Pamela Mertz, Professor of Chemistry and CBC Chair, with St. Mary’s College students
The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) Transformations Project will kick off this weekend, October 27-29, at The College of New Jersey, where the CUR-recruited consultants and departmental teams will begin their sustained work together for the next four years. Attending the meeting on behalf of St. Mary’s College is administrative co-lead of the project, Christine Wooley, interim associate dean of curriculum, and departmental co-leads Aileen Bailey, Pamela Mertz, and Kelly Neiles.
St. Mary’s College of Maryland is one of only 12 institutions selected by CUR for its Transformations Project, funded by the National Science Foundation. The Transformations Project will revise traditional four-year undergraduate curricula in biology, chemistry, physics, and psychology by focusing on high-quality undergraduate research throughout the four years of a student’s major. Participants from institutions around the country will directly engage in novel research to study the student, faculty, departmental, and disciplinary influences on the process of integrating and scaffolding undergraduate research experiences throughout the curriculum in two of the four possible disciplines.
A team of 16 faculty and staff members at St. Mary’s College are participating, including principal investigator and co-lead Sabine Loew Dillingham, director of the office of research & sponsored programs.
The full team is comprised of:
- Michael Wick, provost and dean of faculty
- Anne Marie Himmelheber Brady, director of the office of institutional research
- Pamela Mertz, CBC’s chair & professor of chemistry
- Kelly Neiles, assistant professor of chemistry
- Andrew Koch, professor of chemistry
- Randolph Larsen, professor of chemistry
- Daniel Chase, assistant professor of chemistry
- Geoffrey Bowers, assistant professor of chemistry
- Aileen Bailey, Aldom-Planseon Honors College Professor of psychology
- Nathaniel Foster, assistant professor of psychology
- Cynthia Koenig, associate professor of psychology
- James Mantell, assistant professor of psychology
- Jennifer Tickle, associate professor of psychology
- Elizabeth Nutt Williams, professor of psychology & chair of the psychology department
- Christine Wooley, interim associate dean of curriculum
- Sabine Loew Dillingham, director of the office of research & sponsored programs