Jonathan Cumming has always been interested in plants and the way they grow. A professor of biology at West Virginia University, it all started when he was growing plants in his house as a child and, years later, he chose to focus his career on identifying specific plants and how they thrive in different types of soil.
The weather outside wasn’t quite frightful, but it was delightful inside the West Virginia University Coliseum Friday (Dec. 15) as the largest December graduating class in the University’s 150 years received diplomas amid cheers, shrill whistles and honking horns from their friends and families.
Scientists pause each afternoon at Kirtland Air Force Base in Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, awaiting the daily lightning flash and unmistakable floor jolt that accompanies a Z shot. West Virginia University physics professor Mark Koepke and his students are often among them, taking advantage of approximately 20 of the more than 200 Z shots per year to examine the physical principles that govern extreme astrophysical environments through the study of high energy density physics.
Physicists at West Virginia University have discovered a way to control a newly discovered quantum particle, potentially leading to faster computers and other electronic devices.
Colin Lopez has been selected as West Virginia University’s first Schwarzman Scholar and one of only 142 students worldwide chosen to study at Tsinghua University in Beijing, one of China’s premiere institutions.
Five students from the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University have been awarded undergraduate fellowships from the NASA West Virginia Space Grant Consortium. Each student will receive a $1,000 award – $500 from the Eberly College and $500 from the West Virginia Space Grant Consortium, a NASA-sponsored organization. The recipients are Ryan Culp, Ben Gregg, Andrew McGrady, Holly Pettus and Emma Sherfinski.
A dozen WVU social work students have received the Social Work Pay It Forward scholarship, which has been in place for a decade. This scholarship is made possible by 120 donors that who have given 280 gifts totaling $110,000. The idea behind the scholarship is to encourage recipients of the scholarship to not pay back the money given, but to instead pay it forward to support students with financial need.
Just days after being named Mr. Mountaineer, a competitive award that recognizes exemplary academic achievement and extracurricular involvement, West Virginia University senior Garrett Burgess got word that he is a finalist for the prestigious British Marshall Scholarship.
Emily Calandrelli, a West Virginia University alumna who is currently the Emmy-nominated host of FOX’s Xploration Outer Space and chief correspondent on Netflix’s show, “Bill Nye Saves the World,” returns to campus as a scholar-in-residence Nov. 6-7. She will also share her passion for space exploration in an “Evening with the Space Gal,” at 7:30 p.m. Monday (Nov. 6), in the Mountainlair Ballrooms. This event is open to the public.
Water is the driving force of all nature, but how do people react when an area begins to run out of water? Martina Angela Caretta, assistant professor of geography at West Virginia University, seeks to answer that question in a report she co-authored for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.