Five Oswego EOP students take part in SUNY-funded summer research
Dominic Bachtler explains the research poster, “Measuring Boldness in Round Gobi (Neogobius melanostomus) Using Exit Assays” at the Fall 2026 Scholarly and Creative Activities Poster Symposium. The paid research was made possible by SUNY's Arthur O. Eve Educational Opportunity Program.
Five Oswego students conducted research to build their skills and knowledge via SUNY's Arthur O. Eve Educational Opportunity Program’s paid summer research opportunities.
SUNY Oswego participants included Dominic Bachtler, who performed research on the lakeside campus; Adonis Ortiz, whose research took place at SUNY Geneseo; Nathan Isaman and Sha-naya Tompkins, who conducted research at Binghamton University; and Ahmad Quadri, who researched at the University at Buffalo.
“Once I heard about the research, I was really interested because I knew it could help in building my career and furthering my connections around campus,” Bachtler said. This research, conducted with biological sciences faculty member Elizabeth Lange, was part of a larger project centered on a local species of invasive fish.
“We did research on the round gobi, which is an invasive fish species in the Great Lakes,” Bachtler said. “I knew I wanted to do the gobi research because it was the most closely related to doing things with animals over the summer,”
A typical day might involve going out to catch the fish in the morning and then conducting trials with gobis in the afternoon, or vice versa, Bachtler said. The research involved looking at gobi aggression and competition by placing them in large tanks with other fish to see how the invasive fish would react.
“The main point of the research was to see how boldness and exploration would affect invasion or invasion behaviors of the gobies,” Bachtler said. “And also seeing if there was a way that we could stop them from spreading to other lakes, considering that they're highly invasive, and they like to travel around a lot and they breed, and then they compete with other native fish populations, reducing them and doing all the things we don't want them to do.”
The project also led to Bachtler presenting a poster, “Measuring Boldness in Round Gobi (Neogobius melanostomus) Using Exit Assays,” joining other student researchers at the Fall 2026 Scholarly and Creative Activities Poster Symposium on Sept. 11.
For Bachtler, who transferred to Oswego to study zoology after earning an associate’s degree from Broome Community College, EOP really helped create a sense of community and belonging.
“We have a lot of different opportunities around campus, so it helps a lot with not only furthering you financially and making you more financially stable throughout college, but it also helps with the community aspect and getting to know your peers and getting to know connections around campus that you wouldn't otherwise,” Bachtler said of EOP.
Funded summer research
The STEM Summer Research Program supporting Oswego’s students and the EOP Liberal Arts Summer Research Program were tailored to EOP students interested in pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), or the humanities and social sciences.
"SUNY is committed to expanding access to internships that empower our students to explore career paths that interest them," Chancellor John B. King Jr. said in highlighting the research earlier this summer.
"The Educational Opportunity Program has made higher education more accessible for thousands of New Yorkers, and we are proud to continue to open the doors to upward mobility and success through initiatives like our undergraduate summer research programs,” Chancellor King noted. “These programs provide our EOP students with vital opportunities to work with SUNY's outstanding faculty to advance our research excellence while also preparing them for their future careers."
The SUNY Undergraduate EOP Summer Research Program started last summer with 30 students at five SUNY campuses. This year, SUNY doubled the program participants to 62 students and 10 campus host sites. The STEM Summer Research Program involved 42 of those students, up from 19 students last summer, working with 17 faculty on eight different SUNY campuses.
SUNY’s goal is that every undergraduate student will complete a paid internship or other experiential learning opportunity before they earn their degree. Nationally, students from low-income backgrounds and first-generation college students are less likely to participate in paid internships than their peers, with this program being one way to support students attaining these beneficial opportunities.
Since its inception in 1967, SUNY's Arthur O. Eve Educational Opportunity Program has provided access, academic support and supplemental financial assistance to students from low-income backgrounds, many of whom are the first in their families to attend college. In its 59-year history, EOP has graduated nearly 90,000 students and evolved into one of the country's most successful college access programs.