Open to Opportunity

For Lee County, Virginia, native Olivia Baker, attending UVA Wise meant she could fully immerse herself in the student experience. Baker was a member of the women’s golf team, served as a peer mentor to first-year students, and spent the spring semester of her junior year in Ireland as a Carl W. Smith Bicentennial Scholar. “When you go out of the country, you have the opportunity to see so many big and beautiful things,” said Baker. “Things I never thought that I would see with my own eyes.”

A psychology and political science double major with a minor in biology, Baker worked in the lab of Marion Young, assistant professor of psychology, whose research focuses on the effects of technology on children. Baker developed her own research study of the effects of technology on college students and, with Young, presented her findings at the Southeastern Psychological Association Conference in Atlanta.

Baker took part in the Congress and the Legislatures class, a course in which students write bills, give speeches, and argue for legislation in the role of a current member of the Senate. The class traveled to Washington, D.C., to see Congress at work.  “The trip reaffirmed my desire to pursue a law degree,” she said.

Bruce Cahoon, Buchanan Endowed Chair of Biology, brought together a group of four undergraduate students to conduct experiments aimed at freshwater mussel conservation. They used applied DNA techniques to study the dietary preferences of freshwater mussels in the Clinch River, resulting in significant new findings published in Nature’s “Scientific Reports” in May 2024. A National Science Foundation S-STEM grant and the Buchanan Chair of Biology endowment funded the study’s research and analysis.

“For undergrads to have accomplished a study that’s significant enough to go into one of the Nature journals is rare,” Cahoon said. “I believe this will become a landmark study as it demonstrates a basic element of their biology, what they like to eat. We were surprised to learn how little was known about this basic element of mussel biology.”

“Most people don’t have the opportunity to be a lead author until well into their graduate studies at a large research university,” said Isabella Maggard (Wise ’24), who authored the study with Kayla Deel (Wise ’23), Tina Etoll, and Rachael Sproles (Wise ’24). “This publication is the result of providing talented students with research opportunities and having an outstanding mentor who developed those talents.” Maggard won the UVA Wise Chancellor’s Medal for her work on the project and is now pursuing a doctorate in microbiology at the University of Tennessee.