{"id":23392,"date":"2016-10-28T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=23392"},"modified":"2016-10-28T05:03:52","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T10:03:52","slug":"apsu-biology-grad-students-continue-to-excel-in-their-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2016\/10\/28\/apsu-biology-grad-students-continue-to-excel-in-their-research\/","title":{"rendered":"APSU biology grad students continue to excel in their research"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – Since about 1950, the small-scale darter\u2014a tiny fish that lives in tributaries of the Cumberland River\u2014has existed in relative obscurity. Few scientists have heard of the darter or checked to see if the fish is in danger of disappearing.<\/p>\n

But for the last year and a half, Joshua Stonecipher, a graduate student with the Austin Peay State University Center of Excellence for Field Biology, has waded into local streams, trying to get an accurate estimate of the darter\u2019s population size.<\/p>\n

\"APSU<\/a>

APSU Field Biology graduate student Joshua Stonecipher has received three grants to study the darter fish that lives in tributaries of the Cumberland River.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a species of special concern,\u201d Stonecipher said. \u201cThey\u2019re deemed in need of management, and the theme of my project is to see if they warrant listing as endangered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stonecipher\u2019s research could ultimately save the darters from going extinct, and earlier this year, he received external grants from three major organizations\u2014the North American Fishes Association, the Society for Freshwater Science and the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists\u2014to continue his important work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very excited about this,\u201d he said recently. \u201cThe grants are probably more than I could have asked for. I\u2019ll probably get some recognition because of these grants, and others will look at my work and pick it up when I\u2019m done.\u201d<\/p>\n

At smaller institutions without doctoral programs, it\u2019s unusual for a graduate student to earn three external grants for his or her research, but in APSU\u2019s Department of Biology, this type of success is pretty typical.<\/p>\n

\"APSU<\/a>

APSU graduate student Megan Hart.<\/p><\/div>\n

In the last year alone, APSU\u2019s biology graduate students have earned several national awards, received thousands of dollars in grants, had more than 10 papers published in scientific journals and delivered 20 presentations at major conferences.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the publications, that demonstrates that their research is leading to real scientific products,\u201d Dr. Rebecca Johansen, APSU associate professor of biology, said. \u201cWith the presentations, I would point out that many were given at international conferences, and we had five students this year get awards for presentations at large regional or international meetings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recent APSU graduate Kris Wild was one of those students, earning the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists\u2019 award for best poster presentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a really big deal,\u201d Johansen said. \u201cThat\u2019s a large international society, and he was competing against Ph.D. students from R1 institutions.\u201d R1 is a classification for doctoral universities that have the highest research activity.<\/p>\n

The success of APSU\u2019s small graduate program is one of the reasons why Megan Hart decided to apply to Austin Peay. Hart earned her undergraduate degree from APSU, but she was looking to go somewhere else for her master\u2019s degree.<\/p>\n

[320right]\u201cThe opportunities the Center of Excellence provides are just fantastic,\u201d she said. \u201cI was thinking of moving away from Austin Peay, but I was offered a really awesome project here, and I wasn\u2019t offered this type of project anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hart now spends about four months each year walking around marshes in southern Louisiana, collecting research on how the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill has affected birds nesting along the coast. Her work recently led her to earn the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency\u2019s inaugural Robert M. Hatcher Memorial Scholarship.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat will help because doing research in Louisiana gets expensive,\u201d Hart said. \u201cBut it feels amazing to have a really hard-hitting project on something that has affected so many people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The APSU Department of Biology offers a research-focused Master of Science program to students who majored or minored in biology during undergraduate studies. The program can be completed in two to three years, and prepares students for avariety of careers.<\/p>\n

The program is offered through the APSU Clarksville campus and admits during fall and spring terms.<\/p>\n

For more information, contact Johansen at johansenr@apsu.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – Since about 1950, the small-scale darter\u2014a tiny fish that lives in tributaries of the Cumberland River\u2014has existed in relative obscurity. Few scientists have heard of the darter or checked to see if the fish is in danger of disappearing. But for the last year and a half, Joshua Stonecipher, a graduate student […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[23,6633,6367,262,825,613,29313,25959,5617,29314,25644,8448,13748,4694,29009,2637,5138],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-65i","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23392"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23393,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23392\/revisions\/23393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}