CRL Staff Directory

Kathryn Wilson

Title: Principal Investigator, McNair Scholars Grant, Center for Research and Learning

Kathryn is the founder and Director of the IUPUI Center for Research and Learning. The Center was fully implemented in 2004 to promote and support all varieties of research and scholarship, with special attention to independent undergraduate student research. The Center brings together a number of other campus programs that support undergraduate research including some that serve primarily minority and first generation low-income students. Kathryn is the Principle Investigator and Director for the IUPUI Ronald E. McNair Program that serves 22 scholars each summer and 16-20 during the academic year. Kathryn led the design and implementation of a formal Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program in the IUPUI School of Science and later led the team that translated this program to the campus level. The IUPUI program, which she directs, is housed in the Center and is available to all disciplines. In 2004 IUPUI was host to the National Conference for Undergraduate Research (NCUR), which she planned and coordinated for the campus. NCUR2004 brought 2400 undergraduate researchers and their faculty mentors to IUPUI. She serves on the NCUR Board and is a founding member of a new national organization to support directors of centers of undergraduate research (NDURE, the National Organization for the Directors of Undergraduate Research Experiences) and has been a reviewer for the past three years for the Lancy Grants, which support multidisciplinary undergraduate research programs to encourage program growth at mostly small liberal arts colleges. Her current research program seeks to improve our understanding of how students learn through undergraduate research and to increase our knowledge about how faculty mentors affect learning through their mentoring of undergraduate research.

Kathryn is a faculty member in the Department of Biology. She received her baccalaureate degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and, in 1976 received her Ph.D. in Plant Science from Indiana University, Bloomington. She was instrumental in leading a major undergraduate curriculum reform for the Schools of Liberal Arts and Science and the implementation of a new general education curriculum and formulating the IUPUI Principles of Undergraduate Learning. Prior to her role as Director of the Center Kathryn served for twelve years as the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in the IUPUI School of Science and had primary responsibility for the promotion of scholarly research and support of activities that involved graduate programs. She also supervised all grants and contracts in the School of Science and had additional responsibilities for the school’s technology planning and development.

Phone: 317-278-1028 | Email: kjwilson@iupui.edu | Campus Address: UL 1140