Who: Heather Christensen (egs8er@virginia.edu) and Willow Lovecky (wsl9ne@virginia.edu)
What: We are looking for an undergraduate student researcher to contribute to a project investigating pedagogy of environmental science field courses. The focus of the project is on the field activities in the Environmental Sciences Department’s core courses (ecology, hydrology, and geology). The student will map field activity sites in GIS, create site descriptions, write protocols for documenting future sites, contribute to field activity descriptions, and can anticipate becoming a co-author on the project's publication.
Openings: 1 student
When: Fall ’25
How: Academic credit
Who: Jemima Elsherbini (je6ug@virginia.edu)
What: My project is looking at soil salinization, or adding salt to soil, and how it can affect leaf size and shape in Hibiscus. I'm looking for help with three projects:
1. Determining the leaf area of leaves affected by leaf herbivory. Students would use ImageJ to analyze the leaves.
2. Watching footage of bees and observing when they collect pollen. Bee identification will be taught! There are three types of bees we’re looking for bumblebee, honeybee, and a specialist bee. Any other bee would be labeled as miscellaneous.
3. Counting pollen grains from two species of Hibiscus. This will be used to test an automated pollen counter as well as be used in a pollen viability study.
4. Counting seeds from Hibiscus seed pods.
All of these projects will be done remotely and would meet with me bi-weekly to as-needed.
Openings: 3-5 students
When: Fall ’25 to Spring ’26 optionally
How: Academic credit or volunteer
Who: Elise Heffernan (eh9hg@virginia.edu)
What: I have a dendrochronology project that focuses on testing the effect of detrending method on predictive power of tree growth estimates. If that means nothing to you, that's ok! I need a student to help me run some R code (already written, but some previous R experience would help), and participate in a literature review.
Openings: 1 student
When: Fall ’25 to Spring ’26 optionally
How: Academic credit
Who: Stephanie Petrovick (dwv4dj@virginia.edu)
What: I have four project available:
1. An opportunity for 2-3 students starting in the Fall 2025 semester processing samples for foliar nutrient concentration. This consists of a set number of work hours per week (negotiable based on student’s availability) where the student grinds foliar samples to powder, stores them, and then once all the samples are processed, packages them into tins for nutrient analysis. Instruction and help will be provided.
2. An opportunity for 1 student starting in the Fall 2025 semester working with sample trays growing in a greenhouse, specifically identifying seedlings from these sample trays. No watering, etc., work would need to be done, just the identification and cataloguing the seedlings during two visits per week, totaling around 3-6 hours of work per week at least. Instruction and help identifying the seedlings will be provided.
3. An opportunity for 2-3 students starting in Fall 2025 semester sorting and weighing dried biomass samples into plant functional groups. Instruction on plant identification and the rest of the process will be provided.
4. An opportunity for 1 student starting in the Fall 2025 semester sieving and weighing soil samples. Instruction on the process will be provided.
Openings: 4-6 students
When: Fall ’25-Spring ‘26
How: Academic credit
Who: Ethan Skuches (aba4yv@virginia.edu)
What: Nyssa sylvatica (black gum/tupelo) population differentiation and genetic analysis. The undergraduate will help with seed collection & cleaning, sowing of seed, and genetic analysis of plant tissue.
Openings: 1-2 students
When: Fall ’25-Spring ‘26
How: Academic credit
Who: Chris Oxley (ewc5gu@virginia.edu)
What: My project focuses on how parasitic sponges, predation, and larval recruitment affect the tidal distribution of oyster reefs in high salinity ecosystems.
1. This project will analyze photos of oysters and shells collected at different tidal heights in the Virginia Coastal Reserve. They will measure oyster sizes, shell fragment sizes, and the prevalence of shell parasites and predation markers. Students will help visualize and analyze data using R.
2. This project will use photo analysis to measure the starting sizes and sponge infestation levels of oysters and shells used in a long-term common garden experiment. Students will have an opportunity to help with field and lab processing of common garden plots during the Fall or Spring semesters.
Openings: 1-2 students per project
When: Fall ’25-Spring ‘26
How: Academic credit
Who: Mirella Shaban (qwe2qh@virginia.edu)
What: This project entails the student running large data sets through various cleaning and analysis scripts to produce data visualizations, run statistical tests, and form understanding of trends in time series data for micrometeorological variables and air quality data from an Arctic dataset.
Openings: 1-2
When: Fall ’25-Spring ‘26
How: Academic credit