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Cathy Murphy, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has been named USC’s first Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor.
The new award, sponsored by the Office of Research, includes a $2,500 stipend and was announced April 26 on Discovery Day, the inaugural showcase event for Columbia campus undergraduate research activities.
“My philosophy of undergraduate research is that the best way to learn science and to get excited about science is to do it—for real,” Murphy said. “As a faculty member at USC, I have taken this philosophy to its extreme, and essentially take as many undergraduates into my research lab as it can physically hold.”
Since 1993, Murphy has had 32 undergraduate students and 10 high school students involved in research in her lab. She’s had 11 publications in scientific literature that have included undergraduates as co-authors.
“All students who work in my lab are required to orally present the results of their research and write a formal report describing their results at the end of each term,” she said. “This gives undergraduates much-needed experience in writing and speaking to a scientific audience, which is typically lacking in the undergraduate curriculum.”
Since 1999, Murphy has been principal investigator on a National Science Foundation grant to establish a Research Experience for Undergraduates Program in Nanoscience (http://www.nano.sc.edu/reu). The program brings in eight to 12 undergraduates every summer to USC from across the country to do research on nanoscale materials.
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