Karl W. Henry, Jr., Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Department of Biological and Allied Health Sciences

Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

Research Opportunities

If you are interested in doing research as an undergraduate, it is very likely that I will be able to provide you with a small project that can be tailored to you interests and provide you with "real-life" laboratory research experience in microbiology and molecular biology. There are a couple of requirements that you must agree to and fulfill if you are interested in performing research in my laboratory.

Contact me. You need to make sure that I will have the time to teach and train you during the time you wish to do your research. Some semesters are busier than others and it would likely not benefit you if I feel that I will not be able to give you the proper training and supervision during the time you would like to be in the lab. In addition, I will discuss in some detail the research that is being done in my lab and provide you with material to look over so you will be able to decide if you would like to work in my lab.

Volunteer. I would like you to spend a little bit of time with me (or a student that is currently doing research) in the lab so you can really get an idea of what goes on in the lab before you decide to take on a project. I would like you to do this at least two or three times before you decide on doing research. This can be as little as an hour or two on each of those occasions. It will allow you the opportunity to see what we really do and it will provide me with an opportunity to assess your current knowledge and skill level in the lab.

Other requirements and information

Background reading. If, after talking to me, you decide you would still like to work in my lab, I will provide you with a handout that discusses my research projects that are currently underway. This will give you a little more time

Research time. If you are going to perform research in my lab for credit (50-390 Undergraduate Research in Biology I or 50-391 Undergraduate Research in Biology II), you are required to spend 3 hours of research time per week for every registered credit hour. There are no hourly requirements if you doing research on your own (volunteer, work study or grant funded). Research time can include actual time doing work at the bench as well as spending time reading research related scientific articles.

Lab/individual research meetings. Group lab meetings will be held once a week and are usually on Fridays. At these meetings, each student is to present any new material/data obtained since the last meeting. Students can also use this time to get advice or troubleshoot problems they are having in their experiments. Students that have not been doing benchwork and do not have data will use this time to present information from scientific articles they have been reading over the past week. In addition to the group lab meetings, it is possible that you may also need individualized meetings to discuss your project in more detail or to go over material prior to a presentation at a local/national meeting. These are not scheduled regularly as they depend upon the needs of the student.

Progress reports and assessments. In order to properly evaluate your progress, it is necessary to have timely reviews. While these will be performed for all students, it is more formalized for those students that are performing research for credit. Students performing research for credit must, as part of the evaluation process, present their research at the end of the semester (this can be done by participating in either a local/national meeting or at the College of Science and Technology Research Symposia held at the end of the Fall and Spring semesters). In addition, students must prepare a scholarly manuscript based on their research project. The format and description of the manuscript requirements can be found here. To aid students in preparing for these requirements, assignments have been designed to ensure the student is reading the necessary background material and following a logical scientific process to obtain data to test their hypothesis. The assignments can be found here.

Regular periodical presentations and discussions are all that are required for students that are performing research but are not receiving credit.