Discovery Grants awarded to 6 Eberly students for research support

Six undergraduate students in the Eberly College of Science earned Discovery Grants to help fund their summer research and projects, gaining the opportunity for valuable experience in the field, in the lab and abroad.

Discovery Grant applications are open to all current undergraduate Penn State students at all campuses, regardless of major. Applications typically open in December and close in February. For 2026, grant recipients were awarded up to $5,000 each.

The following is a list of students in the college who earned 2026 Discovery Grants and their projects titles:

• Sean Golder, mathematics and physics — “Classical and Quantum Dynamics in an Information Theoretic Space”
• Om Patil, biology — “Racial Identity and Social Determinants of Health as Predictors of Sport-Related Concussion Risk in Division I Athletes”
• Cara Schmitt, biochemistry and molecular biology — “Analyzing the Effects of Preventing Sexual Maturity on Circadian Learning and Memory”
• Tatiana Seremula, chemistry— “Design and study of color-tunable boron–nitrogen heterocycle fluorophores”
• Quinn Sullivan, astronomy and astrophysics and physics — “Using Machine Learning to Select Active Galactic Nuclei in the Rubin LSST Deep-Drilling Fields”
• Skyler Tan, pre-medicine — “Identifying Early Sexual-stage Markers in Plasmodium falciparum Using Single-Cell Transcriptomics”

The Discovery Grant Program is administered by Penn State Undergraduate Education and Undergraduate Research and Fellowships Mentoring.