Science Education Faculty Julie Angle Part of Major NSF Grant at OSU

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Dr. Julie Angle, assistant professor and secondary science education program coordinator, is working closely with OSU associate professor of botany Dr. Andrew Doust on a four-year grant totaling $3.2 million from the National Science Foundation’s Plant Genome Research Program (PGRP).

Doust is studying genetic regulation of specialized branches in grasses, known as “tillers.” Tillers play an important role in grain yield and biomass accumulation, yet the full site of genes that contribute to their initiation and growth is largely unknown. Using her science education expertise, Angle is helping integrate high school science teachers into a research environment during the summers to gain a deeper understanding into how scientific knowledge is generated while also assisting with curriculum development. The grant provides a stipend for science teachers who are mentoring high school students in science research.

This project also includes researchers at Brigham Young University, West Virginia University, and the Plant Gene Expression Center in Berkeley, California.

The Plant Genome Research Program is under NSF’s Directorate for Biological Sciences.  The program began as part of the National Plant Genome Initiative, an interagency working group coordinated by the National Science and Technology Council. The goals of the program are to support basic research to address fundamental questions in plant biology at the genome-wide scale; and to build genomic resources, tools, and technologies to be made available to other researchers to enable future discoveries in basic and applied sciences to address societal issues related to agriculture and the environment.