By Jeff Hunter ’96

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Lisa Berreau has been heavily occupied serving in an administrative role as the Vice President of Research at Utah State University for the past five years, but it’s evident the longtime professor still hasn’t lost her passion for mentoring young chemistry students.

“I have one student right now who just loves to make new molecules,” Berreau says. “He’ll send me emails at 10 o’clock at night saying, ‘We should try this.’ And I’ll write back, ‘Yeah, that’s a little tough. Why don’t we try this instead?’”

Berreau says meeting new people with new ideas every year is “one of the best catalysts for going after new ideas,” and working with students who might be interested in doing research in chemistry even though they might be seeking a degree in nutrition or engineering often leads to “exciting new collaborations.”

“Students bring the excitement to us as faculty, and we, in turn, get excited by what they’re wanting to work on,” Berreau adds.

Case in point, late on a Friday night, the student Berreau referenced texted her that he had successfully created a molecule “very tough to make in our lab.” She says he did it on his first attempt, though, because he’d been inspired to try a new method he’d read about. She approved the attempt, and it worked.

Utah State University, which boasts the second-oldest undergraduate research program in the country, has a long tradition of creating and presenting research opportunities to its students. But those students need support and guidance to take advantage of those opportunities, which is why the university puts significant resources into helping create and foster strong relationships between students and faculty members.

“The most important thing in all relationships is good communication,” says Associate Vice President of Research Alexa Sand. “You know, being a good communicator, and a lot of that is being a good listener. So, I think the best undergraduate research mentors are, of course, fantastic teachers. They have expertise and enthusiasm for their field of work that is infectious. But more than that, they really see the students, and they really hear the students.”

USU, which received the Award for Undergraduate Research Accomplishments (AURA) in 2020, provides its faculty with a variety of online and in-person workshops and seminars specifically designed to cultivate and strengthen student-mentor relationships. In addition to sharing the undergraduate research opportunities with their students, professors are also encouraged to help them balance their workloads and provide paid employment or credit hours when possible.

“We have so many great mentors here, and you see that even if they haven’t had formal training, their practices are really similar in terms of them putting the student first,” says Sand, who is also an art history professor in addition to her responsibilities in the Office of Research. “They view themselves as a coach and a trainer, rather than as a boss. And they’re really tuned in to the development of the people that they’re investing in.”

“And I think most of us are paying it forward,” Sand adds. “We had great mentors who were genuinely invested in us as people. … And we wouldn’t be where we are without them, and we want to be that kind of person for the next generation.”

Though not a comprehensive list, here are a few of the undergraduate research mentors currently at Utah State striving to make an impact on the next generation:

Joanie Hevel

During her freshman year at Lebanon Valley College, Hevel was put in an honors chemistry class “for some odd reason.”

“I had more experience with biology in high school,” says Hevel, an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry. “But I made it through that first year with the understanding that the two people who were teaching honors chemistry were also two of the most active research people in the department. And I guess I proved myself sufficiently that they asked me if I wanted to undergraduate research with them over the summer.

“So, I got hooked, and that was that.”

Hevel says she quickly embraced research because it required creating a certain set of skills, and “every day there was a little bit of mystery.”

That initial research opportunity was so impactful that Hevel still remembers exactly what she was researching that summer in Pennsylvania: isolating a protein called polyphosphate kinase from a one-kilogram block of frozen E. coli.

“Sometimes you were right, and you moved forward in that same direction. And other times you were wrong,” says Hevel, who went on to complete a Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry at the University of Michigan. “And being wrong was actually also very exciting because it meant that you had to stop and really think about what it was that you were doing, how you were doing it, and what could you not have taken into consideration.

“That level of critical thinking, problem solving and mystery is what drew me in.”

Now in her 21st year at Utah State, Hevel strives to create the same kind of enthusiasm for undergraduate research in her students she had. Named the Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year for the College of Science in 2021, she aims to teach her pupils scientific writing, critical thinking, and various other skills as early in their higher education journey as possible.

Emeline Haroldsen, who graduated from Utah State in May 2024 with dual degrees in biochemistry and math and statistics composite with a minor in data science, credits Hevel with steering her towards undergraduate research and her current career path. Near the end of Haroldsen’s sophomore year, Hevel found her a paid summer internship in a USU chemistry lab, even though Haroldsen was a math major. That opportunity, which was centered around protein folding, ended up fostering a love for research and an increased knowledge of lab techniques.

“After I got a little bit further in, I realized that I wanted to merge the stuff that I was interested in, like analyzing protein structures,” Haroldsen says. “You need to be able to program, so I switched my math major to a math stat major because it had much heavier coding classes.”

Hevel ended up finding Haroldsen other research projects that melded her two interests of biochemistry and programming, even though most of those opportunities came in different labs and involved working with different professors.

“I spent that first summer learning all of the techniques, then started working on my own projects, which I think is a little unique for undergraduates,” Haroldsen noted. “Typically, that’s usually more of a graduate student thing. But as soon as I was up to speed and trained, Joanie was ready to start giving me my own projects, and I would go and talk to her about everything. She’s incredibly knowledgeable.”

Haroldsen is now at Johns Hopkins University, in her native state of Maryland, pursuing a Ph.D. in computer science.

“This is a really good place to be,” Haroldsen says. “I’m very happy here, and I’m really, really grateful for everything that Joanie did for me while I was at USU. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t spent all those years in her lab.”

Tim Chenette

Meghan Hatfield is nearing completion on a bachelor’s degree in music education with a choral emphasis, while also securing her K-12 certification. When she first came to Utah State from Boise, Idaho, in the fall of 2020, Hatfield didn’t realize she could do undergraduate research. But during her sophomore year, she was taking a music theory class from Tim Chenette when the associate professor brought up the possibility of doing research.

“I was like, ‘Hmmm, that’s really interesting. I think I would really like that,’” Hatfield recalls. “I didn’t know what I would want to research, but I knew I was interested. It seemed like something I would enjoy, and I would love to get my foot in the door. And I just kind of took that and ran with it.”

Working under Chenette’s tutelage, Hatfield and some fellow students developed a research proposal involving different ways to teach musicians to listen for chords. And that led to her and her teammates presenting their data at a Society of Music Theory conference in New Orleans.

Her Initial research also led to more projects — two of which were granted Undergraduate Research and Creative Opportunity (URCO) awards — and likely impacted the trajectory of her career path.

“Tim definitely helped me get into the field of research, and he was very helpful all the way through helping me with projects and making suggestions about how to format my ideas,” Hatfield says.

Hatfield notes that before jumping into undergraduate research, she was “gung-ho against grad school.” Now, though, she says she’s interested in potentially pursuing a graduate program.

Chenette, who came to Utah State in 2013, was the Caine College of the Arts’ nominee for 2024 Faculty Researcher of the Year for his research in music theory pedagogy. He is a strong believer in his music students getting involved in research and makes a point of promoting those possibilities in his introductory classes, as well as talking up the URCO program and other research grants.

“I love the opportunities that Utah State offers,” Chenette says. “We pride ourselves on our undergraduate research programs, and for good reason. It’s something I like to brag about.”

Chenette notes that heavy school and/or employment workloads often keep students from getting involved in research, but finding something that they’re passionate about usually helps offset the extra work.

“The most successful projects are the ones based on something a student is passionate about,” he points out. “So much of school — from the time you start in kindergarten — is about doing what other people tell you to do. So, the opportunity to develop your own project, and really not be graded on it, and have it be entirely your thing is just such a valuable thing for students to do. To help determine where they want to go, what they want to do, and just develop their own voice as a person and as a scholar.”

Sara Freeman

Even though the world was in a unique place in the summer of 2020, McKenna Rich says it was actually a great time to get involved in research.  

Originally an engineering major who switched to biology, Rich always had her eyes on attending medical school after Utah State. And it was between her sophomore and junior years, in the middle of the pandemic, that she decided to seek out some research opportunities.

“It was kind of an odd time to start doing research, but it was also the time I had to look into it because I wasn’t going to my classes in-person and I wanted to get involved in research,” Rich remembers. “I looked into different professors, their bios and what they were working on in their labs, and I came across Sara Freeman’s stuff, which seemed really, really interesting. So, I sent her an email and just asked if we could talk more, and she said she had a position in the lab.”

A graduate of Copper Hills High School in West Jordan, Rich was heavily involved with research her final two years at USU with the study of coyote brains. An assistant professor of neurobiology, Sara Freeman received media attention and an Oak Ridge Associated Universities’ Powe Research Grant in 2021 for her study of the social interactions of coyotes through examination of the distribution of the receptors for oxytocin in their brains.

A 2022 Peak Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year honoree who has been at Utah State since 2019, Freeman says she was positively influenced by mentors during her academic journey as a first-generation college student and aspires to do the same now that she’s a professor.

“I have students in my own laboratory that I get to get to know and talk with about their goals and all those things,” Freeman says. “I feel like I recently realized the reason I love this job and why I am an academic is so that I can have those one-on-one interactions and personal relationships with my students.

“I want to help them realize that there might be more career paths ahead of them than they might have realized, or to be that person for a first-generation student who doesn’t have any idea how to navigate the path ahead, since they’re the first ones in their families to do it. That’s why I wake up in the morning.”

Rich left USU with a bachelor’s in human biology in 2022 and is now in her first year of medical school at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. She says she’s grateful for Freeman’s influence and mentorship and that the responsibility given to her in the lab really prepared her for the next steps.

“Talking with other students at med school from other undergrad institutions around the country, I feel like my experience was very unique, but it wasn’t unique at Utah State, if that makes sense,” Rich says. “I feel like all of my friends that were also doing undergrad research at USU had a very similar experience to my own of having good mentors, being given a lot of responsibility, and things that were very influential in our applications to graduate programs.”

Amita Kaundal

While pursuing a college degree in her native country, India, Amita Kaundal didn’t have a chance to participate in research as an undergraduate student. But after coming to the United States and spending two years as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California, Riverside, she accepted a position as an assistant project scientist at the USDA Salinity Lab in Riverside.

“I had a lot of opportunities to work with undergraduate researchers there, and that gave me this idea,” Kaundal recalls. “When I was growing up and studying, I did not have that opportunity. So, anytime I get the opportunity or have my own lab, I will start this program in my lab.”

Although she didn’t have the budget to pay her undergraduate researchers at the time, Kaundal says she still secured the services of nine students during her initial effort in 2018, “because they were so excited to just get the opportunity to have experience in lab work.”

Shortly afterward, Kaundal joined the faculty at Utah State University as an assistant professor in the College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences. In the six years since, she’s been a champion of undergraduate research in the Plants, Soils and Climate Department, employing dozens of students in her lab, which is concerned with developing stress-resilient crops for sustainable agriculture in an era of climate change.

Katie Hewitt was one of the students who got involved in research in Kaundal’s laboratory on her way to graduating with a bachelor’s degree in plant science in 2023. Hewitt was a sophomore when she reached out to Kaundal at the urging of a friend of her now-husband who was an engineering student employed at the lab.

“He wasn’t really related to the program, but he said, ‘She’s awesome. You should work for her and get some hands-on experience to see if research is really what you want to do.’ So, I started working under her grad students from there, and really learned a ton.”

Eventually, Hewitt developed her own project, was awarded an URCO grant in the process, and was named the 2023 Undergraduate Researcher of the Year for CAAS — the same year Kaundal was honored as the Peak Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year. Hewitt is now back at Utah State pursing a master’s degree with the hope of eventually becoming a county extension agent.

“I would definitely encourage people to do undergraduate research,” Hewitt proclaims. “I think that it gave me a lot of confidence in myself and my abilities, and it gave me the ability to learn how to question and find answers for myself. I think it was just an incredible experience that I would hope anybody at all in scientific research would do. It’s a great opportunity.”