1. OUR NEWSLETTER
Goals of UR as HIP:
1. to increase and diver-
sify the opportunities
for students to partici-
pate in meaningful
research;
2. to create a learning-
centered approach to
UR that stands
across disciplines
and across research
modalities.
In This Issue
 The first two years of
“research in the
classroom”
 Spotlight on faculty
 CURE SI
 OUR SUN Award
 Upcoming CUNY
funding & PD oppor-
tunities
UR Faculty at the HIPs Showcase, Spring 2015
UR as HIP turns two!
Undergraduate research (UR) in higher education institutions is 200+ years
old. And Queensborough has a strong history engaging students in research
via stand-alone research courses, independent study courses, Honors pro-
jects, paid or unpaid internships, and grant-funded programs.
What is new?
UR became an official High-Impact Practice (HIP) in Spring 2014 when a professional
development plan to encourage “research in the classroom” was launched. Also, stu-
dent learning outcomes (SLO) and an assessment plan for UR were developed:
 self-reported benefits collected from UR students via pre & post surveys
(Lopatto’s CURE and SURE III);
 assessment of student work (papers/presentations) using rubric aligned
with SLO for UR;
 participating faculty members: their own assessments are covered under
existing IRB-approved protocol for UR.
Opportunities in Undergraduate Research Newsletter January 2016

2. 36
Number of new UR courses or experiences offered
Impact of professional development (PD) efforts for UR as HIP
Over the two-year period Spring 2014 - Fall 2015,
43 instructors have attended UR-specific PD workshops.
76% have implemented the UR course/experience they
designed, with some implementing it more than once.
Instructors that have attended PD come from:
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Biological Sci. & Geology
Math & CS
Chemistry
Social Sciences
English
Nursing
Physics
Business
Health, Phys. Ed. & Dance
Academic Literacy

3. Number of students impacted
Students engaged in new UR courses or experiences
506
0
50
100
150
200
250
Spring 2014 Fall 2014 Spring 2015 Fall 2015
# of Students # of UR Courses/Experiences offered

4. The Joint Seed
Soil Project
The presence of microbes in
the soil has important influ-
ences for the environment
and in human health. Some
bacteria can uptake heavy
metals and by doing so re-
duce pollution, other bacte-
ria possess antibiotic re-
sistance genes that could
be exchanged with human
pathogens. This study pro-
poses to characterize the
structure of the microbial
community of the soil asso-
ciated with roots of plants
from three different sites in
New York City:
 Thain family forest in New
York Botanical Garden;
 marshes in Newton Creek;
 Central Park.
This is an exploratory hypot-
hesis-generating project as
it will generate data to ad-
dress environmental and
human health problems.
The study received funding
from the CUNY ASRC Seed
Program and is led by Dr.
Monica Trujillo (PI) in colla-
boration with Dr. Akira Ka-
wamura (co-PI, Hunter Col-
lege) and Dr. Charles
Vörösmarty, Director of the
ASRC Environmental Scien-
ces Initiative.
Drs. Monica Trujillo, Joan Petersen, and Regina Alvarez
pose with QCC students in Central Park, one of the soil
collection sites for the Joint Seed Soil Project.
JOINT SEED SOIL PROJECT
Dr. Monica Trujillo is an associate professor and chair of the Biological
Sciences & Geology department. Dr. Trujillo has been investigating Streptomy-
cetes biology for several years. These gram positive soil bacteria have a com-
plex life cycle and produce most of the industrially available antibiotics. She is
currently investigating the role of rhomboids, a family of enzymes that hydrolyze
proteins within the membrane, in Streptomyces physiology. Dr. Trujillo has re-
cently become interested in the root-associated soil microbiome and the genes
that confer resistance to antibiotics and heavy metals.
Dr. Trujillo is passionate about involving undergraduates in research and has
been working with these students since her first years at QCC. She has an NSF
-Research in Undergraduate Institution grant supporting her rhomboids work
and has recently been awarded a Joint Seed Grant from CUNY to investigate
the soil microbiome in NYC. Aspects of this project were incorporated into sci-
ence and non-science courses at Queensborough so that a wide range of stu-
dents could be exposed to the research experience. Through collaboration with
Queens College and LaGuardia Community College an initiative to support un-
dergraduate research in Environmental Science and Geology was funded by
NSF.
Dr. Trujillo has been able to establish collaborations with CUNY senior colle-
ges. Dr. Kawamura from Hunter College provides essential support for her work
in natural products. She is currently working with faculty at the CUNY Advanced
Science Research Center (ASRC) in her two research projects.

5. The CUNY Advanced Science Research
Center (ASRC) is a state-of-the-art research
facility devoted to interdisciplinary work on
five initiatives: Nanoscience, Photonics,
Structural Biology, Neuroscience, and
Environmental Sciences (asrc.cuny.edu),
Currently, two funding opportunities are
helping to foster collaborations between
CUNY faculty and the ASRC:
 CUNY ASRC Seed Program;
 CUNY ASRC Cooperative Postdoc
Research Grant.
CUNY ASRC
Find out more at http://www.cuny.edu/
research/faculty-resources/internal-funding-
programs.html
Right: a group of UR students, faculty and staff from sev-
eral programs at Queensborough (CUNY Research Scholars,
CSTEP, RIMS, STEM Academy) posed at the entrance of the
ASRC after a guided tour of the facility at City College, August
13, 2015.
Below: Dr. Avrom Caplan (left), CUNY Associate Dean for
Research, and Dr. Charles Vörösmarty, director of the ASRC
Environmental Sciences Initiative, at the CUNY Research
Scholars Symposium held at John Jay on July 22, 2015.
More than 100 students had
research experiences linked to
the Joint Seed Soil Project.
That is about 50% of all
“research in the classroom”
experiences (QCC stats for Fall 2015).

6. Dr. Urszula Golebiewska, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences & Geology
Dr. Golebiewska received a M.S in Physics from War-
saw University (Poland) and a Ph.D. in Physiology and
Biophysics from Stony Brook University. She did post-
doctoral training also at Stony Brook. Dr. Golebiewska
shares the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental
Physics with other investigators of Neutrino Oscilla-
tions. At Queensborough she has implemented vari-
ous high impact practices, such as service learning,
collaborative assignments and projects (a.k.a. SWIG),
intensive writing, and UR. She has published exten-
sively on her research and on pedagogy. An ongoing
collaboration with the Science Education Alliance -
Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary
Science (SEA-PHAGES) Project from the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has allowed Dr.
Golebiewska to engage Queensborough students in
authentic research since Spring 2011. Participation in
the SEA-PHAGES project has resulted in several pub-
lications for Dr. Golebieswka and has motivated her to
engage in assessment efforts. She has presented at
the HHMI Annual Symposium about QCC’s participa-
tion and contributions to the project. Dr. Golebiewska
credits her colleague, Dr. Patricia Schneider, with first
establishing the connection between QCC and HHMI.
In Spring 2011, the then SEA-PHAGES project director Dr. Tuajuanda Jordan visited QCC and was
impressed with the quality of the students and their commitment to the project. Those first impressions
proved right.
Queensborough students co-authored three Gene Bank Submissions (two more are under review)
and co-authored presentations for the HHMI Annual Symposium winning awards almost every year. In
addition, students from several classes were listed as co-authors of a peer-reviewed publication in
eLife. Several students presented the genomic research at regional and national conferences and won
awards.
Some students got accepted to work in labs specifically because of the experience with bioinformatics
research of bacteriophages (e.g. Kevin Chavez was accepted in the laboratory of Dr. Kruger at Stony
Brook due to his work on Mycobacterium phage EricB; Marjorie Morales was accepted into the HHMI
Exrop Summer program).
Course: BI 202, General Biology II. Fall 2015
Research project: Annotations and genomic analysis of a genome of Mycobacterium Phage
Description: Students used bioinformatics tools to analyze and annotate genome of a myco-
bacterium phage (the DNA sequence is provided by HHMI).
“The Science Education Alliance (SEA) works with science educators at colleges
and universities across the United States on pilot projects designed to advance science education on a nation-
al scale”. The SEA Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) project is
“built around a national experiment in bacteriophage genomics. Students isolate, name, sequence, and ana-
lyze newly-discovered mycobacteriophages.” —http://www.hhmi.org/programs/
About SEA-PHAGES

7. Authentic
Research
Experience in
Microbiology
(AREM)
“AREM investigates the
microbiome of New York
City across its boroughs,
its streets and parks and
across time. AREM is the
first large scale genomics
approach to understand-
ing makeup of microbial
communities in the urban
environment.”
http://arem.cuny.edu/
Led by Dr. Theodore
Muth (Brooklyn College)
and Dr. Avrom Caplan
(CUNY Assoc. Dean for
Research), this NSF-
funded project has ex-
panded across several
CUNY campuses.
Dr. Joan Petersen has a Ph.D. in Microbial Ecology from Fordham Uni-
versity. She joined Queensborough in 2002 and is currently an associate profes-
sor in the Biological Sciences & Geology department. For the past 10 years, Dr.
Petersen has been co-director of QCC-STEP, a Saturday program for middle and
high school students, many of whom she has mentored in research. Dr. Petersen
has implemented service-learning, Honors, and undergraduate research into her
courses in several ways and is working to establish a new Environmental Sci-
ence program at the college.
Course: BI 311 Principles of Microbiology, Spring 2015
Research project: Authentic Research Experience in Microbiology (AREM)
Description: In this project, student groups collected samples from vari-
ous locations on campus and extracted DNA from the organisms present. The
bacterial DNA in the sample was amplified using PCR and next generation se-
quencing was used to determine a) which bacterial types were present in the
sample, and b) the relative abundance of each bacterial type. Students’ results
are presented on the AREM website.
Course: BI 480 Environmental Science, Fall 2015
Research project: The Joint Seed Soil Project
Description: Students collected soil samples, extracted community DNA,
isolated antibiotic-resistant bacteria from soil samples, gram stained bacteria
from isolated colonies, and identified isolates using the Biolog Microplate sys-
tem.
This school year, Dr. Petersen is working with about sixty students (and their
teacher) at Cardozo high school. Through varied research activities, high school
students contributed to AREM and soon will start contributing to the Joint Seed
Soil project as well. The collaboration with Cardozo was possible thanks to fund-
ing from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology - Hands-
on Opportunities to Promote Engagement in Science (ASBMB HOPES) program
(http://www.asbmb.org/outreach/grants/HOPES/).
The current collaboration has the potential to attract
additional funding to furnish the high school with equip-
ment needed for research and to provide research ex-
periences to more classes. In her assessment efforts,
Dr. Petersen included the use of Lopatto’s CURE Sur-
vey, one of the assessment instruments used at the
college as well.
Jessica Joyner (AREM) goes over the high school
students’ sequencing results with them..

8. Dr. Kwang Hyun Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Mathematics &
Computer Science department. He holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the CUNY
Graduate Center and is licensed in Industrial Engineer Information Processing
(South Korea). He is the department’s webmaster and member of the Math & CS
UR committee. He has mentored students in stand-alone research courses and
currently mentors one CUNY Scholar. He implemented UR in a regular course last
year and is preparing for its second implementation this Spring semester.
Course: CS 203 - Algorithmic Problem Solving II, Spring 2015
Research project: Solving numerical problems in science with programming
Description: Students worked in groups. They looked for numerical problems
in their science courses including mathematics and developed the software needed
to solve their problems.
Dr. Areti Tsimounis is an assistant professor in the
Biological Sciences & Geology department. She joined the
faculty at Queensborough in 2011. She has been taking ad-
vantage of the opportunities to teach smaller and more spe-
cialized courses to apply UR as a HIP. One of the primary
goals that drive her assigned projects is exposing students to
the more contemporary scientific literature. She is looking for
ways to improve the undergraduate research experience in
the classroom for students. Dr. Tsimounis has implemented
UR in two courses:
Dr. Kwang Hyun Kim
Dr. Areti Tsimounis
Course: BI 421 Human Physiology, Spring 2014
Research project: Past, Present and Future of An-
tibiotic Resistance
Description: Students worked in groups research-
ing topics related to antibiotic resistance (e.g., history
of antibiotic use, definition and statistics related to
antibiotic resistance, alternatives against infections,
etc.). Students had to research the primary science
literature and reliable public health information
sources and presented their results in class (oral
presentation and paper).
Course: BI 325 Neurophysiology, Fall 2015
Research project: The Neurophysiology of Mas-
sage Therapy
Description: Students worked in groups research-
ing a topic related to the neurophysiology of massage
therapy (e.g. history of massage therapy, established
effects of massage therapy on human physiology,
physiological effects of massage therapy in specific
age groups, application of massage therapy as a form
of treatment, etc.). Students had to research the pri-
mary science literature and reliable public health in-
formation sources and presented their findings in
class (oral presentation and paper).
In 2015: student Danny Philanthrope presented on “Numerical Computation of Inverse Matrices" at the
QCC Honors Conference; student Seong Ham and Dr. Kim co-presented on the "Online Cloud Systems" used
in their class at John Jay PATT Online Education Conference; Dr. Kim was a panelist in “Making the Case for
UR in Math & CS at a Community College” at City College, CUE Conference.
UR Presentations
Students delivered a poster presentation during
QCC’s Earth Day

9. QCC Team participates in inaugural CURE SI
The Texas Institute for Discovery Education in Science (TIDES) at The University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) and
the National Academies Summer Institute held the Inaugural Course-based Undergraduate Research Summer Insti-
tute (CURE SI) in UT-Austin from June 29 to July 2, 2015. A QCC team wrote a proposal that earned both the invita-
tion and a travel award to attend this institute. The institute brought together teams from 17 institutions of higher edu-
cation from across the nation, with Queensborough being one of only two participating community colleges. QCC
Team members will be implementing their CUREs in Spring 2016. These are their thoughts:
“The CURE SI provided tools and strategies to organize my research project in a way that could be implemented in a
classroom. Additionally, it allowed us to network with faculty from different types of institutions; some institutions had
well established research programs in the classrooms, while others were just trying to foment it. It was very productive
as we were able to grasp ideas from this diverse group of faculty. My CURE is embedded in BI 554 Research Labora-
tory Internship and will work on ‘Elucidating the role of Rhomboid proteases in Streptomycetes’."
—Dr. Naydu Carmona, Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences & Geology
“CURE SI provided valuable information about designing a CURE project, which in turn was helpful for learning better
teaching strategies in general, such as planning or assessing a course. I will be embedding a CURE in a section of
MA 119 College Algebra. We will be working on ‘Predicting the success of a TV series using data from social media’.
I hope to tap into students’ interests, increase engagement in the course and deepen their understanding of functions
and, eventually, see an improvement in grades and passing rates for the course.“
—Dr. Zeynep Akcay, Assistant Professor, Mathematics & Computer Science
“Attending CURE SI was a great professional development and networking opportunity for us. We are fortunate to
have Dr. Erin Dolan, TIDES director and co-developer of CUREnet, as our mentor and look forward to remaining con-
nected to this network. My CURE is embedded in a section of MA 336 Computer Assisted Statistics offered exclusively
to Criminal Justice majors and we will be ‘Examining the Criminal Justice System with the lens of Statistics’.”
—Dr. Maria Mercedes Franco, Associate Professor, Mathematics & Computer Science
From left to right: Drs. Maria Mercedes Franco, Zeynep Akcay, and Naydu Carmona snap a selfie over the Congress
Avenue Bridge in Austin, TX –a location also known as “Austin’s Bat Bridge”.

10. “I feel a strong connection to Queensborough; I spent 35 years teaching here, almost
half my life and enjoyed every moment of it. Queensborough gives students a second
chance and my husband and I believe it is important to give back to the community
through education.”
DR. SHAILAJA NAGARKATTE
The Department of Mathematics & Computer Science is pleased to announce the
Opportunities in Undergraduate Research
Shailaja and Umesh Nagarkatte (OUR SUN) Award
This award was established thanks to a generous gift made to the college by Dr. Shailaja Nagarkatte,
Professor Emerita of Mathematics and Computer Science at Queensborough, and her husband Dr.
Umesh Nagarkatte, Professor of Mathematics at Medgar Evers College.
The OUR SUN Award seeks to encourage and reward students participating in quality undergraduate
research experiences in mathematics, mathematics education, or computer science at the college.
Eligibility: full-time matriculated status; minimum GPA of 3.0; completion of either stand-alone re-
search course MA 905 or MA 906, with B+ or better; and legally documented student with F1 student
visa, permanent UR resident or UR citizen. Starting in Spring 2016, the department’s UR Committee
will oversee the application and selection processes for the OUR SUN Award, which will provide up to
three $500 cash awards per year.
Math & CS UR Committee members: Andrew Bulawa (co-chair), Maria Mercedes Franco, Daniel
Garbin, Kwang Hyun Kim, Azita Mayeli (co-chair), and Sylvia Svitak.

11. Upcoming Internal Funding Opportunities
Track 1: Collaborative Pedagogical Research Grant
“The program supports collaborative pedagogical research efforts of CUNY Community College faculty. The program
also seeks to leverage faculty expertise to promote student success. The primary goal is to seed research that will lead
to externally funded grant proposals and scholarly publications.”
Track 2: Mentored Undergraduate Research Grant
“This program is designed to increase the number of associate degree students who are engaged in faculty mentored
research projects. Research by undergraduates is a high impact educational practice, and the program aims to identify
and support faculty who can provide outstanding mentored research experiences for students. The Mentored Under-
graduate Research Grant program is open to all faculty across disciplines as long as the project involves faculty men-
toring of an undergraduate student.”
www.cuny.edu/research/faculty-resources/internal-funding-programs/community-college-grant.html
Submission Deadline:
Friday
April 1, 2016
Questions?
Contact:
Dr. Effie MacLachlan
Director of Grants & Reearch
Programs
Office of the Vice Chancellor
for Research
effie.maclachlan@cuny.edu
646-664-8908

12. Friday
March 11, 2016
at John Jay College
This day-long workshop
will feature
 keynote speaker,
Dr. David Lopatto
 poster presentations
 special interest
breakout sessions –
including session for
community college
faculty.
SAVE THE DATE
Organized by Dr. Avrom Caplan, CUNY’s Associate Dean for Research
“NOW” IS THE TIME to join our assessments efforts:
Dr. David Lopatto, Director of the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment and Professor at Grinnell Col-
lege has studied the impact of undergraduate research on student learning outcomes for over a decade. Queens-
borough’s assessment plan for UR includes the use of two of the surveys developed by Dr. Lopatto:
 The Classroom Undergraduate Research Experiences (CURE) survey has been used by approximately
2,500 students from 51 institutions representing more than 166 research-like courses;
 The Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE III) survey has been administered to more than
10,000 student participants from 150 American colleges and universities.
The surveys assess student learning gains in 21 areas -such us “understanding the research process in your field”,
“understanding how scientists work”, “understanding how knowledge is constructed”, “ability to analyze data”,
“ability to read and understand primary literature”, “self-confidence”, “clarification of a career path”, and “skills in
effective oral presentations” (Lopatto, 2010 and 2012). Free, fully online surveys; both have pre and post compo-
nents, each takes 10-15 minutes to complete; survey items align well with the college’s UR learning outcomes; a
CURE faculty survey allows instructors to indicate what aspects of the research they did/did not emphasize in their
courses; part of an ongoing national study. — http:// www.grinnell.edu/academics/areas/psychology/assessments
For questions, suggestions, or to get involved….
Dr. Maria Mercedes Franco
Coordinator for Undergraduate Research
mfranco@qcc.cuny.edu
CONTACT