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Graduate Education

A thank you card sits on a table, its content reads praises to WVU advisrrs for adviser appreciation day.
A grid made of five photos of WVU students and a blue square with the words

Five WVU students named prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellows

Five West Virginia University students have joined an elite group of researchers who’ve been awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, a program aimed at supporting graduate education in STEM-based fields. They are Austin Braniff, Kara Cunningham, Courtney Glenn, Ashley Martsen-Poulin and Megan Weaver.

A graphic trying to show the reality of Alzheimers disease. The side profile of a head is shown on a bright blue background and there are linear sections of the head removed and set apart to infer disjointed pieces.

WVU Alzheimer’s disease study focuses on broken connections

West Virginia University neuroscientists are looking into why people with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease can remember events from decades ago but cannot recall something that happened in the past few hours. Their ongoing study indicates the issue could have to do with the vulnerability of certain synaptic connections, the places where neurons meet to communicate.

A photograph of inside the WVU Coliseum during Commencement.
The Evansdale Campus is shown in a wide shot, including the Student Rec Center, Towers and the HSC buildings.
Donna Hoylman Peduto speaks at a podium in the atrium of the WVU School of Medicine to a crowd of people gathered for an event.

Hoylman family support spurs innovation at WVU Cancer Institute

Don Hoylman and his wife, Marcella, first began giving to the WVU Cancer Institute in the 1980s. Their giving escalated after Hoylman became a patient himself and culminated with a transformational leadership donation made through his trust in 2018. Following his passing three years later at the age of 91, the Hoylman family’s generosity continues to spur innovation at the WVU Cancer Institute.

A picture of two female researchers working on a computer screen. One researcher, which shoulder length black hair, commands the mouse while the other with blonde hair, is motioning towards the keyboard.

WVU psychologist ‘reverse engineers’ slot machines to better understand compulsive gambling

A West Virginia University researcher is studying slot machines to determine what makes them a potentially addictive form of gambling. To do so, she will spend the next two years reverse engineering certain structural characteristics of the machines to find out what makes them an immersive product. Her research is supported by the International Center for Responsible Gaming.

WVU researcher Jonathan King sifts through stacks of papers on a large wooden table for his research. He is seated in a library and stacks of books can be seen in the background.
A student looks down while working on a black robot surrounded by wires.

WVU students innovate and serve through unique research opportunities

As WVU celebrates its sixth annual Research Week from April 1-5, many students have found purpose on campus through discovery and innovation. “We would not be an R1 institution if not, in part, for the drive and determination of our student researchers,” Vice President for Research Fred King said.

A pair of hands assembling Lego pieces.

WVU study shows treating work like a game drives results

Research from West Virginia University industrial engineer Makenzie Dolly suggests employee motivation and productivity may increase when game-like elements, such as progress bars and badges, are integrated into industrial workers’ performance of manufacturing tasks that are rote and repetitive, like Lego assembly.