{"id":6650,"date":"2025-10-09T14:06:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T18:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/?p=6650"},"modified":"2025-10-09T14:28:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T18:28:00","slug":"basic-research-represents-the-building-blocks-of-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/basic-research-represents-the-building-blocks-of-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Basic Research Represents the Building Blocks of Science"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) provides students a stipend and wide latitude to undertake an independent research project. This is essential to their training for becoming independent innovators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dean of URI\u2019s College of Arts and Sciences Brenton DeBoef calls the GRF a \u201cgolden ticket\u201d reserved for America\u2019s top students. Each year, a few fellows select URI. They receive tuition and a stipend for five years with three years paid by NSF and two paid by the institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Brenton DeBoef, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
Professor, Chemistry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a game changer for the research group they join because they\u2019re funded on their own and it gives them independence, and it unlocks the ability for future awards,\u201d DeBoef says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aubree Jones \u201923, a biological and environmental sciences doctoral student, applied for the fellowship as a URI master\u2019s student. Awarded a GRF in 2018, she started research on a fish sensory system called the lateral line, which detects nearby water flows and vibrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Aubree Jones \u201923<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One connection led to another, and NSF awarded her more money under the Non-Academic Research Internships for Graduate Students (INTERN)\u202fprogram to work with the Geological Survey Eastern Ecological Science Center. The funding supported Jones\u2019 collaborators to rear brook trout at different temperatures at the Silvio O. Conte Anadromous Fish Laboratory for her dissertation research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with researchers at the Massachusetts lab, Jones found that warmer water temperatures sped up the development of the lateral lines. With water temperatures rising due to climate change, the finding indicates that the trout might grow out of sync with the surrounding environment and mature faster than food becomes available. That could mean disaster for everyone from recreational anglers to commercial fishermen, to say nothing of the larger environmental impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there\u2019s the tiny lateral line receptors in the fish \u2013 remarkably like those in a human ear but they can regenerate, whereas human receptors cannot. Jones studied how these receptors develop and regenerate under different conditions, which provides the framework for other researchers to leverage and treat human hearing loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scientific community would define much of her work as \u201cbasic\u201d research, rather than \u201capplied\u201d but Jones says her research is critically important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBasic research represents building blocks,\u201d she explains. \u201cUnderneath each of those studies that get sufficient accolades there\u2019s hundreds, if not higher orders of magnitude more, of basic research that needed to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Jones teaches biological sciences at Wellesley College, where she mentors students and encourages them to apply for research funding just like she did. And, who knows, some might even apply to URI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) provides students a stipend and wide latitude to undertake an independent research project. This is essential to their training for becoming independent innovators. Dean of URI\u2019s College of Arts and Sciences Brenton DeBoef calls the GRF a \u201cgolden ticket\u201d reserved for America\u2019s top students. Each year, a few fellows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":701,"featured_media":6664,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-momentum-spring-25-body"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/701"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6650"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6665,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6650\/revisions\/6665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}