WVSU Expands STEM Research with Equipment Upgrades

12/18/2013

---

Contact: Kimberly Osborne  
(304) 766-3363
kosborne@wvstateu.edu
     
INSTITUTE, W.Va. – West Virginia State University (WVSU) has been awarded a $20,000 grant from the West Virginia Division of Science and Research Instrumentation Grants Program to expand Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) research and teaching capacity. Funds will purchase a new gas chromatograph (GC) system for the University’s chemistry department.

The award is the latest in more than $600,000 in grant funds for the chemistry department over the past year and a half for equipment upgrades, including a new liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) system and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer. Such upgrades put state of the art equipment directly in the hands of students.

“The WVSU Department of Chemistry has acquired the instrumentation to do modern research while still maintaining a small university feel,” said Dr. Micheal Fultz, assistant professor of chemistry at WVSU. “Students attain a hands-on knowledge in the use of these instruments, which they will apply in their various research projects.”

WVSU instructors will now be able to be able to include GC-based laboratory activities in advanced undergraduate and graduate classes, including Organic Chemistry Lab, Biochemistry Lab, Instrumental Analysis and Environmental Microbiology.

The new equipment acquisition will also allow WVSU to support regional research and educational efforts in coordination with the West Virginia Education, Research and Technology Park, Kanawha Community and Technical Park, University of Charleston and West Virginia University Institute of Technology.

The West Virginia Division of Science and Research Instrumentation Grants Program is designed to encourage undergraduate students in West Virginia to continue careers in science, math and engineering. Instrumentation Grants seek to accomplish this by allowing the purchase of modern instruments for advanced undergraduate laboratories.

Follow West Virginia State University on Facebook and Twitter @WVStateU.
 
West Virginia State University is a public, land grant, historically black university, which has evolved into a fully accessible, racially integrated, and multi‐generational institution, located in Institute, W.Va. As a “living laboratory of human relations,” the university is a community of students, staff, and faculty committed to academic growth, service and preservation of the racial and cultural diversity of the institution. Its mission is to meet the higher education and economic development needs of the state and region through innovative teaching and applied research.