Team Projects
Team Projects are a hallmark of PGSS and allow students to conduct scientific research with peers who are as passionate about the work as they are. Projects are led by a faculty member who provides a general idea or topic for research. The team members develop the project from those general guidelines by developing their own hypotheses, designing experiments, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions. Each year there are between 10 and 15 projects to choose from.
Team Projects meet for 3 hours a day twice a week in the first four weeks of the program. Week 5 of PGSS is designated "Team Project Week" when students wrap up program activity and spend most of their academic time working on their proejcts.
PGSS culminates in the PGSS Scientifc Symposium during which the teams present their work to their peers in the program, faculty, and invitied guests. In addition, students prepare a formal scientific paper to be submitted on the last day of the program that is published in the Journal of PGSS.
Selected Team Project Descriptions from 2025
Examining the impact of the microbiome n neural function | The human body is host to 10-100 trillion symbiotic microbial cells; this population, known as the microbiome, is increasingly recognized as an important contributor to health and disease. Thanks to the development of inexpensive large-scale sequencing technology scientists are now able to determine what microbes are present in different environments. However, how they are influencing their host, and what impact that has on disease, is not fully understood. In this project you will study how the gut microbiome can influence the behavior of its host, using as our model the microscopic worm C. elegans. You will grow and characterize various strains of bacteria, including some commonly found in probiotic foods. You will then feed these to C. elegans strains modeling neurodegenerative diseases and study the effects on behavior. Techniques you will learn include: culturing bacteria and C. elegans; behavioral assays; microscopy. Keywords: microbiome, behavior, microscopy, neurodegenerative disease
Spectrophotometric Determination of the Equilibrium Constant and of Thermodynamic Quantities ΔH, ΔS and ΔG for the Formation of the FeNCS2+ Complex Ion | Complex ion chemistry sounds like something most people would never need to care about, but we interact with complex ions every day. These molecules are used as contrast agents in MRIs, in the synthesis of pharmaceuticals like cisplatin, and in the function of biological molecules like hemoglobin. Moreover, a complex ion is simply a molecule formed between a central metal ion and surrounding ions. Small, highly, charged metal ions have the greatest tendency to form complex ions. In this team project we will investigate the different kinetic properties of formation of the FeNCS2+ complex ion. Because ion formation depends on the environment the molecules are in, understanding the formation kinetics is critical. We will use UV-Vis spectroscopy and the principles of thermodynamics to determine the equilibrium constant and thermodynamic quantities like ΔH, ΔS and ΔG for the formation of the FeNCS2+ complex ion. Keywords: complex ions, spectroscopy
Turn-Based Game Strategy | Designing algorithms to play turn-based games has been a pursuit of many programmers since computers began. In 1997, IBM programmers wrote an algorithm to defeat chess champion Garry Kasparov. It was not until 2017 that a computer algorithm was able to beat the best go players in the world. In this project, the students will choose a turn-based game of moderate complexity (such as Reversi, Mancala, Connect-4, or Pente, there are many good games out there for this project) and design an algorithm to play the game, including a simple interface for a human to challenge the algorithm. Each project will have 4-6 students, and there will be up to three different projects of this type. Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Algorithms
Imaging the Andromeda Galaxy | The Allegheny Observatory has a 24" PlaneWave telescope with remote observing capabilities. Students will visit the observatory one afternoon for a tour and to learn to operate the telescope. One class period will be replaced with nighttime observing operating the telescope from campus. The team will image the Andromeda Galaxy and build a model of the mass in stars and dust. Using data from radio telescopes they will determine the rotation of the galaxy and use that and Kepler's 3rd law to build another model of the mass. Students will then compare the mass at various positions from these two different methods and estimate the amount and distribution of dark matter. Depending on the interests of the team, they will build a beautiful image, research possibilities for dark matter, look at a second galaxy or galaxy cluster and/or collect their own spectra. Keywords: dark matter, optical telescope, radio telescope
Exploration of the wave and particle nature of light | Is light a wave or is it a particle? The answer to this question depends on the context. Some phenomena, such as the photoelectric effect, can only be explained by postulating that light is a particle. Others, such as the two-slit interference effect, are more easily explained by assuming that light propagates as an electromagnetic wave. Participants in this project will plan and execute a variety of experiments to enable the exploration of the wave and the particle nature of light. Of particular interest is to investigate the two-slit interference effect in both the continuous-wave limit and in the limit that the intensity of the light source is reduced to the point where single photons can be counted individually. Does a given photon pass through one slit or the other or both? Does the interference pattern produced in the single- particle limit look the same or different compared to the pattern produced in the continuous-wave limit? Another possibility is to explore the photoelectric effect in detail and to see if Einstein’s Nobel Prize-winning theory accurately describes the observations. No prior knowledge of physics is required to participate. Keywords: wave model, particle model, interference, quantum optics, photoelectric effect