Abigail Ellert earns SUNY Oswego summer research position

2015 Oct 9

Abigail Ellert of Glen Spey, a biology major, earned a SUNY Oswego Early Summer Scholars research position this summer as a sophomore, funded through the National Science Foundation's STEM Talent Expansion Program.

The program encourages freshmen and sophomores to stay with majors in science, technology, engineering or mathematics by offering five support programs, one of which is the chance to work on a faculty researcher's summer project.

Ellert worked with faculty member James MacKenzie on a project titled "Using Eastern Elliptio Mussels (Elliptio complanata) to Study Environmental Toxicants"; she earned a stipend supported by the grant.

SUNY Oswego is in the fourth year of a five-year $872,500 NSF STEP grant to encourage retention in STEM majors by providing peer mentors in laboratories, tutors in key STEM courses, math-in-context instruction and a pre-college intensive summer math bridge camp, as well as opportunities for early summer research.

About SUNY Oswego

Admission to SUNY Oswego is competitive. U.S. News Media Group counts SUNY Oswego among the top public regional universities in the North for 2015, and the Princeton Review includes Oswego in its 2015 college guidebook "The Best Northeastern Colleges," as well as its 2015 list of "best value" colleges and universities nationally. Kiplinger's also named SUNY Oswego a 2015 Best Value College.

A 154-year-old comprehensive college in the State University of New York system, Oswego enrolls about 8,000 students in its College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; School of Business; School of Communication, Media and the Arts; and School of Education.