With a million extra dollars on the way, Tufts' Robinson Professor of Chemistry David Walt has big plans.
Walt was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Professor on Apr. 5. The 20 scholars who receive the award will be given a $1 million grant for undergraduate science teaching.
"When I received notification that I'd won the award I was thrilled for both myself, the chemistry department and the university," Walt said. "It's one of the most prestigious medical research institutes in the world. HHMI is a highly selective organization."
HHMI, founded by aviator and philanthropist Howard Hughes, has become the nation's largest supporter of research and science education, according to its Web site.
The award is unusual, Walt said.
"This particular award is for people who are active researchers to bring their research expertise to undergraduate students and others who would normally not engage in the research effort," he explained.
The first part of Walt's financed project deals with "transitioning a very sophisticated type of testing technology into undergraduate laboratories."
"We hope to be able to develop tests so that students could tell if certain foods were contaminated," Walt said. "Students may one day even be able to test whether they'd been exposed to certain diseases."
The transition will "simplify this process without sacrificing the rigor of the learning," Walt said.
The second element of his project will involve collaboration with Professors Carla Brodley and Lenore Cowen in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS).
"My lab generates tremendous amounts of data - huge data sets," Walt said. "Accordingly, undergraduate computer science majors will be able to work with us to understand the kind of data that we are collecting. It has both chemistry and biology components."
"We hope to develop new computer algorithms that are efficient, and [to] begin to extract information from the data sets," he added.
The final part of the project will "develop materials that would enable some rather sophisticated chemical biology experiments to be introduced into K-through-12 environments," Walt said.
Undergraduates and postdoctoral students would work with teachers and high school students. Tufts' Wright Center for Science Education - a division of its Graduate School of Arts and Sciences - will also be involved with the outreach portion of the program.
According to Walt, HHMI professors' objective "is to in some way transition their research and make it more accessible to undergraduates."
In this way, he said, the undergraduates can "experience what the research enterprise is all about."
"What we are doing here is very new," he said. "The kind of funding that's being provided for this program breaks down a lot of barriers. It enables me to support undergraduate students and other faculty to really pay attention to these kinds of projects."
Two undergraduates who are already working with Walt (juniors Stacy Watkins and Jennifer Torpey) will be involved in the project, as will "a number of other students and faculty," Walt said.
The project is slated to begin this September and will run for four years.
Walt is the fourth faculty member from Tufts granted an award from HHMI.
Tufts University School of Medicine Associate Professor Andrew Camilli was named one of 43 Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators this year. Camilli will use the grant to continue his research on cholera and pneumonia bacteria.
He joins Microbiology Professor Ralph Isberg and Associate Molecular and Microbiology Professor Matthew Waldor, who are also researching under HHMI sponsorship.
