(Butler, PA) For the first time since the National Science Foundation began to fund residential programs, two Butler County Community College students have been chosen in the same year and bring to five the number picked by faculty members of host research institutions in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The selection in 2024 of Cody Reep, 20, of Butler, and Gwendalyn Myers, 19, of Freeport, “validates the fact that we have high-caliber students, offer strong programs and have excellent faculty,” said Matt Kovac, dean of BC3’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics division.
Reep is a general studies student who intends to become a neuroscientist and biomedical engineer.
Myers is a biological science student who expects to become a veterinarian specializing in avian medicine.
Reep and Myers follow BC3’s Jeannine Eichenlaub in 2023, Ash Eury in 2022 and Hope Miller in 2021 as first-year community college students picked from national applicants for 10-week residential research experiences for undergraduates that include housing, meal allowances and a $6,000 stipend.
“These are extraordinary opportunities to conduct research on a level that has to be the envy of other college students,” Kovac said.
“Cody’s goal is to develop a new form of neural interface, which is optical-based, to allow for a perfect prosthesis, or one as close to perfect as possible, to regain sensation, regain function and to do so in the least invasive way possible.”
Applicants for programs at CMU, UMass total 122
Seventy-seven students applied for a 2024 research project at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. Reep was one of 10 chosen and joins student-researchers from California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania.
A 2024 research project at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth attracted 45 applicants. Myers was one of 11 students selected, along with others from Arizona, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Rhode Island.
Forty-five students also applied for a 2023 research project at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. Eichenlaub was one of 10 selected to study damage sensing in liquid-metal-reinforced laminated composites.
A 2022 project at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Va., drew 50 applicants. Eury was one of 11 students chosen to handle, observe, inject and record stress reactions of approximately 64 red-sided garter snakes.
Twenty-five students applied for a 2021 project at James Madison. Miller was one of 10 picked to observe the process of cell death in the eyes of a common fruit fly and the effect on the fruit fly’s brain.
“There is a pool of students from which to pick, and research institutions know that they need to produce,” Kovac said. “Because in the end, they have to show they have met their stated benchmarks. So they are not going to just pick students who are not going to be helpful to them.”
“Gwen is doing a wonderful job. I love to say that. She’s an amazing student, very independent.”
“A new form of neural interface”
Reep, a 2022 Butler Senior High School graduate, is helping to create at Carnegie Mellon a tool that proves the effectiveness of using materials that convert optical into electrical energy to stimulate neurons.
Myers, a 2023 Freeport Area High graduate, is working at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth on nonaqueous redox flow batteries, which are an alternative and renewable energy source.
Reep and Myers in their first two semesters at BC3 have been selected to the president’s list, a recognition for students who have attained a grade-point average of 3.75 or higher following the completion of at least 12 credit hours.
Reep said he wants his work to “positively impact people. … to study the neural basis of neurological, psychiatric or motor disorders to treat or compensate for them using devices that record or modulate the brain’s activity.”
Daniel Ranke is a Carnegie Mellon doctoral student in material science and engineering.
“Cody’s goal,” Ranke said, “is to develop a new form of neural interface, which is optical-based, to allow for a perfect prosthesis, or one as close to perfect as possible, to regain sensation, regain function and to do so in the least invasive way possible.”
Her project, Myers said, “has taught me a lot about independence because I work by myself a lot of the time and design my own experiments.”
Dr. Vijay Chalivendra is a professor of mechanical engineering and director of graduate studies for the College of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.
“Gwen,” Chalivendra said, “is doing a wonderful job. I love to say that. She’s an amazing student, very independent.”
“The experience was extremely beneficial”
Miller is from Butler; Eury, from Cranberry Township; and Eichenlaub, from Saxonburg. Each graduated from BC3 with summa cum laude distinction, an honor for graduates with a final grade-point average of 3.75 or higher. Miller and Eury earned associate degrees in biological science and Eichenlaub, in engineering.
“The experience was extremely beneficial,” Eichenlaub said of her research at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.
“It introduced me to how research projects work, and gave me a closer look at what grad school is like. This program will help me to continue to do research as an undergrad and also if I choose to go on to grad school. I built on my communication and presentation skills, which will benefit me throughout my career.”
Miller is a student in the doctor of medicine program at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine and intends to become a physician.
Eury is seeking a bachelor’s degree in biology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and expects to work in bird conservation.
Eichenlaub will begin to pursue a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Penn State Behrend this fall and hopes to become a project designer and researcher.
Congress created the National Science Foundation in 1950 as an independent federal agency to, among other objectives, promote the progress of science.
The National Science Foundation states that it funds approximately 25 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by colleges and universities in the United States.
