I am passionate about engaging biology undergraduates in research through independent research experiences and student-directed course research projects. I enjoy working with students from freshman to senior years in all stages of research, helping them develop skills and abilities that will enable them to succeed in any career field, from field ecologist to physician.
I work with student researchers on fairy shrimp evolution during the academic year and on host plant-herbivore-predator tri-trophic interactions in the summer. To encourage and support undergraduates in all areas of research, I also served as co-founder and co-director of the Arts & Sciences Summer Research Program at Widener for its first five years.
I am currently focused on expanding and refining the student-led course projects in my upper-division courses. In my course on the evolution of sex, students designed and executed experiments on population sex ratios in spicebush and on sexual selection in two species of fairy shrimp.
My current research focuses on the interactions between trophic levels in host plant-herbivore-predator/parasitoid systems. I am currently working with the tulip tree beauty moth in the Northeast U.S. looking at interactions between host plants, caterpillars, and fly and wasp parasitoids that attack the caterpillars.
I have also recently begun working with an agricultural system in Texas looking at the interactions between cotton, endophytic fungi, and aphid and beet armyworm herbivores. The endophytic fungi colonize the cotton plants and can affect cotton growth and aphid reproduction. I also work on the evolution of fairy shrimp life history, sex determination, and sexual selection.
The Summer Undergraduate Research & Creative Activities (SURCA) program at Widener can be a foundation for some students to enter prestigious PhD programs and lead research on important topics.
Associate Professor of Biology Janice Krumm has been awarded nearly $200,000 in a National Science Foundation RAPID grant to develop online-based research experiences for hundreds to thousands of undergraduate students learning remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Associate Professor Janice Krumm and the Delaware Museum of Natural History secured a one-year grant for approximately $75,000 from the National Science Foundation to create a national network to support research courses that connect students with digitized natural history collections.
Faculty recognized at the annual Faculty Awards are featured in two articles from the Delaware County Daily Times. This article highlights Stephen Kauffman, Alexis Nagengast, Dana Olanoff, Angie Corbo, Wes Leckrone, Jim Vike, Michael Toneff, and Janice Krumm.
Widener honored faculty members for their high distinction in areas of civic engagement, institutional leadership, research, as well as innovative and distinguished teaching. Various faculty were awarded at the ceremony, held Thursday, October 19 in Lathem Hall.
“The professors who were honored at our annual awards ceremony continuously display commitment to teaching, civic engagement, meaningful research, remarkable leadership, and cutting-edge innovation. They are highly valued colleagues and represent core values for which Widener stands," said Provost Andrew Workman.
The awards included:
Associate Professor of Biology Janice Krumm is the recipient of over $143,000 from the National Science Foundation to continue a multi-year project aimed at making undergraduate research more accessible for students. This is the fourth grant that this project has received, bringing the total funding to nearly $2 million of which nearly half has been awarded directly to Widener.
Krumm served as primary investigator for the first three awards and is now collaborating with additional researchers from George Washington University, Texas Tech University, Westfield State University, and Anoka-Ramsey Community College. The project has been focused on creating Course Based Undergraduate Research (CURE) classes which utilize a newly created online database of natural history resources that are free and available for use by students across the country.
This new funding will:
Associate Professor of Biology Janice Krumm has been awarded nearly $500,000 from the National Science Foundation to lead and expand a national network that increases access to undergraduate research opportunities in ecology and evolution.
Krumm secured the grant in collaboration with Associate Professor Carly Jordan at The George Washington University and curators Jean Woods and Elizabeth Shea at the Delaware Museum of Natural History.
The grant supports the expansion of the Biological Collections in Ecology and Evolution Network (BCEENET), a community of undergraduate educators, pedagogy experts, and natural history collections professionals who collaborate to support the development and implementation of Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences, or CUREs, using digitized natural history collections data.
CUREs engage undergraduates in authentic research experiences and are known to increase engagement, retention, and long-term success in undergraduates, particularly in students from underrepresented populations in STEM fields.
The courses provide educators and students opportunities to collaborate on research projects using the millions of specimen records on publicly available data portals, resulting in unique and innovative opportunities for research in ecology and evolution.