December Research Highlights Strong showing from Schmid at annual AGU conference
December 7, 2023
Recent grants, presentations and publications by faculty in the Schmid College of Science and Technology showcase the breadth of research activity across the college.
A new training grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture secured by faculty Rosalee Hellberg, Anuradha Prakash and Lilian Senger will provide more than $250,000 to support developing future leaders in food sciences. The grant will help train master’s program students in leadership, project management and technical writing, while also offering research, internship and shadowing experiences with industry professionals. Our Food Science program, one of the few in southern California, is emerging as a leader in progressive approaches to education that will meet the nation’s increasing demand for food scientists. This grant comes on the heels of Prakash and Senger’s recent publication with education researcher Assistant Professor Jeremy Hsu, which explores pathways to food science careers in the region.
The college is well-represented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, which is gathering this month in San Francisco. Nearly thirty Chapman faculty, postdoctoral scholars, graduate students and undergraduates will present more than three dozen projects. Among the highlights:
- Grand Challenges Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow Ariane Jong-Levinger will present on how to personalize climate impacts to improve scientific literacy at the undergraduate level
- Computational Analysis and Data Sciences graduate student Rejoice Thomas will present on methods for providing a holistic outlook for groundwater in California
- Environmental Science and Policy undergraduate Jocelyn Valdivia will present on tracking the fate of fermentable substrates in peatland soils
Lastly, a recent article in the OC Register explores research on sickness behavior by Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Patricia Lopes. Current work from Lopes and her research group, funded by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation, explores the idea that observing another sick animal may trigger an immune response in the healthy animal, even in the absence of direct exposure to the pathogen itself. Lopes recently published a review of how animals may anticipate infection in order to preemptively prevent it.