The goal of the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) program is to foster a community of undergraduate research and engaged scholarship during the summer months at Radford University. This program will fund a variety of projects where students engage in an original, intellectual or creative contribution to a discipline. Each SURF provides $6000 to the student (half at the beginning of June and the second half at the beginning of August), $1500 for the faculty mentor (paid at the beginning of August), and supplies. OURS does accept joint proposals.
Amber Gordon—mentored by Dr. Cassady Urista—who will be examine how habitat size influences mixed-species associations between squirrel monkeys and capuchins in a Costa Rican rainforest to inform conservation strategies.
Timothy Damankah—mentored by Dr. Chet Bhatta—who will document and analyze wild bee community assemblages and plant-pollinator networks within Selu Conservancy to provide valuable baseline data for future studies.
Tori Dean—mentored by Dr. Hannah Krueger —who will through the use of geophysical methods, investigate and 3D image the karst, hydrogeological, and archeological features of the NRV Commerce Park in Pulaski, VA.
Grace Parton—mentored by Dr. Jason Davis—who will explore hormonal stress responses in crayfish to understand their role in stress reactivity under varying environmental conditions.
Grace Wilson—mentored by Drs. Jason Davis and Sarah Foltz—who will examine how cemeteries as urban greenspaces impact passerine bird stress physiology, comparing urban and rural sites to assess avian adaptation to urbanization.
Meagan Yates—mentored by Dr. Sara O’Brien—who will explore the biodistribution of microplastics when ingested by salamanders and the effect on their physiology.
Aerowen Bryant—mentored by Drs. Sarah Foltz and Justine Jackson-Stone—will using a scientific approach to create anthropomorphic ecological dystopian literature.
Bhavna Sheth—mentored by Dr. Pamela Frasier—who will systematically review the integration of artificial intelligence in early-onset dementia care and explore its potential to enhance diagnosis, treatment, and patient quality of life.
Leah Bratton—mentored by Dr. Matthew Cataldi—who will connect her personal experience with piano-playing related injuries to the art of creating a one-handed composition like pianists of the past.
Krystal Drummond—mentored by Dr. Daniel Berry—who will examine the perceived cognitive effort of compassion and empathy in real-world social interactions and investigate their relationship to helping behaviors.
Julia Miller—mentored by Drs. Janessa Steele and Michaela Clark—who will examine how approved memory training interventions, such as Spaced-Retrieval Training (SRT), impact indicators of stress among adults with moderate to advanced dementia.
Sydney Howell-Wampler—mentored by Dr. Tay Tan—who will study the oppression that women face in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban and solutions by examining their escape strategies and possible countries for asylum.
Erin Torres—mentored by Dr. Paige Tan—who will analyze Azerbaijan's use of social media to influence international narratives, aiming to uncover state-sponsored propaganda tactics and their global impact.
Kiara Bartoli—mentored by Dr. Stockton Maxwell—who will reconstruct rainy season precipitation variability in sub-Saharan Africa across a network of annual tree-ring chronologies.
Caleb Frankenberger—mentored by Dr. Shamim Sarker—who will develop a software package for Bayesian regression models on pooled testing data.
Ryan Stuck—mentored by Dr. Nathaniel Lahn—who will develop an application that receives course content and utilizes AI to answer questions bases on the course information.
Emma Stipes—mentored by Dr. Hannah Krueger—who will investigate the seismic structure of the Cascadia subduction zone on the West coast of the United States to better understand its mechanics and predict potentially dangerous tremors produced by it.
Morgan Buskill, Fiona Steinour, and Amelia Naegele—mentored by Dr. Tim Fuhrer—who will explore protoporphyrin IX’s potential solar energy conversion and medical applications through investigating their electronic properties, reactivity, and energy transfer capabilities.
Joshua Czorapinski—mentored by Dr. Kim Lane—who will design, create, and test protein variants and how changes effect the function of the protein.
Jeremiah Garretson—mentored by Dr. Joshua Roe—who will explore the correlation between risk acceptance and personal locator beacons in the backcountry to influence recreation and rescue best practices.
The Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarship (OURS) invites proposals from all disciplines for Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships. The goal of the SURF program is to foster a community of undergraduate research and engaged scholarship during the summer months at Radford University. This program will fund a variety of projects where students engage in an original, intellectual or creative contribution to a discipline.
The faculty support letter will be submitted via a Qualtrics application by noon on February 24, 2025. Faculty letters will be automatically sent to faculty mentors' email addresses that students enter on their SURF application. The direct link to the faculty letter of support can be found here.
Grant Amount:
This includes a $6000 stipend to the SURF recipient, a $1500 faculty mentor stipend, and a budget for the mentor to allocate toward supplies or additional student stipend. Supplies should be purchased through the requested fiscal year and university regulations for E&G funds apply. The expectation is that students will spend a prolonged amount of time on the projects over ten weeks of the summer. Personal and professional development workshops will be held biweekly through zoom for the participating students.
Please address questions to ours@radford.edu or call 540-831-7203.
Eligibility: