Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Worland student among those involved
LARAMIE — A University of Wyoming program that began with four students in the fall of 2015 has now grown to 36 undergraduates who are engaged in cutting-edge research with faculty mentors.
The Wyoming Research Scholars Program (WRSP), part of UW’s Science Initiative, pairs undergraduate students with faculty mentors to participate in research for multiple years. In addition to the all-important mentorship aspect, the program includes a student salary for each student’s research time, funding for research support and supplies, and money for travel to meetings and conferences.
The WRSP aims to help attract top high school students, retain those students in the sciences, and teach science writing and presentation skills.
WRSP Director Jamie Crait says the program has become increasingly interdisciplinary, with students from engineering, math and education, in addition to those from science fields.
“I’m really excited about the opportunity to pair with a faculty mentor,” says sophomore Narisse Trippel, a mechanical engineering student from Worland who is beginning her second year in the program, working with Assistant Professor Erica Belmont in the Belmont Energy Research Group. “I also am really excited about my research in renewable and clean energies.”
Trippel’s projects have included investigating resource availability and economic feasibility of solar and wind energy on oil and gas fields in Wyoming, and looking at the grass Arundo donax for use as a bio-char fuel. She also plans to study agricultural waste for bio-oil and biofuel uses.
Like many students in the program, Trippel hopes to go on to graduate school.
“The program helps the students to be more competitive for positions after graduation because they’ve already been collecting and analyzing data, writing reports and presenting their results at conferences,” Crait says. “These are real research experiences that many people don’t have access to until graduate school or until they enter the workforce.”
WRSP graduates have already gone on to highly competitive graduate programs at institutions including Columbia University, Cornell University and Stanford University, while others have great research positions with companies including Bayer.
Students also conduct outreach during their time as scholars.
“Our students are great ambassadors for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields in Wyoming,” Crait says. Activities include giving presentations at their former high schools, leading lab tours for schoolchildren, helping with the Wyoming State Science Fair and leading workshops at the Women in STEM conference at UW.
Tyler Myers, a sophomore chemistry major from Sheridan who works with Department of Chemistry Professor David Anderson, is among 20 new WRSP awardees for fall 2017. Myers is excited for both the research and the opportunity to work closely with his professor-mentor.
“I’ll be synthesizing titanium ethylene complexes at liquid helium temperatures,” he says. “Basically, the whole purpose is to see how they attract and absorb hydrogen, and try to make a clean hydrogen fuel source.”
One of his goals is to publish a paper with Anderson. Myers encourages students to apply.
“It’s such a great program,” he says. “Once you’re in, the opportunities are so vast and great.”
For more information about the WRSP, visit the website at www.uwyo.edu/wrsp.
Listed are current WRSP area students and their hometowns, along with their research topics and faculty mentors:
Worland -- Narisse Trippel, mechanical engineering, “Survey and experimental assessment of agricultural crops and waste for biofuel production,” Department of Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Erica Belmont.
Greybull -- Logan Jensen, astronomy and astrophysics, physics, “Citizen CATE experiment,” Department of Physics and Astronomy Associate Professor Michael Pierce; and Anna Savage, environment systems science, “Monitoring vegetation phenology using MODIS time-series data,” Wyoming Geographic Information Science Center research scientist Ramesh Sivanpillai.
Meeteetse -- Colton Curtis, wildlife and fisheries biology and management, project and mentor undetermined.
Cody -- Brittany Nordberg, wildlife and fisheries biology and management, “The evolutionary history of Lake Tanganyika’s Nile perch species,” Department of Botany Assistant Professor Catherine Wagner.
Powell -- Sarah Wurzel, biology, Spanish, “The effect of spraying mosquitoes on macroinvertebrates in Spring Creek, Laramie, Wyo.,” Wyoming Natural Diversity Database research scientist Lusha Tronstad.