STUDENT NEWS
Undergrads Increasingly Engaging in Research
“Experience is the teacher of all things”—Julius Caesar
   This ancient citation emphasizes the importance of learning by doing, which is exactly how William and Mary biology students are learning. Eighty percent of the biology majors in the undergraduate class of 2007 participated in research with a faculty member, or as an internship, during their years at William and Mary. Biological science at the undergraduate level increasingly involves research, and our students have benefited greatly from grants awarded to the college in recent years that fund hands-on research. Three large multi-year grants awarded in the past five years are:

• the Howard Hughes Medical Institute program , that provided $1.6 million in several multi-year grants that supported undergraduate research and led to new and enhanced courses,
• the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program for an interdisciplinary summer internship program to study watersheds working out of the Keck field lab, and
• the NSF BioMath initiative that provides $647,000 to William and Mary for students to work on both a mathematical and biological understanding of how habitat quality affects the long-term stability of animal populations.

Meghan Cavanaugh (2009) in Liz Allison's lab working on bovine DNA from a Colonial Williamsburg archaeology study

Adrian Monroe with screech owl