Science Institute

Through innovative teaching, curriculum development, lectures, and research seed grants, the Science Center fosters a deeper appreciation for scientific inquiry and education, both within the University and the broader community.

Facilities

Fairfield University offers state-of-the-art science labs where students conduct innovative, in-depth, and collaborative research under the guidance and encouragement of faculty experts and staff.

Science Grant Awardee Projects

The Science Institute considers the sciences to include the study of biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics, and some areas of the social sciences that employ scientific approaches.

The Science Institute supports projects in these areas through the financial resources of the Science Institute Quasi Endowment, the Science Endowment Fund, the Klimas Fund, and a portion of indirect costs generated by previously funded research grants. Below are examples of recent projects.

Rolling Grant

Greg Burzynski, Faculty Development: "Rock Talk: Attending GSA Connects 2023 for DEI learning and professional growth"
Frances Forrest, Faculty Development: "Exploring Early Human Life and Diet in Koobi Fora, Kenya"
Robert Nazarian, Faculty/Student Research: “Presentation of Undergraduate Research at 2023 American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting”
Karl Schmidt, Faculty/Student Research: “Presentation of Undergraduate Research at 2023 Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience Poster session at the 2023 Society for Neuroscience Conference in Washington D.C.”
Jessica Karanian and Shannon Harding, Student Development & Faculty/Student Research: “Student conference travel to Psychonomic Society's 2024 Annual Meeting in New York City”

Summer Student/Faculty Research Grant - Summer

Angela Biselli and Ryan Denke ‘27, Student/Faculty Research: “MARSLIDE: Mapping MARtian LandSLIDEs and Understanding their Morphological Characteristics via Deep Learning and Multimodal Imagery”
Robert Nazarian and Brody Matijevic ‘25, Student/Faculty Research: “Future Trends in Extreme Snowfall over the Northeast US”
Robert Nazarian and Maddie Biardi ‘27, Student/Faculty Research: "Mixing and Water Mass Modification on the Slopes of a Submarine Canyon"
Robert Nazarian and Ethan Chow ‘27, Student/Faculty Research: "End-of-Century Snowfall and Snow Pack for Major Mountain Regions Over the Contiguous United States"
Karl Schmidt and Sofia Nelson ‘26, Student/Faculty Research: “Various stressors differentially impact the discriminative stimulus effects of cocaine in rats”

General Science Institute Grant - Spring

Michael Andreychik, Faculty/Student Research: “Are People Aware of Their Implicit Attitudes? The Answer Might Depend on How Such Attitudes are Measured”
Angela Biselli, Curriculum Development: “Enhancing Physics Lab Education by Creating Engaging Physics Demonstration Videos”
Ashley Byun and Danushka Bandara, Faculty/Student Research: “Fishial Recognition: A deep learning approach for individual fish identification”
Shannon Harding, Faculty/Student Research: “Further explorations of sex differences in behavior of social isolated rats”
Linda Henkel, Faculty/Student Research: “Applied Memory and Cognition Lab Students Attending National Cognitive Psychology Conference”
Jessica Karanian and Danushka Bandara, Faculty/Student Research: “Memory Retrieval Under Stress”
Karl Schmidt, Jessica Karanian and Shannon Harding, Student Development & Event: “Student Travel to the Neuroscience Research Conferences”
Jill Smith-Carpenter, Faculty/Student Research: “Expanding the Library of Self-Assembling Nucleopeptides”
Aaron VanDyke, Student Development & Faculty/Student Research: “Cross-Cutting Research Training for Fairfield Undergraduates at Georgetown University”

Featured

Students collaborate in a laboratory, focused on a scientific project with various equipment around them.

Fairfield Meditz Researchers Break New Ground in Chemical Tools for Neuroscience

Elizabeth Stone, PhD, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, recently traveled to Washington, D.C., with her student research team: Eleanor Feuster ’27, Kacey McGorry ’27, Mason Macuch ’28, and Katelyn Wiehe ’27, to meet with Georgetown University collaborators in the He Lab, Department of Biology.

Students from the Vertebrate Zoology Lab posing as a group in front of the Zoo Tampa sign.

Fairfield Students Present Research at AZA Conference for 13th Consecutive Year

A group of students in lab coats collaborating on a science project at a lab table.

Genetics Global Scholar: Anita Fernandez, PhD

More Fairfield News

Fairfield Awarded $378K Grant From Howard Hughes Medical Institute

A team of science and mathematics faculty members at Fairfield University has been awarded a prestigious grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) to transform the introductory experience for STEM students, with the goal of improving retention and success for all students, especially for students of color and others who have been traditionally excluded from these disciplines.

Learn More

Leadership & Administration

The Science Institute director is appointed by the dean of the Meditz College of Arts & Sciences and supported by an advisory committee made up of faculty. Together with the dean’s office, this committee has responsibility for disseminating information to the faculty regarding the mission of the Institute and for establishing guidelines and procedures for reviewing and selecting proposals. The Science Fund is administered by the dean of Fairfield Meditz and is subject to review by the Academic Vice President in accordance with normal institutional operating procedures.

Science Institute Director

Amanda S. Harper-Leatherman

Associate Director, Honors Program | Professor, Chemistry

aharper@fairfield.edu

Paul Riccio

Assistant Professor, Biology

priccio@fairfield.edu

Karl Schmidt

Assistant Professor, Psychological & Brain Sciences

kschmidt@fairfield.edu

Joan Francis

Senior Coordinator, BNW 118

jfrancis@fairfield.edu

Science Institute

Facilities

Science Programs

Biology

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Mathematics

Physics

Psychology and Brain Science