MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Middle Tennessee State University’s College of Basic and Applied Sciences recently awarded three students its annual CBAS Research Awards. 

Amanda Lake Heath won the Distinguished Doctoral Research Award, Joseph May won the Outstanding Masters Research Award and James Evans won the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award. 

“Research is a foundational endeavor in fields of science and mathematics, and the ‘currency of success’ in these fields is the communication of new discoveries,” said Dean Greg Van Patten. “In giving these awards, we are rewarding excellence in this pursuit for young scientists and mathematicians. We are also making them aware that research and research outcomes are important measures of success and therefore important to their own career development.”

The college presents recipients with a monetary award and plaque, and winners must all demonstrate a record of outstanding research, with graduate winners’ work showing a long-term contribution to their disciplines and the undergraduate’s work showing an ability to balance their coursework and their research. 

The college launched the first two graduate awards four years ago followed by the undergraduate award the following year.  

“Winning this award was one of those times where I reflected on all I had accomplished with my time at MTSU in the College of Basic and Applied Sciences and realized that I had expanded my own success far more than I ever thought I would with my time here,” said James Evans, who graduated with a degree in biology last month and conducted research on novel cancer treatments.

Joseph May, who earned his master’s in computer science last month, said he felt “pretty darn cool” when he learned about his win. May researched refinements to “conversational recommender systems,” an artificial intelligence tool for better recommending content to users across platforms such as YouTube, Amazon, TikTok and more. 

Support for student research

Van Patten highlighted a handful of the multiple efforts the college makes to support and reward student research: 

• Hosting an annual ‘Scholars Day’ research poster presentation event to showcase student work, with additional monetary awards given to students at the college-level and universitywide poster events.
• Hosting the ‘3-minute Thesis at Middle Tennessee’ competition annually for graduate students to showcase their research through a brief, oral presentation. 
• Providing small travel funding awards to students to enable them to attend conferences to present their research to scientists from across the country.
• Providing support to students through small grants to grant-active researchers through the CBAS Bridge Grant Program and through two initiatives aimed at promoting involvement of underrepresented minorities on research projects with some of the most research-active faculty members across the college.

Evans will pursue his Ph.D. in quantitative and chemical biology at Vanderbilt this fall and outlined the bevy of research support he received at MTSU. 

He emphasized that help from the Undergraduate Research Center — such as processing the funding he and his mentor April Weissmiller, assistant professor of biology, received from the National Institutes of Health — and its internal Undergraduate Research Experience and Creative Activity grant are key in opening up the opportunity for undergraduates to prioritize research.

“Dr. Weissmiller allowed me to flourish in such a critical time in my education and career path,” said Evans, who is from Lascassas. “Having (an) irreplaceable mentor at such an early stage was fundamental for me getting this award. She saw the potential in me to morph into an amazing researcher and future investigator that I would have never seen myself doing before working for her.

“… Truly I have gotten to go to amazing places and do unbelievable things that would have never happened without Dr. Weissmiller; she has taught me skills for work and life that I think will lead me through my future.”

May said Joshua Phillips, associate professor of computer science, kicked off his research experience as an undergraduate where he worked as a research assistant in Phillips’ summer program. 

Additionally, May had the opportunity to work as a graduate assistant, freeing up time and funds to focus on research, and participated in an autonomous vehicle research project with Jorge Vargas, associate professor of engineering technology. 

“(Also,) Dr. Khem Poudel worked with me on my thesis pretty much from the start of the master’s program,” said May, who considers Murfreesboro his hometown. “He was quite patient with me throughout the entire process as I switched thesis topics and presented pretty much no results right up until the end when everything came together like magic, so another big shoutout to him for getting me going and pushing me to also work on those other projects along the way, which made my application for the research award look stronger.”

May is now applying for jobs in his field, hoping his published research background will make him a strong candidate. 

Learn more about research opportunities at the College of Basic and Applied Sciences at https://mtsu.edu/cbas/. 

— Stephanie Wagner (Stephanie.Wagner@mtsu.edu)