course Pre-requisites: None

Project - How do fungal pathogens evolve resistance to antifungal drugs? 

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Laura Burrack

Project Description

Fungal infections are a serious global health concern with invasive fungal infections killing at least 1.5 million people per year worldwide. One of the contributing factors to high mortality rates for fungal infections is antifungal drug resistance. For example, many isolates of the newly characterized species Candida auris, are resistant to all commonly used antifungal drugs and have mortality rates >50%. Treatment with drugs provides a powerful evolutionary force that rapidly selects for changes in a cell’s genome allowing for better growth of that cell and all of its progeny in a stressful environment leading to the development of drug resistance. Genomic changes associated with drug resistance and tolerance can include point mutations, aneuploidy, an abnormal number of chromosomes, and/or recombination between chromosomes as well as duplication of the entire genome (ex. tetraploidy). The FRYE or SEAR project in the Burrack lab during the summer of 2025 will focus on determining how additional chromosomes (aneuploidy and tetraploidy) contribute to the evolution of drug resistance and tolerance in Candida albicans, the most common invasive fungal pathogen in the United States. Through this project, a student would learn a combination of microbiology, molecular biology, genetics, and bioinformatics techniques as well as gain practice in experimental design and data analysis methods.

Course Pre-requisites: BIO110/111 or CHE107/108 or CHE110/111

Project - How do bacteria use intricate regulatory networks to respond to environmental changes?

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Janie Frandsen

Project Description

Bacteria must be able to respond to changes in their environment to survive stress and cause infections. To do this, they employ intricate networks to regulate gene expression, the process by which cells control if, when, and to what extent different cellular factors are produced. In bacteria, many of these regulatory networks utilize RNA in non- traditional ways. Small RNAs (sRNAs) are a class of regulatory RNAs that change gene expression by directly interacting with and acting upon messenger RNAs (mRNAs). Often, sRNAs target mRNAs for degradation or to prevent protein synthesis. sRNAs are widely used across bacterial species and are involved in maintaining homeostasis, virulence, and antibiotic resistance. We understand a lot about the processes sRNAs control but less about the molecular-level details of how sRNAs recognize and act on specific mRNAs. Increasing our understanding of how sRNAs work at the molecular level to control gene expression will aid in the development of novel antibiotics that target regulatory RNAs in bacteria, helping combat the monumental problem of
antibiotic resistance.

sRNAs are produced in response to a specific stimulus and regulate multiple different mRNA targets to mediate a major shift in gene expression. A regulatory hierarchy, a clear order in which the different targets are affected as the sRNA level increases, has been demonstrated for one sRNA and is expected to be true for other sRNAs. An open question in the field is how target prioritization is established; in other words, which features of the sRNA-mRNA interaction dictate which targets are bound first and which targets are only bound when sRNA levels peak? In this project, students will use either a pull-down asssy or a dual plasmid reporter assay to address the hypothesis that the accessibility of the sRNA binding site within the target mRNA plays a role in establishing a hierarchy of sRNA-target binding. Through this project, students will learn a combination of biochemistry, genetics, microbiology, and molecular biology techniques as well as gain practice in experimental design and data analysis.

Course Pre-requisites: BIO 110/111 or CHE 105/106 or CHE 110/111

Project - Environmental Impact of human conflict: the Thirty Year's War

Dr. Erik Gulbranson

Human conflict has often been tied to climate change in seeking additional, outside, explanations for increases in the frequency or severity of conflicts. However, we have only recently begun to explore the effects of warfare on the environment and climate. What impact does warfare have on soil erosion, agricultural productivity and food security? What are the impacts on Earth’s climate when people are displaced or perish due to conflict? This project will address these questions by focusing on the Thirty Year’s War as a case study for the environmental effects of human conflict. This conflict was significant as it reflects a transition of Europe into the early modern period, covered a broad geographic area, and impact millions of people, mostly non-combatants. Your role as a first-year researcher or sophomore researcher on this project will be to conduct a stand-alone research project within this overarching theme, where the design of your project and strategy for executing the project will be mentored by Dr. Erik Gulbranson. Technical training in the various research methods used will also be conducted by Dr. Erik Gulbranson and/or collaborating colleagues, as applicable. You will also work alongside with a �鶹��Ƶ senior as they are conducting their senior thesis work on this topic. Fieldwork for this project will be conducted in June in Germany; and laboratory work, syntheses of results and preparation for presentations will be carried out throughout the remaining summer.

Course Pre-requisites: ENV/GEO-120

Project - Investigating the Effects of Climate Change on Plant-Flowering Timing and Fitness 

Dr. Naomi Rushing

We know that global temperatures are increasing as climate change progresses, but how does this influence plants during the growing season in places like Minnesota? Research has indicated that many plant species are flowering earlier than they have historically in response to warming temperatures. However, there has been limited research into the impacts of this change in flowering timing. How do changes in flowering timing influence interactions with key mutualists such as pollinators or rhizobia? What are the impacts on seed production and fitness? Prof. Rushing’s lab will use short lived annual plants to explore questions such as these. We will experimentally manipulate the timing of flowering in the growth chamber and then move our research plants outdoors, where we will record flowering timing, flower number, and seed production. We may also record pollinator visitation, pollinator effectiveness and/or root nodulation, as well as morphological or physiological characteristics of our plants. Students will learn how to analyze our data in R, be introduced to the use of aster modeling to assess fitness, and will have the opportunity to share their results with others via a poster session or presentation. 

Pre-requisites: BIO 110/111

Radio Wave Emissions for Exomoon Detection: A Study of Host Planet Magnetosphere

Dr. Darsa Donelan

Project Description

Join us this summer in the search for exomoons, celestial bodies that orbit exoplanets beyond our Solar System. Despite numerous attempts, no exomoon has been confirmed to date and only a few have been identified as candidates. Our project will focus on utilizing the interactions between Jupiter and its moon Io, as well as those between the Sun and Jupiter, to study radio emissions and determine how they can be used to predict exomoon locations.

As part of NASA's Radio Jove Project, we will construct a permanent radio quad-dipole antenna and integrate dual-polarization spectrographs and wide-band antennas operating in the 15-30 MHz frequency range. Through scientific observations and collaboration with radio observatories, we aim to develop innovative analysis techniques, including deep learning, to enhance our search for exomoons.

This opportunity is open to all students and provides hands-on experience in radio astronomy, as well as exposure to cutting-edge research and technology. Join us in advancing our understanding of the universe and uncovering new discoveries in the exciting field of exoplanetary research.

Students interested in research opportunities through the FYRE (First Year Research Experience) program in the summer of 2025 should follow the instructions below, and pay close attention to the dates, as the timeline is relatively short. There are two main elements of the application process (details below):

• Students meet with a minimum of three faculty mentors to discuss research projects, and rank them in order of interest.
• Students complete an application form as described below and consisting of two parts: 1) answers to three essay questions, identification of three references, confirmation of eligibility; and 2) ranking of projects. Unofficial transcripts will be requested from the registrar's office on your behalf once your application has been submitted. 

Student Eligibility

All �鶹��Ƶ students who are currently in the first year in residence, and expect to continue their enrollment at �鶹��Ƶ in the fall of 2025, are eligible for the FYRE Program.

Application Timeline

• January 17 - Project opportunity review opens; students begin discussing projects with faculty mentors
• Monday, March 3 - Student applications due at 12 p.m.
• March 22 or shortly later - Notification of applicant status begins

Application Process

1. Visit the list of FYRE project opportunities for the 2025 program. Browse all of the projects and see which ones are interesting to you.
2. You are asked to discuss potential projects with at least three different faculty mentors and rank the projects in order of your interest in the opportunity. To help you prepare for the discussions, you can find short videos from the faculty found in this . You should be prepared to ask the faculty members questions about the projects and the logistics of working on the projects for the discussion.
3. Complete this (Eligibility, Courses, References, and Narrative Responses) by 12 PM on March 3rd. This is a web form, and you should ultimately submit your responses through this form. However, you can view all of the questions before submitting in this 2025 Application. We recommend you use the pdf version to prepare answers offline prior to submitting the application. You can refer to this to help you determine whether to answer the optional essay question - please consider that everyone is unique in some way and you likely have something to respond to this question.

Students are supported with a stipend for the ten-week research experience and on-campus housing. 

Selection of students to participate in the program is based on academic performance, input provided about applicants by three references, and the potential impact of the FYRE Program experience on the development of the applicant as a scientist, as judged by the FYRE Program faculty.

Project - Creating a User Interface to Aid People with Visual Disabilities

Project Description

Completing forms is often a challenging task for individuals with visual impairments (Feiz et al., 2019). Many forms, whether in paper format or as scanned electronic documents, lack the structural information necessary for assistive technologies to interpret and make them accessible. While prior research (Feiz et al., 2019; Billah et al., 2018) has developed solutions to help individuals locate specific fields on paper forms, these approaches are not helpful for users who are unable to write legibly on paper or interact with electronic forms.

This project aims to create a user interface (UI) designed specifically for individuals who are blind, have physical disabilities, or face other barriers to completing forms. The proposed UI will support multimodal interactions, incorporating features such as voice commands and tactile feedback to enable users to complete both paper and electronic forms. It will include prompts to guide users through the process and mechanisms for receiving their input, addressing the limitations of existing systems and ensuring accessibility for a wider range of users.

Referenes: Billah, S. M., Ashok, V., & Ramakrishnan, I. V. (2018). Write-it-yourself with the aid of smartwatches: A Wizard-of-Oz experiment with blind people. 23rd International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, 427–431. Tokyo, Japan. Feiz, S., Billah, S. M., Ashok, V., Shilkrot, R., & Ramakrishnan, I. V. (2019). Towards enabling blind people to independently write on printed forms. Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–12. Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

Project - Empowering Elementary Educators: AI-Driven Course Design with Large Language Models 

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Dongji Feng

Project Description

We propose to leverage large language models (LLMs) and advanced prompt techniques to create an intuitive pipeline that supports elementary school teachers in designing their semester courses. By utilizing LLMs, we can generate personalized, curriculum-aligned course outlines, lesson plans, and activities based on subject areas, student needs, and educational standards. The prompt techniques will allow teachers to input specific requirements, such as student learning goals or class dynamics, ensuring that the generated materials are tailored to their unique teaching context. This AI-driven system can significantly reduce the time teachers spend on course planning, provide them with innovative ideas, and offer real-time feedback, ultimately enhancing the learning experience for students and empowering teachers to focus on creative and effective instruction.

Course Pre-requisites: MCS 177 and MCS 178; Strongly Suggested: MCS 189

Project - Investgating novel mutations in telomere associated protein Ten1

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Katie Leehy

Project Description

CRISPR/Cas9 genome engineering has opened up a world of genome editing that scientists could only dream of just a decade ago. The FYRE projects in the Leehy lab during the summer of 2024 will utilize this ground-breaking technology to interrogate gene function through the identification and characterization of novel mutations in genes. Students will have the opportunity to work on two different projects in the model system Arabidopsis thaliana. Students will learn techniques in molecular biology, bioinformatics, cell biology, and microbiology.

Failure to precisely regulate telomeres can result in human diseases such as premature aging, chronic fatigue syndrome, and cancer. Telomeres are repetitive DNA elements found at the ends of linear chromosomes that are protected by a suite of specific proteins. These proteins prevent telomere degradation, prevent illicit DNA repair at chromosome ends, and promote telomere elongation during cell division. This first research project focuses on understanding how the telomere protein, TEN1, performs protective and maintenance roles. To elucidate this role, the student will characterize a novel ten1 mutant recently created in the Leehy lab. The student will characterize telomeres in mutant plants to determine the role of TEN1 in telomere protection and maintenance.

Climate change is already reshaping our world and having devastating effects on the production of crops all over the world. In order to feed the world’s growing population scientists and farmers need to work together to develop crops that can withstand increasingly extreme weather patterns. For the second project, students will screen previously transformed plants to identify CRSPR/Cas9 gene edited plants. We will be utilizing high-throughput phenotyping to investigate the effects of stress on mutant plants identified in screens. Students will also get to create their own CRISPR/Cas9 targets to eliminate novel genes of interest to understand their function in relation to plant stress tolerance.

Students can pick which of the projects they would like to work on or elect to work on both. Interested students have the opportunity to learn basic programming with R and command line for development of the high throughput phenotyping data collection and analysis.

Course Pre-requisites: BIO 110/111

Project - New tricks for an old dog – bringing big data to liquid chromatography

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Dwight Stoll

Project Description

Students participating in this project will join the wikiChrom team in the Stoll Laboratory. The primary aim of the “wikiChrom Project” (https://wikichrom.multidlc.org/) is to dramatically increase the rate of acquisition of retention data for the field of liquid chromatography, to ultimately deepen fundamental understanding about how liquid chromatography works, and accelerate method development in fields ranging from the life sciences to environmental science. Historically, a “large” dataset in the field of LC has been a hundred measurements. We are aiming to increase the size of these datasets by 100- to 1,000-fold, and are enthusiastic about the level of understanding and the pace of innovation that could be unlocked by this change. Students can contribute to this effort in many different ways, ranging from programming (i.e., coding) to improve our current data acquisition workflows and develop new ones, development of new instrumentation components and methodology to improve throughput and measurement precision, and data analysis exploration to build and apply new retention models in fields including pharmaceutical analysis and the chemical industry.

Course Pre-requisites: CHE 105/106 or CHE 110/111
 

Project - Characterization of Green(er) Alternatives for Solvents used in Chemical Analysis

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Dwight Stoll

Major shifts are underway in a several industries to improve upon the sustainability of industrial processes, with ultimate goals of net zero emissions by 2050, and a circular economy. Currently, many analytical methods used in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries are far from green, and involve highly toxic solvents with high environmental and energy costs (e.g. chlorinated solvents). Several research groups have begun working with alkyl carbonates (e.g., dimethyl carbonate, and propylene carbonate) as potential replacements for solvents such as acetonitrile. In this project we will characterize the performance of these carbonate solvents for use in applications including liquid chromatography, and as extraction solvents for studying the composition of polymers, for example. Students contributing to this work can expect to learn liquid chromatography and other analytical methods that will be used to characterize the performance of potential green(er) solvents.

Course Pre-requisites: CHE 105/106 or CHE 110/111

Project - Morphology-environment relationships in stromatolites 

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Julie Bartley

Project Description

This summer, students in my lab will be working on the following project: Stromatolites and Microbialites are fossil structures built by the interaction of microbes and mineral precipitation. The physical environment (e.g., water depth, water movement), chemical environment (e.g., salinity, oxygen levels), and the biologic processes (e.g., microbial
community) all influence the form of stromatolites and microbialites, though the relationships between processes and form are not well understood. Students working in my lab summer will continue work started last summer in investigating the relationship between stromatolite form and environment in a ~475-million-year-old geologic unit exposed in eastern Minnesota and Wisconsin. The project will involve a few days of fieldwork, followed by laboratory work that might include microscopy, electron microscopy, and geochemistry, depending on student interests.

Course Pre-requisites: Any introductory science course 

Project - Conversion of an early hybrid car to a plug-in hybrid 

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Jeff Jeremiason

Project Description

The Generation One Honda Insight was the first gas/electric hybrid vehicle sold in the United States. Battery technology has advanced dramatically since the first Insights were sold in 1999. It is now possible to replace the original nickel metal hydride batteries with more energy-dense lithium-ion batteries, allowing the car to operate on 100% electricity for over fifty miles. In this project, a student will explore the advancement of battery chemistries, install lithium-ion batteries and a battery control module (BCM) into an Insight, and program the BCM to run synchronously and independently from the gas engine. An independent throttle and battery regeneration joystick will also be installed to allow hand operation of the electric motor. This project is ideal for a student interested in electrical engineering, computer programming, and electrochemistry. An interest in cars and understanding their electrical components is also desirable.

Course Pre-requisites: None

Project - Ombrotrophic Bogs, Climate Change, and Metal Transport 

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Jeff Jeremiason

Ombrotrophic bogs are unique ecosystems that only receive nutrients from the atmosphere. They also store large amounts of carbon. Approximately 30% of soil carbon in the world is contained in peatlands, which include ombrotrophic bogs. Peatland ecosystems have been studied at the Marcell Experimental Forest (MEF), north of Grand Rapids, MN, since the 1960s. This project involves two ongoing projects at the MEF. The first one is a recent climate change experiment called SPRUCE (Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Changing Environments). In this experiment, large enclosures in a peatland at MEF were constructed where temperature and carbon dioxide levels are controlled. The primary objective is understanding if peatlands will begin giving up their large carbon stores and contribute to climate change. As part of this experiment, carbon flows within the peatland are being measured, and this project will measure Pb and other metals in the porewaters of the SPRUCE enclosures. The second project examines carbon flows from another peatland at the MEF. The �鶹��Ƶ Environmental Chemistry laboratory has measured Pb and Hg flows from this peatland since 2009. One goal is to understand how carbon flows from the peatland are impacted by rising temperatures and relate these changes to the transport of metals from the peatland.

Course Pre-requisites: None

Project - How do fungal pathogens evolve resistance to antifungal drugs? 

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Laura Burrack

Project Description

Fungal infections are a serious global health concern with invasive fungal infections killing at least 1.5 million people per year worldwide. One of the contributing factors to high mortality rates for fungal infections is antifungal drug resistance. For example, many isolates of the newly characterized species Candida auris, are resistant to all commonly used antifungal drugs and have mortality rates >50%. Treatment with drugs provides a powerful evolutionary force that rapidly selects for changes in a cell’s genome allowing for better growth of that cell and all of its progeny in a stressful environment leading to the development of drug resistance. Genomic changes associated with drug resistance and tolerance can include point mutations, aneuploidy, an abnormal number of chromosomes, and/or recombination between chromosomes as well as duplication of the entire genome (ex. tetraploidy). The FRYE or SEAR project in the Burrack lab during the summer of 2025 will focus on determining how additional chromosomes (aneuploidy and tetraploidy) contribute to the evolution of drug resistance and tolerance in Candida albicans, the most common invasive fungal pathogen in the United States. Through this project, a student would learn a combination of microbiology, molecular biology, genetics, and bioinformatics techniques as well as gain practice in experimental design and data analysis methods.

Course Pre-requisites: BIO110/111 or CHE107/108 or CHE110/111

Project - How do bacteria use intricate regulatory networks to respond to environmental changes?

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Janie Frandsen

Project Description

Bacteria must be able to respond to changes in their environment to survive stress and cause infections. To do this, they employ intricate networks to regulate gene expression, the process by which cells control if, when, and to what extent different cellular factors are produced. In bacteria, many of these regulatory networks utilize RNA in non- traditional ways. Small RNAs (sRNAs) are a class of regulatory RNAs that change gene expression by directly interacting with and acting upon messenger RNAs (mRNAs). Often, sRNAs target mRNAs for degradation or to prevent protein synthesis. sRNAs are widely used across bacterial species and are involved in maintaining homeostasis, virulence, and antibiotic resistance. We understand a lot about the processes sRNAs control but less about the molecular-level details of how sRNAs recognize and act on specific mRNAs. Increasing our understanding of how sRNAs work at the molecular level to control gene expression will aid in the development of novel antibiotics that target regulatory RNAs in bacteria, helping combat the monumental problem of
antibiotic resistance.

sRNAs are produced in response to a specific stimulus and regulate multiple different mRNA targets to mediate a major shift in gene expression. A regulatory hierarchy, a clear order in which the different targets are affected as the sRNA level increases, has been demonstrated for one sRNA and is expected to be true for other sRNAs. An open question in the field is how target prioritization is established; in other words, which features of the sRNA-mRNA interaction dictate which targets are bound first and which targets are only bound when sRNA levels peak? In this project, students will use either a pull-down asssy or a dual plasmid reporter assay to address the hypothesis that the accessibility of the sRNA binding site within the target mRNA plays a role in establishing a hierarchy of sRNA-target binding. Through this project, students will learn a combination of biochemistry, genetics, microbiology, and molecular biology techniques as well as gain practice in experimental design and data analysis.

Course Pre-requisites: BIO 110/111 or CHE 105/106 or CHE 110/111

Project - Investigating the Photosensitization of the Degradation of Tembotrione and Mesotrione Herbicides with Natural Organic Matter 

Faculty Mentor - Dr. Amanda Nienow

Project Description

When pesticides (a broad category that includes herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides) are applied to fields, they can be dispersed into the environment in a variety of ways such as volatilization, run-off into water systems, or sorption by soil or plants. In addition, the compounds can be chemically transformed. In our lab, we explore the photochemistry of pesticides. In 2017, we started to examine the reactivity of dicamba, a chlorinated herbicide. The use of dicamba has been increasing in recent years due to reformulation of commercial products to reduce volatilization. However, these newish products seem to still be volatile enough to damage plants outside the application zone (leading to tense situations between farmers – google it!). This summer, we will explore how to examine the photochemistry and reactivity of dicamba in the gas-phase and may expand this work to examine the chemistry of other herbicides. This project is ideal for students wanting more experience with advanced chemical instrumentation as students will learn how to operate a gas chromatograph, solar simulator, and air sampling tools. Students will also use a variety of data analysis tools.

Course Pre-requisites: CHE 105/106 or CHE 110/111

Project - Environmental Impact of human conflict: the Thirty Year's War

Dr. Erik Gulbranson

Human conflict has often been tied to climate change in seeking additional, outside, explanations for increases in the frequency or severity of conflicts. However, we have only recently begun to explore the effects of warfare on the environment and climate. What impact does warfare have on soil erosion, agricultural productivity and food security? What are the impacts on Earth’s climate when people are displaced or perish due to conflict? This project will address these questions by focusing on the Thirty Year’s War as a case study for the environmental effects of human conflict. This conflict was significant as it reflects a transition of Europe into the early modern period, covered a broad geographic area, and impact millions of people, mostly non-combatants. Your role as a first-year researcher or sophomore researcher on this project will be to conduct a stand-alone research project within this overarching theme, where the design of your project and strategy for executing the project will be mentored by Dr. Erik Gulbranson. Technical training in the various research methods used will also be conducted by Dr. Erik Gulbranson and/or collaborating colleagues, as applicable. You will also work alongside with a �鶹��Ƶ senior as they are conducting their senior thesis work on this topic. Fieldwork for this project will be conducted in June in Germany; and laboratory work, syntheses of results and preparation for presentations will be carried out throughout the remaining summer.

Course Pre-requisites: ENV/GEO-120

Project - Investigating the Effects of Climate Change on Plant-Flowering Timing and Fitness 

Dr. Naomi Rushing

We know that global temperatures are increasing as climate change progresses, but how does this influence plants during the growing season in places like Minnesota? Research has indicated that many plant species are flowering earlier than they have historically in response to warming temperatures. However, there has been limited research into the impacts of this change in flowering timing. How do changes in flowering timing influence interactions with key mutualists such as pollinators or rhizobia? What are the impacts on seed production and fitness? Prof. Rushing’s lab will use short lived annual plants to explore questions such as these. We will experimentally manipulate the timing of flowering in the growth chamber and then move our research plants outdoors, where we will record flowering timing, flower number, and seed production. We may also record pollinator visitation, pollinator effectiveness and/or root nodulation, as well as morphological or physiological characteristics of our plants. Students will learn how to analyze our data in R, be introduced to the use of aster modeling to assess fitness, and will have the opportunity to share their results with others via a poster session or presentation. 

Pre-requisites: BIO 110/111

Project - Radio Wave Emissions for Exomoon Detection: A Study of Host Planet Magnetosphere

Project Description

Join us this summer in the search for exomoons, celestial bodies that orbit exoplanets beyond our Solar System. Despite numerous attempts, no exomoon has been confirmed to date and only a few have been identified as candidates. Our project will focus on utilizing the interactions between Jupiter and its moon Io, as well as those between the Sun and Jupiter, to study radio emissions and determine how they can be used to predict exomoon locations.

As part of NASA's Radio Jove Project, we will construct a permanent radio quad-dipole antenna and integrate dual-polarization spectrographs and wide-band antennas operating in the 15-30 MHz frequency range. Through scientific observations and collaboration with radio observatories, we aim to develop innovative analysis techniques, including deep learning, to enhance our search for exomoons.

This opportunity is open to all students and provides hands-on experience in radio astronomy, as well as exposure to cutting-edge research and technology. Join us in advancing our understanding of the universe and uncovering new discoveries in the exciting field of exoplanetary research.

Pre-requisites: None

Students interested in research opportunities through the SEAR (Second-Year Experience At Research) program in the summer of 2025 should follow the instructions below, and pay close attention to the dates, as the timeline is relatively short. There are two main elements of the application process (details below):

• Students meet with a minimum of three faculty mentors to discuss research projects, and rank them in order of interest.
• Students complete an application form as described below and consisting of two parts: 1) answers to four essay questions, identification of three references, confirmation of eligibility; and 2) ranking of projects. Unofficial transcripts will be requested from the registrar's office on your behalf once your application has been submitted. 

Student Eligibility

All �鶹��Ƶ students who are currently in the second year in residence, and expect to continue their enrollment at �鶹��Ƶ in the fall of 2025, are eligible for the SEAR Program. There may be pre-requisite courses required for specific SEAR projects. 

Application Timeline

• January 17 - Project opportunity review opens; students begin discussing projects with faculty mentors
• Monday, March 3 - Student applications due at 12 p.m.
• March 22 or shortly later - Notification of applicant status begins

Application Process

1. Visit the list of SEAR project opportunities for the 2025 program. Browse all of the projects and see which ones are interesting to you.
2. You are asked to discuss potential projects with at least three different faculty mentors and rank the projects in order of your interest in the opportunity. To help you prepare for the discussions, you can find short videos from the faculty found in this . You should be prepared to ask the faculty members questions about the projects and the logistics of working on the projects for the discussion.
3. Complete this (Eligibility, Courses, References, and Narrative Responses) by 12 PM on March 1st. This is a web form, and you should ultimately submit your responses through this form. However, you can view all of the questions before submitting in this 2025 Application. We recommend you use the pdf version to prepare answers offline prior to submitting the application. You can refer to this to help you determine whether to answer the optional essay question - please consider that everyone is unique in some way and you likely have something to respond to this question.

Students are supported with a stipend for the ten-week research experience, and on-campus housing. 

Selection of students to participate in the program is based on academic performance, input provided about applicants by three references, and the potential impact of the SEAR Program experience on the development of the applicant as a scientist, as judged by the SEAR Program faculty.