Local Student Participates in Undergraduate Research Project through SEPCHE Grant

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Allison Eberly of Orwigsburg explains her research poster to Sister Carol Jean Vale, Ph.D., president of Chestnut Hill College.

PHILADELPHIA, PA (01/27/2014)(readMedia)--  Allison Eberly, a chemistry major at Chestnut Hill College from Orwigsburg, Pa., had the opportunity to work on research projects with faculty mentors over the past year thanks to a grant from the Council of Independent Colleges/Foundation for Independent Higher Education UPS New Ventures Fund and the Association for Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania (AICUP) with support from the Southeastern Consortium for Higher Education (SEPCHE).

Twenty-one students from six SEPCHE colleges and universities were selected to work with faculty mentors on research projects this past summer and later presented their research at a poster session this fall at Chestnut Hill College.

Working with Ken Soprano, Ph.D., professor of biology at Chestnut Hill, juniors Sara Medacier and Eberly presented "Utilizing Bioinformatics to Identify Genes Whose Expression is Modulated during Differentiation of Mouse Pluripotent Stem Cells to Endodermal and Neuronal Cells" with students from Neumann University and Gwynedd Mercy University.

Each student in the program was required to participate in 10-12 weeks of lab, field or library research, attend colloquia, and prepare interim and final reports along with their poster materials. Faculty and students contributed collectively more than 3,000 hours to their projects, with an average number of 125 hours spent in research by the students. Students will also present their work at the SEPCHE Honors Conference in March 2014.

"I have developed an appreciation for bioinformatics because of this experience," says Eberly. "Bioinformatics is a very new branch of science involving a lot of computer work and not very much wet laboratory work. Bioinformatics is constantly changing because researchers are working every day to add new pieces of information to the databases. I learned so much about the databases and still know there is so much more to be learned. This research project has helped me to reassure myself that graduate school, which will include a lot of research, is truly the next step that I want to take."

"SEPCHE is thrilled to receive this national vote of confidence in our collective capacity to develop exceptional professionals in the sciences, mathematics and computer sciences," SEPCHE Executive Director Beth Moy said. "Working in faculty-student teams from multiple institutions enables students to actively build substantive, collaborative research skills and professional networks that define the way they view and approach problem solving. We are deeply grateful to The Council for Independent Colleges/Foundation for Independent Higher Education and to AICUP for enabling this powerful learning opportunity."

About Chestnut Hill College

Chestnut Hill College is a four-year coed Catholic college offering a traditional liberal arts undergraduate program, as well as accelerated undergraduate degrees, master's and doctoral programs. Since its inception, the College has offered a rigorous curriculum that provides students with a broad background in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. The goal of Chestnut Hill College has been to prepare students for life's challenges by helping them to grow intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and socially.

For the second consecutive year, Chestnut Hill College earned recognition as one of 26 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) institutions to receive the Division II Presidents' Award for Academic Excellence. The Presidents' Award honors NCAA athletic programs with four-year academic success rates of 90 or greater.

The College has been rated by US News & World Report as among the best master's universities in the North, as among the "Best in the Northeast" by The Princeton Review, and has been classified as selective by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.