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CHENEY, Wash. - Two undergraduate students at Eastern Washington University have received the first annual EWU Libraries NCUR Award for their outstanding research projects.

Richard Wilson, dean of Libraries at Eastern, presented the awards to Alixandria Blake and Christopher Signer during a special ceremony on Tuesday, March 15.

Blake, a biology major from Reardan, Wash., was honored for her food habit study of the walleye fish in Lake Roosevelt using a methodology called bioenergetic modeling. Signer, a chemistry major from Spokane was recognized for his project using computational modeling to predict the absorption of carbon dioxide by a new class of porous materials.

The award provides travel funding for the student researchers to present their research projects at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR). This year's NCUR conference will be held March 31-April 2, in Ithaca, N.Y. The recipients also receive a cash award.

The EWU Libraries NCUR Award was created to recognize and encourage student research and creative projects that incorporate library resources. Twenty-nine projects by Eastern students were selected to present at the 2011 NCUR conference. Only EWU students selected to present at the NCUR conference are eligible to apply for the EWU Libraries NCUR Award.

The award recipients were selected by a panel of librarians who assessed overall merit of the applications based on incorporation of library resources into the research or creative project. This year's panel included Library Instruction Coordinator Ielleen Miller, Outreach Librarian Rayette Sterling and Associate Dean of Libraries Julie Miller.

Blake's project mentor is Allan T. Scholz, professor of biology. Signer's project mentor is Yao A. Houndonougbo, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry.