Undergraduate Research

Research, by definition, can be an incremental, tedious process regardless of field.

But at Trinity, undergraduate research is about more than crunching data doomed for the dusty back pages of an academic journal. From the University’s very first steps into undergraduate research, our students have made breakthroughs that enact real change.

They’ve prevented the spread of mosquito-borne disease, helped save diabetic limbs from amputation, fought “fake news,” demonstrated the ecological consequences of global warming, and even saved priceless medieval music from oblivion.

These breakthroughs aren’t limited to fields in STEM or the humanities; in some cases, our students have tackled projects that bridge both! Regardless of academic field, Trinity’s support for undergraduate research empowers Tigers to dig deeper, all under the tutelage of qualified professors.

Origins of Research

The earliest research opportunities at Trinity came on the Waxahachie campus, where students in “The Bible as Literature” class were introduced to a critical study of the Bible in interactive class sessions that incorporated research projects on the text.  

Undergraduate research opportunities soon spilled over into different departments.

Professor Samuel Hornbeak's early-1900s sociology classes gathered data in Black neighborhoods about living conditions, economic levels, and religious practices. As a result of these surveys, the sociology club, with Hornbeak's approval, invited an Black clergyman to speak at one of the YMCA-sponsored student chapel programs.

In 1923 the biology department conducted a survey of homes in Waxahachie regarding mosquito infestation. In teams of two, students instructed homeowners on removing possible breeding places and received a letter of commendation from the State Board of Health for participating in the program.

On the Skyline campus in the 1960s, a group of Trinity students participated in the University’s first-ever summer-long research project in advanced physics, supported by the National Science Foundation.

Chemistry students have been performing independent research under the supervision and mentorship of the chemistry faculty since at least the 1960s. Early pioneers included professors John Burke and Ben Plummer, who in 1970 received research funding to support students during the summer months. Since 1984 the department has had a continual summer research program for students that concludes with a symposium, where students orally present their research results. The summers average 35-40 student researchers, one of the highest in the nation for an undergraduate institution.

A Resource For Good

For decades, Trinity students have been empowered by a wide range of resources supporting undergraduate research.

Grants from the Andrew W. Mellon foundation and Murchison Fellowships provide funding for summer projects in a variety of academic fields. Students stay in the residence halls free of charge and devote themselves exclusively to research for the summer. In summer 2018, these grants funded 138 students and 70 faculty mentors, representing more than 80 percent of academic departments on campus.

These student researchers present their findings at Trinity’s annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, held inside the Center for the Sciences and Innovation at the conclusion of the summer break.

Research is also not limited to the summer. Additional support comes from vehicles such as  the McNair Scholars Program, Mach Research Fellowships, and various departmental opportunities. There are semester-long classes such as the biology department’s Costa Rican Ecology class, which allows students to collect data on the distribution and abundance of mice and rats in Costa Rica. The ultimate goal of this ongoing research is to help create baseline data to build a better understanding of the general health of an ecosystem. This will help scientists better understand the long-term impacts of climate change on the region.

Digging Deeper

From summer projects to semester-long classes, research at Trinity connects students to real-world issues.

Adil Ahmed ’19 and Abbie Jones ’20 spent summer 2018 helping assistant professor of chemical engineering David Munoz-Pinto create a new type of wound dressing to save diabetic limbs from amputation. This is a serious threat, with 80 percent of Type 2 diabetes patients requiring amputations as a result of foot ulcers. But for Jones, who has a family member with diabetes, this problem was personal.

"Knowing what they are doing here at kind of the ground level, to be able to take what their ideas are and their concepts are, and to turn them into something that is viable and valuable, and something that can change somebody's life, it's really kind of overwhelming,” Jones’s mother said to a news crew that reported on Jones’ findings.

And engineering isn’t the only department shifting the field. Geology majors Caroline McKeighan ’19 and Curtis Segarra ’19 have spent more than a year with geosciences professor Ben Surpless using drones to produce 3D maps of a fault system. This innovative method is opening a door for faster and more efficient research on gas and oil recovery, groundwater flow, geothermal energy, and even earthquakes.
This research won’t just live in the Trinity archives: both students have presented their findings from the Utah project at a conference in Portland, Oregon, while rumblings of the team’s work could make it into national scientific publications in the future.

“That’s something that happens at Trinity pretty commonly: an undergraduate paper or thesis becomes the seed for major, peer-reviewed publication. And perhaps even one that can shift the way research is done in an entire field.” —Geosciences professor Benjamin Surpless