Participating in research while studying at the University of Rhode Island provided students in the College of the Environment and Life Sciences with the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in their field of interest that will aid them in their continued education as graduate students.
Emily Bauser is a fourth-year cellular and molecular biology major. Through her experiences working in labs, she has formed relationships with the lab principal investigators and the graduate students they mentor, which has helped her decide to attend graduate school.
“It’s just really shaped how I approach all of my classes, especially as I got into my higher-level ones because I started taking classes that really matched my research interests that I was interested in doing and building a diverse skill set,” Bauser said.
Jianna Calcinari is a fourth-year geology and geological oceanography major. Through research, she gained mentors in her fields of interest and has also decided that she wants to go to graduate school.
In her first year at URI, Calcinari struggled to discover an area of interest. When applying to graduate school, she plans to highlight her hands-on experience doing research to compensate for her early academic struggles in her collegiate career.
Calcinari researches how the removal of the Potter Hill Dam in Westerly, Rhode Island, will affect the community and local groundwater at a lab run by geosciences professor, Soni Pradhanang.
“I think that I’ve learned a lot, especially in the Pradhanang lab – since I plan on going into a geoscience field of research, because I’m using a lot of programming and data, I’m just learning a lot of things that can be applied to any other type of research that I’m doing in the field of geoscience,” Calcinari said.
Calcinari said that her research has helped her in her classes. She has already gained knowledge on many of the topics covered in her courses through working in these labs, allowing her to combine real-world experiences with conceptual knowledge.
Calcinari also participates in Graham Forrester’s lab where she studies selective mortality in wild and restored corals.
“Dr. Forrester’s lab, while I’m not in the marine biology program anymore, has helped me feel more confident,” Calcinari said.
Bauser formed connections with graduate students doing research at URI through her experience in the Coastal and Environmental Fellows program
Bauser does research in two faculty research labs, led by oceanography associate professor Roxanne Beinart and research associate Lisa Tewksbury, respectively.
In the Beinart lab, Bauser researches how to manage an invasive species that is causing massive erosion along banks in Louisiana. Her research aims to determine whether a predator of this invasive species would target other species if introduced to the environment.
In the Tewksbury lab, she works to understand the evolution of marine ciliates and how they coevolve with the bacteria they eat.
Bauser also worked as a teaching assistant for undergraduate microbiology labs. The graduate students she worked with through that experience also helped her find a lab that fit her interests.
“If you’re interested in doing research you should just go for it, even if it seems really scary and really intense and academic,” Bauser said. “A lot of the faculty here at URI are really supportive of undergrads that want to do research because they want to encourage people to stay in academia and contribute to [the] knowledge base they are trying to create here.”
Students interested in conducting research can email professors to ask for opportunities that may match their areas of interest, according to Bauser. Summer fellowship opportunities are also available for students at URI.