Cheyney Student Places First In National Science Foundation (NSF) HBCU-UP Poster Competition

PR Log (Press Release) – Oct 28, 2008 – Under the support of a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) hosted the 2008 HBCU-UP National Research Conference last week in Atlanta, Georgia.  According to the AAAS, the conference features undergraduate student research and institutional strategies to enhance the quality of undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and research at HBCUs. The HBCU-UP program champions for the important role that HBCUs have in increasing the numbers of underrepresented minorities that are well prepared for participation and leadership at every level of education and research in STEM.

More than 700 students, faculty, and administrators participated in the program this year, and undergraduate students made oral and poster presentations about their research.  The poster display of Cheyney University undergraduate student, Walter Lewis, placed first at the NSF HBCU-UP Research Conference.  The project, A Computational Process to Locate IS Elements and Study Horizontal Gene Transfer in Bacterial Genomes, is the result of his research conducted at the Brookhaven National Laboratory during his internships in the summers of 2006 and 2007.

Earlier this year, Walter took part in the Colgate-Palmolive NOBCChE (National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers) undergraduate poster competition and placed third in his category (Material Science & Biology), right on the heels of an entry from Yale University.