Two students get research grants

Two Cornell College juniors were awarded $750 grants by the Paleontological Society to help a professor with research this summer.

Chelsea Korpanty ’11 (geology/art)  and Elizabeth Erickson ’11 (geology/environmental studies)  each received a 2010 Student Research Award from the Paleontological Society. The awards will go to support independent research on Curacao this summer, which will then be developed into their honors theses next year.

Korpanty and Erickson, both of whom  are interested in pursuing graduate study of paleontology, have completed internships at the Field Museum in Chicago and the University of Minnesota, respectively.. They both will travel with Professor Ben Greenstein (geology) to the island of Curacao (Netherlands Antilles) for three weeks this June to conduct research on modern and fossil coral reefs. They then will work in Greenstein’s lab for the rest of the summer, and complete honors theses under his direction during the 2010-11 academic year.

The two competed for funding with other undergraduate and graduate students from around the world.

The Paleontological Society is an international nonprofit organization devoted to the advancement of the science of paleontology. The Society was founded in 1908 in Baltimore  and was incorporated in April 1968 in Washington, D.C. The Society has several membership categories, including regular, student, retired, emeritus, and spousal. Members, representing 40 countries, consist of professional paleontologists, academics, museum specialists, students, amateurs, and hobbyists.