Grant People

Project Director
Dr. Kathy Silgailis, an Associate Professor in the Department of Exercise and Movement Sciences, has 10 years of experience as a mentor for students involved in undergraduate research.  All senior students in her major capstone course complete a research project. Results of two student projects were published in refereed journals, several student research presentations have been made at state and district conventions, one student presented a research paper at the WPUNJ Psychology Day, and last year, a student research paper was named a winner in the “Celebrating Excellence in Student Writing” contest at WPUNJ.  Dr. Silgailis also has experience in curriculum design and in applying student-active learning pedagogies.

Co-Project Director

Dr. Vishwa Bhat is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Disorders.  His research interests are in the area of  Hearing Science and Audiology.  He has established an audiology lab with state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment to provide full range hearing evaluation as well as to conduct clinical research, has taught computer and statistics principles for clinical research course for graduate students, has mentored course related research projects, and has assisted students in presenting research papers at professional meetings.  

Co-Project Director

Dr. Peter Chen, an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics, is a statistician. He has used the problem-based learning approach in teaching statistics for many years. Course projects and statistical software are integrated components in all of his statistics courses. Over the years, he has directed five independent studies and nine capstone projects for senior math. He has been a statistical consultant for many faculty/student research projects.

Evaluation Team

Dr. Bruce Diamond is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology with research/teaching interests in cognitive psychology and clinical neuropsychology. 

Dr. Joanna Hayden is the Department Chair of the Community Health Department.

Dr. Stephen Vail is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology. His teaching and research interests include ecology, evolution, and mathematical biology. His research is on the ecological dynamics of tick-borne disease and has involved the participation of more than two dozen undergraduate and graduate students. He is the principal investigator on a National Park Service grant that supports two thesis-research students in the M.S. Biology program.