Undergraduate Research Committee

Roseann K. Sachs, Chair

Roseann K. Sachs is Assistant Dean of the School of Science, Engineering and Health and Professor of Chemistry.  She has been a proponent of undergraduate research since spending two summers doing inorganic chemistry research at Bethel University as an undergraduate student.  Since beginning her professional career, Dr. Sachs has involved over 45 students in her organic chemistry laboratory research at Colorado College, the University of Phnom Penh in Cambodia and Messiah University. In all of these cases, the opportunity to do independent research has expanded each student’s problem-solving and critical thinking skills, enabled integrated learning, and helped students discern their future career path.  As chair of the undergraduate research committee, she is committed to making such experiences widely available to students at Messiah University. 

Sarah Myers

Sarah is a librarian and the institutional repository manager of Mosaic at Murray Library. She says "It's a joy to assist students in their search for knowledge as they locate, evaluate, and effectively use the needed information". With the creation of the institutional repository, she assists students distribute their academic or creative works with a much wider audience, which hopefully leads to greater scholarly dialogue and exchange.

Dr. Anne Reeve

Dr. Anne Reeve is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. She is interested in natural products, medicinal chemistry, and mechanistic enzymology. Her current collaborative project with students focuses on identifying inhibitors of protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B.) Protein tyrosine phosphatases are important enzymes in cell signaling, but designing inhibitors is difficult because the active site is highly conserved across the family of related proteins. PTP1B is a cytosolic PTP that is a negative regulator of insulin signaling and is involved in tumorigenesis, so inhibiting it may be useful for treating diabetes, obesity, and some cancers. Thus, chalcone, flavone, and stilbene natural products and structural analogs have been synthesized and tested as inhibitors of recombinant human PTP1B. Activity assays for synthetic compounds in comparison to selected natural products showed inhibition comparable to or superior to the natural products. Students working on the project are involved in organic synthesis, enzymatic assays, and molecular docking studies.

Duu (Jason) Renn

Duu (Jason) Renn is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Messiah University in Pennsylvania. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017 with a Ph.D. in Political Science. His research and teaching are primarily in International Relations with published articles on Peacekeeping, Civil Wars, and International Law. Previously, Dr. Renn taught at the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies and also worked for the Army Corps of Engineers.

Amanda Lohss

Amanda Lohss is an Associate Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Computing, Mathematics, and Physics. Her research interests lie in the intersection of probability and combinatorics, and she enjoys advising undergraduate research projects in these areas. Currently, she is working with several students to research properties of staircase tableaux which are mathematical objects connected to a stochastic particle model used in physics, biochemistry, and engineering.

Michael Dolislager

Dr. Michael Dolislager is an Assistant Professor of Economics and Economic Development. He enjoys working with students on their undergraduate research projects and is excited that he was able to advise one recent student on her national award winning research paper.

John P. Zeigler, Esq. 

John joined Messiah University in January 2022 and is the executive director for the office of development.

 In the process of his oldest daughter selecting and attending Messiah, he and his wife greatly admired that Messiah emphasizes both academic excellence and spiritual growth. God thereafter promptly opened the door for him to follow his daughter’s path and become a member of the Messiah Community.

 As a member of the development team, it is important for Messiah to continue to be a model of what higher education can and should be. Financial assistance from its stakeholders is essential. Whether via support for programming, scholarship, physical projects, annual funding or otherwise, it is through the generosity of others that tomorrow’s leaders are provided the tools for access, growth, and success.

Before coming to Messiah, John worked for many years as a workman’s comp attorney before taking a position in the development office at Bucknell University, where he had received his undergraduate degree. He received his law degree from Widener Law Commonwealth – Widener University. His time now is primarily working with donors and development team members and is also in charge of Messiah’s LAM (Law at Messiah) program.

Abigail Barnes

Abigail is a biochemistry student who hopes to combine her love of research and teaching in the role of a professor. She started at Messiah University in 2022 and began research in her sophomore year. Her project focuses on medicinal chemistry research, looking at both the structure and efficacy of potential enzyme inhibitors under the mentorship of Dr. Anne Reeve. She hopes to continue working on projects with applications in human health, allowing her science to work towards serving others.

Ethan Reisler

Ethan is a senior English major with a creative writing concentration and double minors in communications and broadcasting & journalism. Attending Messiah since 2022, he has involved himself in the study and application of storytelling as the editor-in-chief of The Swinging Bridge Magazine and co-editor of the Peregrine Review. Publishing research in LURe and presenting at NCUR, he is passionate about the analysis of literature, particularly its place in emergent media, like video games. Looking past graduation, he hopes to attend a graduate program with an eye for a career in authorship.