The Office of Student Research is proud to feature Abigail Harris in this week’s “Scholar Story”.

Abigail Harris is a senior biology major with a secondary education concentration at Longwood University. After May, she “hopes to be teaching biology and earth science to high schoolers”. During her time at Longwood, she has participated in the PRISM summer research program and independent research projects during the semester with Dr. Henkanaththegedara and Thomas Hoke. Their research focuses on the migration patterns of wintering waterfowl in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States through citizen science data collected from the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) from 1950 to the present to identify species of concern in the area. Abigail will present her research at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research conference in April 2021.

Abigail said “I became involved in an independent research project because I wanted the full scientific experience. As a future biology teacher, I wanted to have research experience that I could show my future students and then later use if I apply to a PhD program.”

Abigail’s favorite part of research was "learning. Every day I felt like I learned something about waterfowl in our region and how to identify them.”

Congratulations to Abigail on her successful research!

If you would like to have your research featured in a “Scholar Story”, or if you would like to learn more about getting involved in research at Longwood University, please contact Amorette Barber, Director of the Office of Student Research (osr@longwood.edu or barberar@longwood.edu).