Lakeland University Students and Faculty Present Research at Summer Research Program Poster Symposium

Strategic Insights -

Four Lakeland University students, Gretchen Augustine, Serena Brunner, Mary Johnson, and Meghan MacPhee, and three faculty members, Andrew Karls, Paul Pickhardt, and Greg Smith, recently presented their research at the Summer Research Program Poster Symposium at Marquette University. This is the 17th year that Lakeland University students have been presenting at the Marquette event, having started the tradition since 2005. The students and faculty conducted their research through Lakeland Undergraduate Research Experience (LURE), a summer research program that brings students and faculty together to work on various projects.

Key Takeaways:

  • Gretchen Augustine, a junior biology major, presented her research on the impact of trifluoroacetate, a "forever chemical" in the PFAS family, on food webs and its effects on growth and reproduction. Her work built upon preliminary experiments conducted in last year's LURE program and investigated the impacts of trifluoroacetate on aquatic organisms at more environmentally relevant concentrations.
  • Serena Brunner, a senior biology and chemistry/biochemistry double major, and Mary Johnson, a senior biology and chemistry/biochemistry double major, worked together to examine how cells deal with stress by preferentially expressing genes involved in that stress response and sequestering others that are not involved.
  • Meghan MacPhee, a junior biology major, studied the frequency that deer ticks carry the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, finding that at least 70% of those sampled carried the bacteria.

Statistics:

  • At least 70% of deer ticks sampled carried the bacteria that causes Lyme disease.
  • This is the 17th year that Lakeland University students have been presenting at the Marquette event, having started the tradition in 2005.

Sources:

  • Lakeland University news release.
  • Oak Ridge National Labsrequently cited as a collaborator with Lakeland University
  • Marquette University cited as a collaborator with Lakeland University