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Application window for summer 2025 is now CLOSED--stay tuned for 2026
Alma College's RESS leverages experienced faculty members' expertise and excitement to support future teachers' science learning.
Available research projects center human physiology, human interactions with the environment, and (nano)chemistry, broadly, and are led by faculty mentors who are active in research, have past experience working with summer research students, and are excited to support pre-service secondary STEM teachers' engagement in authentic research experiences.
Dr. Harwood is an expert in environmental toxicology. Her primary research interests are on estimating the risk of legacy pollutants and road salts to aquatic systems.
RESS focus: Evaluating how road salts effect aquatic invertebrate behaviors such as feeding.
Read more about your potential work in Dr. Harwood's research group HERE.
co-Principal Investigator & Research Mentor
co-Principal Investigator & Research Mentor
Dr. Calhoun is an expert in genetics with a focus on developing assays that can characterize genetic variation within an individual. Past projects have centered upon determining an individual's blood type sans blood and predicting human eye color pigmentation as a forensic tool.
RESS focus: Currently the lab is focusing on understanding the inheritance of Bison and Cattle chromosomes (and phenotypes) in genetic hybrids known as Beefalo.
Read more about your potential work in Dr. Calhoun's research group HERE.
co-Principal Investigator & Research Mentor
co-Principal Investigator & Research Mentor
Dr. Harfmann is an expert in circadian rhythms and muscle metabolism. Her training consisted of research investigating the impact of disrupted rhythms on skeletal muscle glucose metabolism. Current work in her lab focuses on two areas: (1) Evaluating the effect of supplements on human circadian rhythms, and (2) Testing the effect of various cell culture additives on skeletal muscle glucose uptake.
RESS focus: The current project will assess the effect of Vitamin D supplementation on circadian rhythms and sleep parameters.
Read more about your potential work in Dr. Harfmann's research group HERE.
Research Mentor
Research Mentor
Dr. Gibson is an expert in nanochemistry. His research focuses on the synthesis, purification, and self-assembly of nanoscale materials. Materials on this size-scale behave very different from either atomic/molecular materials and from bulk materials.
RESS focus: RESS students will work on synthesizing and assembling gold nanoparticles functionalized with DNA.
Read more about your potential work in Dr. Gibson's research group HERE.
Liaison to eSTEM CORE summer research program
Liaison to eSTEM CORE summer research program
Lead Program Evaluator
Lead Program Evaluator
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