At St. Mary's, research isn't just for graduate students.The undergraduate research experience prepares students not only for gradaute studies and research careers, but for real life situations that require a mix of analysis and practical problem-solving. Aside from mastery of a research topic, the student becomes more advanced in critical reading and writing, public speaking, and library research methods.

Furthermore, professional performance and academic discourse are essential skills for tomorrow's researchers. For this reason, the Undergraduate Research Office works to increase the number of undergraduate research students' publications and presentations and to ensure content and skill mastery, disciplinary socialization, and identity goals of undergraduate researchers.

Exhibitions

St. Mary's is known for its level of academic excellence and innovation in education. That's why undergraduates at St. Mary’s can conduct long-term research projects and present their findings at the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium and Creative Activities Exhibition.

Students from each of the five schools develop their projects for as long as two years and then compete for awards during the exhibition. Past presentation have been as varied as to include projects titled "Thalidomide-Induced Dysfunction in Schwann Cells," "How Advertising Adjusts—A Cross-Cultural Analysis," and "How the Current Economic Crisis Has Affected the Medical Tourism Industry."

Fellowships

The Office of Undergraduate Research awards fellowships to students interested in pursuing research or creative efforts. The fellowships are distributed among the three undergraduate schools to students in all academic disciplines.

The fellowships provide funds for undergraduate students to participate with faculty mentors in an eight-week intensive scholarly endeavor. Each fellowship provides a $2,500 student stipend and a $1,000 faculty stipend. Additional funds are available if the student requires additional supplies or resources.

The Undergraduate Research Travel Award is another way that the school helps students gain real-life research experience. This award makes it easier for students to contribute current research discussions at professional conferences and other academic venues.

The Jose Miguel Cimadevilla Memorial Seminar Series

The Jose Miguel Cimadevilla Memorial Seminar Series, a campus-wide seminar series in honor of the late Jose Miguel Cimadevilla, Ph.D., serves a more diverse platform for students and faculty to present and discuss recent advances in their research endeavors on our campus. It invites guest speakers to campus in a casual setting in which they can share with students expertise and stories from their careers and life experience. Speakers are local professionals, professors from neighboring universities, and St. Mary's students who have completed a notable project, internship or study abroad experience.

The most recent program includes John Schetz, Ph.D., from the Department of Pharmacology & Neuroscience at the University of North Texas Health Science Center; Tony Comuzzie, Ph.D., Department of Genetics at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research; and Jennifer Gonzalez, an NIH NRSA Fellow from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Jose Miguel Cimadevilla, Ph.D., was instrumental in bringing the Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) grant to campus in 1983 as well as numerous grants related to research opportunities for minority students, such as those from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Office of Naval Research. These grants enabled students from St. Mary's University to gain research experience at a number of research-intensive institutions. A majority of these students continued their education by obtaining advanced degrees such as the M.S., Ph.D., or M.D.-Ph.D. Without the opportunity to perform research while attending St. Mary’s many of these students would not have chosen these career paths.

As part of the MARC training program, Miguel initiated a biomedical research seminar series that met on Friday afternoons. These seminars consisted of local as well as national speakers including former MARC trainees. Beginning in the fall 2007, students and faculty from all three schools will be giving seminars on Friday afternoons. It seemed to me a natural extension of a program initiated by Miguel over 20 years ago, and it seems fitting to honor the individual responsible for starting the seminar series.