Each year, students in NNU’s sciences departments are invited to participate in summer research. This year, students were involved in 11 projects.
“Summer research projects provide the perfect opportunity for our students to get hands-on experience and dive deeper into topics they’re interested in,” said Duke Bulanon, Associate Professor of Engineering & Physics. “Under the guidance of our sciences faculty, our students were able to participate in several amazing projects this summer that they can use long-term in their careers or as they pursue graduate school.”
This year’s summer research project offerings were:
Bioacoustics of Anurans in the Neotropics with Dr. Cossel Understanding how species use acoustic communication in anuran amphibians.
FireMAP: Monitoring Wildland Fires Remotely with Dr. Hamilton Developing FireMAP, a remote sensing platform for monitoring wildland fire effects and post-fire ecosystem responses.
Metal Nanoparticles as Antibacterial Agents with Dr. Nixon Evaluating metal nanoparticles as antibacterial agents against a variety of bacteria strains.
Nightjar Biology and Conservation with Professor Hille Studying the breeding presence of the Common Nighthawk in Southwestern Idaho.
OrBot and App Development for Agriculture Production with Dr. Bulanon Focusing on the application of engineering on specialty crops with the use of an iOS and Android app to estimate fruit yield early and developing an orchard robot to harvest fruits.
Programming in Python without C++ with Dr. McCarty Exploring opportunities to use reinforcement learning to create intelligent agents to defend networks against threats and hackers.
Regulation of Carbohydrate Metabolism in Uterine Cell Lines with Dr. Chase Developing hypotheses about the mechanisms of carbohydrate metabolism regulation and predicting therapeutic targets or identifiable risk factors for infertility.
RockSAT-X Program with Drs. Lawrence & Pratt Launching an experiment on a sub-orbital-sounding rocket out of Wallops Flight Facility and, in conjunction with the Colorado Space Grant, to use AI to control robotic arms to throw and catch a ball in space.
Sagebrush Volatile Organic Compound Emissions with Drs. Pearson & Griffin Working with Boise State University to develop a system to sense volatile organic compounds emitted by sagebrush when stressed or disturbed by predators.
Synthesis and Characterization of ZnO Nanoparticles with Dr. Harris Synthesizing and characterizing ZnO nanomaterials and testing the antibacterial properties of the plant extract against several bacteria strains.
Understanding Uterine Physiology from Breeding to Pregnancy with Dr. Hodonu Exploring the roles of insulin and prolactin during the reproductive cycle, its interaction with sex hormones, its possible effects on mink uterus and its role in glycogen metabolism.
Be watching nnu.edu/news for some exciting announcements about NNU’s Science and Engineering programs.