Learn About Swift Foxes, Clean and Sustainable Energy, Armenian Refugee Resettlement, Gypsy Moths in Michaux Forest, and Much More at Wilson’s 14th Annual Barsy-Colgan Student Research Day

Our 14th annual Barsy-Colgan Student Research Day is Friday, April 28, and is free and open to the public. Enjoy beverages and light snacks while you experience some of the fantastic research and creative projects our students have done this year with the guidance of their faculty mentors. From ways to block cancers from metastasizing to paternal bonds in Shakespeare’s plays, Wilson students have contributed to our understanding of science, medicine, art, and civilization. The student researchers will present their research in person or display it on posters in the library’s Lenfest Learning Commons and the Brooks Science Center. Seventy-five students representing multiple disciplines will present their work.

The live oral presentations will explore the likely spread of tick-borne diseases in Pennsylvania, poems about heartbreak, nursing students’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, and much much more. Presentations at the Brooks Science Center auditorium will kick off at 9 a.m. with a welcome address by President Wesley R. Fugate. Presentations in the library’s Lenfest Learning Center will kick off at 9 a.m. with an address by Dean of Faculty Elissa Heil. After a break for lunch around noon, oral presentations will resume in the Brooks sudatorium at 1.30 p.m. They will conclude with this year’s Disert Scholar Morgan Wineburg presenting her research on the effects of a beta blocker on glioblastoma (a type of brain cancer) migration and cytotoxicity.

Visitors can view the research posters displayed in the front lobbies of both the Library and Brooks Science Center. The research will cover subjects as wide-ranging as organic waste composting, horse bedding, mange in red foxes, treatments for various diseases, and the war on drugs. The student researchers will be available to discuss their projects and answer your questions between noon and 1.30 p.m. at both locations.

Louise Barsy Colgan ’80 and Sean Colgan are generously endowing student research grants and underwriting the “Barsy-Colgan Student Research Day” to honor two Wilson College alumnae—Louise Barsy Colgan and her mother, Helen Yeager “HiY” Barsy ’44. The Colgans hope their support encourages students to passionately pursue their interests and to follow the patterns of the universe’s minute and immense handiwork. For a complete schedule, go to wilson.edu.