Braley Gentry and Thomas Wiegand are the first students from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to attend the World Congress on Undergraduate Research (WorldCUR).
Their presentation was titled: “Using Network Analysis to Visualize Connectivity in Ecology Concepts — an Exploration of Research on Species Rarity.”
The focus of the research is on plants with particular focus on the integration of ecology and evolutionary concepts and how they contribute to the rarity of certain species. The students use a computational tool called “network analysis” in their research.
Almost 300 students from more than 30 countries attended the second WorldCUR, which took place at Carl Von Ossietzky University at Oldenburg in Germany.
Jennifer Boyd, assistant professor of ecology and biology at UTC, accompanied Gentry and Wiegand as their faculty advisor.
The pair previously presented their work at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research at Kennesaw State University in Atlanta in April and in November 2018 at the SoCon Undergraduate Research Forum at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C.