Spring 2008

UROP Student Research Posters Exhibit 
May 5 -14, 2008
A selection of student research posters presented at the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program’s  2008 Research Forum and Spring Research Symposium will be on display May 5 – 14 in the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library Gallery (first floor).  The exhibit shows the range of academic disciplines with student/faculty partnerships and the contributions undergraduate students make to research work across the University of Michigan Campus.  Faculty and researchers interested in sponsoring a UROP student will be able to find examples of UROP student work and program support for UROP researcher sponsors as well as information about how to sponsor a UROP student.  Information sessions with UROP staff will be held for prospective sponsors as follows:

Tuesday        May 6     3:00 –    4:00 p.m.
Wednesday   May 7   11:30 a.m. –  12:30 p.m.
Thursday       May 8     3:30 –  4:30 p.m.
Monday       May 12   12:30 –  1:30 p.m.

All activities take place in Room 100 Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library.

Winter 2008

UROP hosts its 15th annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Symposium:

  Wednesday, January 23

  Rackham Auditorium       6:00 p.m.  - 7:30 p.m.

  Guest Lecture:  

  Dr. Todd Hayes, Professor of Integrative Biology, UC, Berkeley

  From Silent Spring To Silent Night: What Have We Learned?

  Open to General Public

Dr. Hayes developed an interest in wildlife and biology while growing up in Columbia, South Carolina. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard, earned a Ph.D from University of California, Berkeley and conducted post-doctoral studies at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health and the Cancer Research Laboratories, UC Berkeley. He joined the faculty at Berkeley as an Assistant Professor in 1997 and became the youngest tenured professor in the department in 1998. By 2002 at age 35, he was promoted to full Professor. Dr. Hayes now teaches and conducts research on the "role of environmental factors on growth and development in amphibians."

In 1997, Dr. Hayes began to consult and conduct research for Novartis (now Syngenta Crop Protection), a large chemical company specializing in products utilized in agriculture. In the course of conducting a study on the herbicide atrazine, he discovered that exposure to this herbicide significantly impacted the frogs’ development. The company tried to suppress his results, and to discredit his reputation as a scientist.

Dr. Hayes’ observations demonstrate the critical impact pesticides have on environmental health. Government agencies, such as the US Environmental Protection Agency, are ill-equipped to deal with these scientific findings and to translate it efficiently into health-protective policies. Dr. Hayes will speak to the environmental injustice minority and lower socio-economic communities face as these populations are more likely to live in contaminated communities, work in occupations that increase hazard exposure and are less likely to have educational and healthcare access.

UROP Accolades

In the recent ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, Understanding and Reducing College Student Departure, UROP was sited as one of nine exemplary student retention programs. The report is authored by John M. Braxton, Amy S. Hirschy, and Shederick A. McClendon.