Senior Alice Cheung’s dedication to her studies and research is evident through more than just her 4.0 grade point average in cellular and molecular biology. “I was really intrigued by being able to focus on one part of the science,” she says, “and finding out something that no one else has done before.”

Cheung, who is originally from Queens, began her research experience at Binghamton in the lab of anthropologist J. Koji Lum. Lum, who has worked with more than 100 undergraduate researchers, says Cheung stands out for her hard-working attitude and ability to learn quickly.

The project was a collaboration of researchers in anthropology, geology and biology. Cheung’s role was to characterize gypsum crystals according to the microdiversity trapped inside of the salt during its formation. The identification of these organisms would provide the team with information about what the environment was like when that crystal formed. The team then used the same technique and applied it to ancient crystals, hoping to find more clues about what life was like millions of years ago.

The team’s abstract was published in The Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Cheung also presented her findings at an international conference, a rarity among undergraduate researchers.

In the lab, Cheung would extract and sequence DNA from the modern crystals and compare her results with her partner, a geology major, who confirmed the findings under the microscope. When they looked at the ancient crystals, however, they weren’t able to find the same results.

Lum and his team of graduate researchers discovered that what they were originally looking for could not be found. “Although her project did not turn out as hoped,” Lum says, “I think it was a valuable lesson in how science often really works.”

In science, a dead end is really more like an open door. Cheung learned that lesson firsthand when she began working in a new lab with Steven Tammariello, an associate professor of biology. His team uses DNA from horse hair samples to screen for desirable genetic traits.

Cheung is trying to find the short fragment of DNA that codes for jumping ability in horses. The offspring of horses that can jump do not necessarily share the trait, so this science could eventually help horse buyers determine if a horse will be a good fit.

This same science can be applied to sequencing human DNA. Scientists are now able to screen DNA to see if someone is prone to diseases such as Alzheimer’s, which can help a person seek appropriate and timely treatment.

“I did research to help me decide what it was I wanted to do in life,” Cheung says.

And it did just that. Cheung plans to attend medical school and continue participating in research.

The Binghamton University senior did wash test tubes; everyone in Patricia Di Lorenzo’s lab does. But Park also had an opportunity to run her own experiment, collect data and discover new things about the brain and how it processes taste.

She was one of 13 SUNY Brain Summer Scholars doing a 10-week stint in neuroscience laboratories across New York, part of President Obama’s Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies program to develop new ways to treat and prevent brain disorders.

“It felt so legitimate,” says Park, 21, an integrative neuroscience major from Hannibal, N.Y. “For once, I really felt connected to science.”

Di Lorenzo, a professor of psychology at Binghamton, studies how the brain stem processes taste. Cooks can explain the five basic tastes: sweet, sour, salt, bitter and umami. And they can explain that smell influences how humans perceive taste. But how does the brain do that?

Park helped find out. She analyzed how the brains of lab rats responded to the stimulus of grape juice in relation to its simpler sweet counterpart, sucrose. She set the experiment up, gathered the data and reported back to the lab, although she hesitates to draw her own conclusions.

“But all of a sudden, you have your own ideas churning,” Park says.

Di Lorenzo and Park found the brain stem — long known to be the processing center for the five basic tastes — does much more. Neurons in the rat brain stem responded to grape juice with slight but definite differences than they did for sucrose. It was a pattern repeated with clam juice as a salt surrogate, and other flavors, too.

It suggests, Di Lorenzo says, that the brain stem is responsible for more than just taste and is a multi-modal processing center that also responds to smell.

And Park, an undergraduate, helped discover that. “She was great,” Di Lorenzo says. “She was independent; she was reliable. She learned a lot.”

Park also learned that she’d like to make research part of her future. She plans to consider her options, including MD/Ph.D. programs, during a gap year following graduation. “I’m still young,” she says, “and I know there’s so much I want to learn.”

Instead of going home to Brooklyn, Cuiping “Becky” Deng spent last summer in Binghamton investigating the possibilities of solar energy storage.

As a participant in a National Science Foundation-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program, Deng worked closely with a doctoral candidate at the Center for Autonomous Solar Power. For nine weeks, she worked alongside Navjot Kaur Sidhu, building and testing a capacitor that could point the way toward the next generation of energy-storage devices.

“Navjot was very helpful, teaching me how to use all this equipment, how to analyze my data, how to present my findings in a poster,” says Deng, a Binghamton University senior majoring in electrical engineering. “She guided me along, step by step, and once I learned how to actually do that first experiment, she let me mix the chemicals and do the rest by myself. That was the most important lesson, to learn how to work independently.”

Using a combination of metal oxides and conducting polymers, Sidhu is trying to develop a low-cost, high-density, long-lasting supercapacitor to store energy for a variety of applications, especially solar power. Through her own research, Deng has found working examples of supercapacitors that provide energy for solar-powered streetlights in Japan and solar-powered buses in China, where she lived until 2007, when her family moved to New York City.

“This is a very advanced technology, very exciting,” says Deng, who is considering staying in Binghamton for a master’s degree, with a focus on biofuel cells. “When I went to apply for the REU program, this was my first choice, from the beginning. I felt like, ‘Wow, I really want to do this,’ and someday I hope I can apply this knowledge to my own research.”

This year, Deng will continue working with Alok Rastogi, who supervises Sidhu’s research. “I was immediately impressed by her talent for research-oriented projects, and the excitement she felt about this project was exceptional,” says Rastogi, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. “For an undergraduate to show such an inclination is remarkable. She will lead a team of three students in a senior design project, and I know she is going to do well. I’m counting on her.”

Mark Fowler, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, has hired Deng as a teaching assistant. “She’s great to work with, one of our best students,” he says. “She was at the top of the class last year, and this year she’s helping in that same class. She’s strong academically and thinks very logically. But the thing that really stands out is the eagerness she projects in everything she does.”

This fall, nearly 100 freshmen will join a new initiative aimed at introducing undergraduates to research from the time they arrive at Binghamton University.

The Freshmen Research Immersion program will provide training in research methods and introduce students to important concepts and laboratory techniques. When it begins, students will choose one of three focus areas: biofilms, neuroscience or smart energy.

“What we’re going to offer students through the Freshmen Research Immersion is a deeper educational experience that’s going to get them beyond textbook knowledge and help them learn about the excitement of discovery,” Provost Donald Nieman said. “They will get out of this process a myriad of skills.”

Nieman noted that about a third of Binghamton undergraduates major in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines. This program will enable Binghamton to continue to recruit top undergrads, who increasingly expect to participate in research early in their college careers. “We are a magnet for the best students in New York State,” he said. “High school students are learning about the importance of research, and we have to have these opportunities front and center.”

Nancy Stamp, professor of biology, has led the effort to develop the program and seek grant funding to support it. She said freshmen will be better prepared to jump into research than they have been in the past, thanks in part to new national standards in science education as well as changes in Advanced Placement courses.

In January, she provided an overview of the Freshmen Research Immersion (FRI) program’s structure and plans for growth to faculty and staff who have been involved in the initial planning stages.

Stamp envisions a three-semester sequence, beginning with a research methods course in the fall of freshman year, followed by two specialized courses in the freshman spring semester and sophomore fall semester. Some students may participate in a summer fellowship between freshman and sophomore years.

Each research “stream” will be led by three to five faculty members working in a renovated campus lab. A postdoctoral fellow, a graduate teaching assistant and undergraduate peer mentors would work with about 30 freshmen.

The University plans to add three research streams in 2015-16 and three more the next year, with the program reaching full strength of 10 streams by 2017-18. Growth of the program will depend on funding, and Stamp has worked with colleagues to apply for grants from the National Science Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and other agencies. The New York State Regional Economic Development Council has already awarded $750,000 to support lab renovations.

At the January meeting, the faculty researchers heading up the initial three research areas offered overviews of how they plan to get started.

Christopher Bishop, associate professor of psychology, will lead the neuroscience research stream. Wayne Jones, professor of chemistry and chair of the Transdisciplinary Area of Excellence in smart energy, will lead the smart energy stream. Karin Sauer, professor of biology, will lead the biofilms research stream.

“The long-term objective is to transform the STEM experience for our students,” Bishop said. In the neuroscience stream, as in the others, that means incorporating technical and conceptual elements. The goal is to engage students in authentic research experiences in which they’re asking questions whose answers are unknown.

Bishop envisions the neuroscience students asking questions such as “Why do Parkinson’s disease patients have cognitive dysfunction?” “Does chronic stress increase risk of neurodegeneration?” and “How does exercise protect the brain from insult?” The students and their mentors will then have to develop experiments, likely using a rodent model, to seek answers.

Bishop said: “We want these students to start in science and stay in science.”

The presentations, which will take place at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Friday, April 19, are just one part of the three-day event scheduled for April 17-19. Research Days was first held last year, shortly after the opening of the Undergraduate Research Center.

“This year, we started earlier, went out with better information and we encouraged people to become involved,” Undergraduate Research Center Director Janice McDonald said. “This is an event for the entire community.”

This year’s Research Days will feature more events in more places, along with more student poster submissions from a greater variety of disciplines, McDonald said.

Events include tours of research facilities such as the Engineering and Science Building and the Analytical and Diagnostics Laboratory; student and faculty research panels; and tours for local eighth-graders. A complete list of events may be found at http://go.binghamton.edu/researchdays.

Another new feature is a keynote speaker: Shankar Vedantam, a science correspondent for National Public Radio. Vedantam, who spent 10 years at The Washington Post before joining NPR in 2011, is the author of “The Hidden Brain: How our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars and Save Our Lives.” He will speak at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, in the Mandela Room.

Vedantam’s talk, which is also being promoted by WSKG, brings more visibility to Research Days and could appeal to Greater Binghamton residents, said Donald Loewen, vice provost for undergraduate education.

“What can we do to present the impact of research on the community and the world more broadly?” he said. “This (talk) gives us an entry to the community and presents them with a chance to come in and see Binghamton University as a research institution.”

The student poster sessions will be linked by a Campus Research Celebration at 1 p.m. Friday, April 19, in Old Union Hall. President Harvey Stenger and other University leaders will discuss the importance of research, while award-winning student researchers will be recognized. Those being honored include two Goldwater Scholarship recipients and the 12 recipients of the 2013 Summer Scholar and Artists Program Fellowship. Faculty mentors will also be saluted.

Not all students get the chance to present research at national conferences, so the poster sessions will provide a great opportunity for many, McDonald said.

“The students who are presenting research love to talk about it and have people engage them,” she said. “They like to be questioned or challenged and go into more detail about their work. They are looking forward to the sessions.”

The sessions are also valuable for students who are considering their own research projects, McDonald added.

“We know undergraduates are very, very interested in doing research,” she said. “They want to see what other students are doing and what they are capable of doing. It’s an educational process for those who aren’t doing research yet. They can say: ‘This is what I can do and get involved in.’”

Faculty can benefit from attending the sessions, too, Loewen said.

“It’s amazing to find out what students from different disciplines are doing on campus,” said Loewen, who is urging faculty members to discuss their own research with students in classes over the three days. “I hope this will inspire faculty to think about ways that they can collaborate with students in their own discipline.”

Loewen and McDonald praised the support that Research Days has received from the University community. They singled out Rachel Coker, director of research advancement, for organizing many of the events, and Shanise Kent, associate director of the McNair Scholars Program, for leading the poster sessions.

“We’ve gotten tremendous cooperation from everybody in terms of participation,” Loewen said. “Everybody has been extraordinarily cooperative.”

Loewen and McDonald agree that Research Days is one important step in advancing undergraduate research on campus. “People are talking,” McDonald said. “More people are becoming aware of (research). It’s getting into people’s awareness. It’s an ongoing process that will take time.”

“One of our fundamental objectives with Research Days is to help all of our undergraduates — even those in big, 100-level classes — understand: ‘You are part of a research university. What does that mean?’” Loewen said. “If they stop in the Mandela Room (on Friday), they are going to see some amazing projects. They will see the kinds of research their peers are conducting. That’s a good educational experience for someone to have.”

Ron Miles summed up the theme of the Binghamton Research Days’ keynote program with a quote from Albert Einstein: “If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be research.”

Miles, associate dean for research in the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, was one of several speakers at the keynote event and poster session on April 25. The program was the central event of Binghamton Research Days.

“What determines whether you’re a researcher or not is how you respond to the realization that you don’t know what you’re doing,” said Jean-Pierre Mileur, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs. “If it panics you and frightens you and it doesn’t draw you on to approach your own ignorance as a problem to be manipulated and solved, then you probably belong in another line of work.

“But all the people who have spoken today share that response, that curiosity in response to the knowledge of their own ignorance,” he said.

Omowunmi Sadik, professor of chemistry, briefly led the audience through the development of anesthesia through anecdotes about researchers Humphry Davy and Alexander Williamson. Davy frequently inhaled nitrous oxide to experiment with its effects, and Williamson tested the effects of ether on himself by placing an ether-soaked handkerchief on his face while alone in his office.

The researchers Sadik mentioned headed where others had never been before, and in many ways, so did all of the speakers.

“Don’t be afraid to chart your own course, to let your research interests take you where they are headed, even if others haven’t gone that way before,” said Thomas Dublin, distinguished professor of history. “Trust your inclinations; trust yourself to figure out how to do the work that results from your choices.”

Most of the speakers believe research is valuable because it challenges the limits of knowledge and goes beyond what can be learned from a textbook.

“We spend so much of our time learning little tiny tidbits of information,” said Miles, a distinguished professor of mechanical engineering. “We study, we do homework, we look in the back of the book to make sure the answer is there, … and then you get to college. You discover that in this world, the answer isn’t always in the back of the book. You need to discover what is true, what is right, and then you realize that you really don’t know for sure if anything you’ve done is right, and that’s really unsettling.”

The keynote program was bookended by a poster presentation session. Undergraduate and graduate students presented research in subjects ranging from psychology to art history to microbiology.

Robert Dextre, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering, was both the student speaker and a presenter. He presented research he conducted during an internship with NASA last summer. Dextre said Binghamton Research Days was a great opportunity to express his passion and encourage others to do the same. He first became involved in research with Associate Professor Mohammad Younis in mechanical engineering and his work with micro-electrical mechanical systems in the summer of 2010.

“I had no idea what it was at first, and I wasn’t even sure if I would like it,” Dextre said.

Dextre presented his work at conferences, enabling him to develop his presentation, professional and networking skills. “I gained more knowledge and skills than I could ever have obtained from a textbook,” he said. “My experience was far more rewarding than I could have ever imagined and much more useful than any homework assignment.”

All of the day’s speakers and presenters had one thing in common: a passion for research and learning about what is on the cutting-edge.

“Each one of them in a different way embodies the idea that being a researcher, being interested in the business of knowledge creation and being on the cutting edge of your discipline makes you a fundamentally different and more interesting teacher,” Mileur said.

This was the idea behind Binghamton Research Days: making connections between research and what happens in the classroom. Faculty were encouraged to introduce their own scholarship in classes during those days. The schedule also included seminars, workshops and laboratory tours.

Mileur said the reason people learn at universities is to interact with people who create knowledge, people on the cutting edge. For him, resources such as books and websites don’t represent the cutting edge; people do, and these people are passionate about their work.

“If I have one big idea to communicate to those of you here who may be thinking about a life of scholarship,” Dublin said, “it is that you have to feel something very powerful inside you, motivating you toward the research course that you propose to embark on.”

Paquette, a Binghamton senior, worked last summer with Walker Land, research professor of bioengineering, to analyze gene expression data and predict the recurrence of cancer using a machine learning algorithm called Kernel Partial Least Squared, or KPLS. Similar data mining and artificial intelligence techniques are used by companies such as Amazon and Google to predict searches and rank pages.

“The technology exists and is proven,” Paquette says. “Now it’s a question of: How do we take that and apply it to other fields?”

Apply it he has. Paquette received $5,000 for his application of KPLS research to an InnoCentive project. InnoCentive is a website where industry, businesses and government agencies can tap into a community of problem solvers, and pay a one-time award for rights to the crowd-sourced solution.

The Environmental Defense Fund and Iowa Soybean Growers posted a challenge requesting technology to predict crop yield using nitrogen sensors that would help manage fertilizer use and boost crop productivity. Paquette’s winning idea was to use blimps with on-board sensors that would fly over crops and take nitrogen readings, which would correlate with the vigor of the crop. The information collected would be fed to the farmer’s computer for analysis.

“The guy’s very creative; he can see things that a lot of other students can’t see,” Land says of Paquette. “He thinks about things in a way that most people don’t.”

Paquette plans to pursue a doctorate in machine learning and artificial intelligence. “It’s an exciting field to get into,” he says. “I want to be an expert in it so I can create these systems, maybe make a few bucks and help the world doing it.”

The InnoCentive project inspired Paquette to bring the Web resource to other engineering students. He and some friends started a group devoted to solving InnoCentive challenges. The club facilitates collaborations among students, faculty members and entrepreneurs. “I want to develop a support network for student innovation,” Paquette says. “The University has so many resources, and if you don’t take full advantage of them, what’re you doing? I want to utilize everything I can to my advantage to do something good here.”

Paquette’s summer research inspired a senior design project, too. He’s using the KPLS research to predict the likelihood of lung cancer recurring within five years and to determine whether chemotherapy is necessary.

“Right now, cancer patients are getting chemo when they don’t need it,” Paquette says. “My dad had chemotherapy and it’s terrible. It destroys your quality of life.”

Last summer, senior Mario Alexandre, a computer engineering major, was paired with a biology major through a $1.4 million, four-year grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, or HHMI. The grant supports projects that solve problems in the life sciences; undergraduates work with faculty mentors on original research.

The biologists in Alexandre’s group worked with flow cell systems for multiple bacteria species to model their behavior. A few hundred images were taken in a 3D space, and were then sliced into 2D images. Alexandre developed software to analyze these images for different properties and determine specific characteristics, such as density, of the bacteria in question.

The research, which could translate into increased effectiveness for medications and vaccinations, revealed that more bacteria were on the outside than inside of the biofilms. “This means medicine can only penetrate halfway through and can only kill the first layer of cells,” Alexandre said. “You’ll only weaken the actual infection; you won’t beat it.”

He continues to work with the analysis generated during the summer with plans to pass the research back to the biologists. Alexandre is developing a user interface that will allow biologists to run tests with speedy results and view directories of all the images.

“The experience introduces Mario to an area of study that is not usually in the engineering curriculum,” said Anna Tan-Wilson, a distinguished teaching professor and the HHMI program director. “He is doing research in the life sciences. This kind of interdisciplinary work is seeing a lot of growth within engineering research, and it expands Mario’s career opportunities.”

Alexandre said the project helped him to think differently about his own field. “Knowing that image processing, a component of both computer science and electrical engineering, can greatly aid the development of biology was amazing,” he said. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

Fifty research-focused universities from a potential field of 197 institutions across the country were awarded grants; Binghamton University joins a list of recipients that includes Harvard, Yale, Cornell and the College of William and Mary. Binghamton and Stony Brook are the only two SUNY schools to be recognized.

With science becoming more collaborative and interdisciplinary, life science and medical research is increasingly dependent on scientists and engineers who can work across disciplines. With the help of the HHMI grant, Binghamton undergraduates will have more opportunities to cross those disciplinary boundaries.
“Biology is incorporating more mathematics, engineering, physics and computer science,” said Anna Tan-Wilson, a Binghamton University distinguished teaching professor of biological sciences and HHMI program director. “In the real world, those boundaries are blurring.”

The grant will fund a program that teams undergraduate majors in the life sciences with students in the physical sciences, mathematics, computer science and engineering to work on collaborative, interdisciplinary research projects in the life sciences.

Tan-Wilson expects to launch the program in fall 2010 with a series of workshops where faculty can meet to propose collaborative projects for the undergraduates. At the same time, Tan-Wilson will start taking student applications. She plans to sign up about 30 undergraduates and hopes to recruit students from underrepresented minorities in science, engineering and mathematics.

Teams will begin their research projects in summer 2011 and will continue working together for the following academic year. Along the way, they will be trained in how to work effectively across disciplines. Graduate students will also be trained as mentors.

“We also want to work with them because these PhD students will be faculty members someday,” said Nancy Stamp, dean of the Graduate School and grant co-program director.

Binghamton is also interested in understanding how students in the program will develop. Krishnaswami (Hari) Srihari, dean and distinguished professor of systems science and industrial engineering in the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, will observe the students as they work and use data to model the social interactions of the interdisciplinary teams. They will use what they learn to determine what factors help interdisciplinary students grow into independent scholars and better match students to faculty mentors.

“What are the conditions that make for success?” asked Tan-Wilson. “Or, how can we ensure that students don’t get frustrated with the challenges of interdisciplinary work? We want to find out what makes for the kind of fulfilling experience that then translates into careers in biologically-based research.”