Indiana University of Pennsylvania will celebrate innovation, student and faculty research, and alumni success during IUP’s 2025 Research Appreciation Week, planned for April 7 to 11.
Research Appreciation Week spotlights the spirit of innovation and collaboration in disciplines throughout the university and recognizes the contributions that IUP’s original research and scholarship make to this region, the Commonwealth, and the world.
This year’s event begins with the twentieth annual Women in STEM Summit on April 7 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in John J. and Char Kopchick Hall, featuring a keynote presentation at 11:20 a.m. by veteran diagnostics industry leader Bonnie Anderson, cofounder, chairwoman, and CEO of PinkDX Inc., an early-stage diagnostics company focused on addressing unmet medical needs for women.
Anderson is a 1980 IUP medical technology graduate, 2012 Distinguished Alumni Award winner, and 2023 honorary doctorate recipient. She is a native of Indiana who has a nationally recognized career in business and healthcare.
Immediately before Anderson’s keynote address, the Dr. Patricia Hilliard Robertson Memorial Scholarship for Outstanding Female Science Student award recipient will be announced.
The Hilliard Robertson scholarship was established as a living legacy for Hilliard Robertson, a 1985 graduate of IUP from Homer City, who died May 24, 2001, in Houston. Hilliard Robertson had been assigned as a crew-support astronaut for the Expedition Two crew that was preparing for service aboard the International Space Station in 2001. Hilliard Robertson received the Distinguished Alumni Award from IUP in 2000. The scholarship award is presented by family members of the late Hilliard Robertson.
“Research Appreciation Week provides opportunities to celebrate research and creativity for both experienced and emerging researchers and scholars while providing an opportunity for the entire university community to come together to learn from one another and to celebrate excellence,” Vice Provost for Research and Innovation Hilliary Creely said.
“We are honored and grateful to have alumna Bonnie Anderson with us this year to celebrate 20 years of Women in STEM programming,” Creely said. “She continues to do incredible work in the field of healthcare on a national level, especially healthcare for women, and we are very grateful for her willingness to share her expertise and experience with our students, faculty, and community members.”
“The inaugural Artificial Intelligence Summit was an outstanding success, and this year’s programming goes even deeper into this important topic,” Creely said. “It also addresses some of the topics suggested during the panel discussion with industry leaders held during IUP’s ‘Shaping the Future’ event,” she said.
Additional events during Research Appreciation Week include the second annual Artificial Intelligence Summit (virtual and at IUP’s Stabley Library) on April 8 and the Scholars Forum and Three-Minute Thesis competition on April 9 in the Kovalchick Convention and Athletic Complex.
Bonnie Anderson
IUP STEM Women’s Summit Featuring IUP Alumna Bonnie Anderson
Anderson has a strong track record of building successful businesses in novel markets.
She cofounded Veracyte, a global diagnostics company, where she served as CEO from 2008 to 2021. During her tenure, she raised more than $1 billion in private and public funding, launched market-leading diagnostic tests that are transforming patient care in multiple disease areas, and established Veracyte’s strategic vision for offering its tests to physicians and their patients globally.
Prior to Veracyte, Anderson provided strategic consulting services to venture capital firms and early-stage businesses following 18 years in leadership positions at Beckman Coulter. At Beckman Coulter, she led the company’s “intrapreneurial” start-up division, focused on the emerging immuno-oncology field.
Anderson serves on the boards of Bruker Corporation, DNA Script, and the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences. Additionally, she is president of the Coalition for 21st Century Medicine, representing the genomic diagnostics industry to federal and state-level policymakers and regulators, and previously served on the boards of the Biotechnology Industry Organization and Castle Biosciences.
Anderson has received numerous awards for her industry leadership, including Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business,” Fierce Pharma’s “Fiercest Women in Life Sciences,” and the San Francisco Business Times’ “Bay Area Most Admired CEOs.”
The Women in STEM event starts at 10:00 a.m. with a poster session of IUP undergraduate and graduate women in STEM on the first and second floor lobbies of IUP’s Kopchick Hall. Networking tables will include the Career and Professional Development Center and the new Women in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) organization.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit
This is the second year for IUP’s AI Summit, sponsored by the IUP Center for Scholarly Communication in IUP’s Research and Innovation. Additional sponsors include the IUP Libraries and Office of the Provost, with co-hosts the Center for Teaching Excellence, IUP Libraries, the Jones White Writing Center, and the Writing Across the Curriculum program.
Dana Driscoll is the founding director of the IUP Center for Scholarly Communication, which has as its mission to serve as a catalyst for advancing publication and presentation at IUP for all members of our campus community. She created the AI Summit in 2024 to help respond to the need to educate and empower the campus community to leverage and use AI effectively both in higher education and beyond. The AI Summit is also supported by graduate students in a wide range of fields who gain valuable workplace expertise in both leveraging AI and coordinating university-wide events.
The summit will take place on April 8 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at IUP’s Stabley Library (second floor) and via Zoom. Persons can attend the entire day or just for selected programs; the full AI Summit schedule is on the IUP website.
Summit programming is divided into three tracks:
- AI Exploration Track: Geared towards IUP students, this track provides an interactive space for discovering and engaging with AI technologies, including hands-on opportunities to explore various AI tools, develop foundational AI literacy, and critically assess AI’s impact in academic and professional settings.
- AI Pedagogy Track: Designed for current faculty, future educators (undergraduate and graduate students), and educational support staff, this track focuses on the role of AI in teaching and learning. Through workshops, panels, and discussions, participants will explore AI-powered educational tools, strategies for integrating AI into pedagogy, and the ethical implications of AI in academic settings.
- AI Research and Scholarship Track: Intended for faculty, students, and staff interested in integrating AI into their research, scholarship, or creative work, this track provides a platform for exploring AI’s role in knowledge production and innovation. Sessions will cover practical applications of AI in various disciplines, ethical considerations in AI-driven research, and emerging trends in AI-enhanced scholarship.
Day-long Summit Schedule
- 9:00 a.m.
- “Artificial Intelligence 101: What is AI and How is it Used?” A hands-on introduction (Exploration Track)
- “AI in the Classroom: Usage, Perceptions, and Transparency Among IUP Students” (Pedagogy Track)
- “Maximizing AI Tools with Existing IUP Licenses: Updates and Security Features” (Research and Scholarship Track)
- 10:00 a.m.
- “AI for Educators: Enhancing Lesson Planning, Assessment, and Instruction” (Exploration Track)
- “What Do We Teach, and What Do We Offload to AI?” (Pedagogy Track)
- “AI-Driven Research Tools in the Library” (Research and Scholarship Track)
- 11:00 a.m.
- “Artificial Intelligence 202: AI Prompt Engineering” (Exploration Track)
- “AI and Academic Integrity Panel: Supporting Students and Instructors in Questionable Situations” (Pedagogy Track)
- “Researching AI in Your Discipline: Opportunities, Challenges, and Methods” (Research and Scholarship Track)
- 1:30 p.m.
- “Your Personal AI Tutor: Writing Center Tutors Offer One-on-one AI Exploration and Support” (Exploration Track)
- “The AI-Enhanced Classroom: Smarter Teaching, Deeper Learning” (Pedagogy Track)
- “AI for Research and Scholarly Writing: Tools, Ethics, and Best Practices” (Research and Scholarship Track)
- 2:30 p.m.
- “AI Tools for Creative Production” (Exploration Track)
- “The Next Generation of STEM Education in the Era of AI” (Pedagogy Track)
- “Scholarly Publishing and Data Analysis in the Age of AI: A Hands-On Workshop” (Research and Scholarship Track)
Scholars Forum
The twenty-first annual Scholars Forum, featuring IUP undergraduate and graduate students and 63 high school students from Indiana Area High School, Blacklick Valley Jr.-Sr. High School, and West Shamokin High School, will be held from 9:00 to noon in the Kovalchick Complex.
The Three-Minute Thesis finals will take place during the event, beginning at 11:00 a.m. in the Toretti Auditorium of the KCAC. The annual Three-Minute Thesis competition is an event for graduate students to present their original scholarship to a panel of judges in just three minutes with the aid of only one static PowerPoint slide as a visual aid.
A total of 178 research posters—63 from the high school students—will be part of the poster presentation session from 9:00 a.m. to noon on the KCAC arena floor. IUP faculty member Holly Travis coordinates the high school student program.
A number of IUP alumni are returning to campus to volunteer as judges for this year’s event.
“Research Appreciation Week, but especially the Scholars Forum, is a true university-wide endeavor,” Creely said. “Members of IUP Research and Innovation provide workshops and events to help students to be prepared for the Scholars Forum, the faculty mentors in departments across the university are active throughout the year working with students on their research projects, members of the administration support and help us promote the event, and faculty and staff in all areas of the university actively volunteer to serve as judges for the Scholars Forum and the Three-Minute Thesis.
“It is especially gratifying to have alumni in a variety of professions be so willing to be part of the Scholars Forum and the Research Appreciation Week events,” she said. “It’s a great networking opportunity, as the alumni really engage with the students. It’s a very real demonstration for our students of how an IUP education prepared them for career and personal success,” she said.
Posters exhibit a diverse array of topics, representing student work from every academic college at IUP.
Concurrent podium presentation sessions will run at 9:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., and 11:00 a.m., featuring 28 individual in-depth talks by students about work in multiple disciplines, including anthropology, geospatial and Earth sciences, biology, criminology, communications media, English, finance, economics, education, history, math, computer science, music, and psychology during breakout sessions at the Kovalchick Complex.
Four graduate students have advanced through the preliminary competitions to be part of the final Three-Minute Thesis competition:
- Brady Blackburn, a biology master’s student, presenting “Fish Community Responses to Culvert Replacement in Pennsylvania Headwater Streams”
- Dakota Dickerson, an applied archaeology master’s student, presenting “Fetal Pig Decomposition in Western Pennsylvania: Characterization of Burial Environment and Decomposition Processes in a Western Pennsylvania Non-Human Outdoor Decomposition Facility”
- Ashley Moll, a biology master’s student, presenting “The Effectiveness of Using Selfie Cameras to Monitor the Movement of Allegheny Woodrats”
- Isabel Srour, an applied archaeology master’s student, presenting “Empowering the Local Voice: A Community-Based Archaeology Project at Tall Husban”
A complete schedule of Research Appreciation Week events is on the IUP website.
In 2022, IUP was designated as a Doctoral University-High Research Activity (R2) by the National Center for Postsecondary Research’s Carnegie Classification in recognition of its commitment to research and student success; this ranking was reaffirmed in February 2025.
IUP is one of only two public universities in Pennsylvania and one of only 97 public universities with this ranking in the United States. More than 3,900 colleges and universities are included in the ranking system.