During that spring and summer, Wu explored how human presence in urban areas affects how forests exist. He collected data in Newark’s forests and then worked on a field crew with three undergraduates and two graduate students in forests in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Springfield, Massachusetts. 

He not only learned to survey vegetation and collect soil samples, but also how to be part of a research team. 

“The group was great, fun, friendly and hardworking,” he said. “I learned about the forests, but also about the social aspect of research — sharing common interests and making connections.” 

That summer, the research team visited dozens of sites, and Trammell said Wu was an integral part of the crew. 

“There can be harsh conditions — thorns, poison ivy, ticks — and everyone has to be energetic and collegial and still collect data in an accurate way,” Trammell said. “He was impressive.”

Trammell agrees with Wu that research opportunities at UD can make huge differences for students who pursue them, helping them learn what they like and what they don’t, and says she has six to nine undergraduates in her lab at any given time. 

Her advice: “Email the professors. Most will be receptive to your specific query about their research.”

That first project opened doors to several others, both on- and off-campus. As an intern in 2022 at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Wu worked in a microbiology lab and on a paper that was just accepted for publication by The Journal of Bacteriology.

From soil to sea

In the meantime, Wu became a fixture in UD’s biology classrooms, including those of Jennifer Biddle, a professor in the School of Marine Science and Policy. The connection would lead his research in a new direction.

“Derek was a student in all the classes I teach at UD, and when I realized he had taken them all, I told him I would miss him and suggested he join my lab so we could stay in touch,” Biddle said. 

She assigned him to an ongoing bioinformatics-based project, which he could perform remotely since her lab is in Lewes and he is in Newark. 

“I knew he had a lot of hands-on lab experience and, since he wanted to be able to publish something, and this project was one of the furthest along for publication,” she said, so it seemed like a good fit. “I work doing data analysis with one of her post-doctoral students who is interested in gut microbiomes on a project where he feeds different fish different diets: plants or fish pellets and asks, ‘How do those diets change what microbiomes live in that fish’s gut?’”

While offering him this position may have been unusual, Biddle knew he would be right for the post. 

“Derek is an excellent student, likely one of the top I’ll ever meet,” she said. 

Wu spent last summer at the Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium in Sarasota, Florida, where he worked with marine microbiology for the first time. He learned new techniques as he worked with sediment samples, grew bacteria from them, and then screened them, testing to see if bacteria he grew produced compounds that inhibited the growth of drug-resistant pathogens.

“We worked with MRSA for example, and we found plenty of bacteria that inhibited MRSA’s growth. I learned that marine sediments are a great source of bacteria that could be candidates for drug discovery,” he said. “It was really exciting.”

Looking ahead

As a senior, Wu is back where he began — working with Trammell on his senior thesis. Wu is studying soil samples from beneath two species of shrubs in Newark, processing the samples for microbial data to figure out what bacteria are living there. The questions he has asked: Are invasive shrubs facilitating a change in what bacteria live in the soil? Are they changing the microbial communities beneath them? And if so, how?   

“From his first email, he has been unique. He is specific and digs in intellectually, and was an honors thesis student from the start,” Trammell said.

“I’ve been fortunate with the labs I’ve been placed in, the people I’ve connected with and chosen as mentors. And fortunate to have interacted with professors willing to have undergrads take a shadowing role. And if I want to spin off a topic or do my own, they’ve been willing to do that, too,” Wu said. 

After his May graduation, Wu will no doubt make an impact at one of the four universities where he has been accepted and where he will study for his doctoral degree in microbiology or population biology, ecology and evolution. His end goal is to teach at the university level.

“The hallmark of my undergrad experience has been the ability to combine research, teaching and mentorship, the signature of work in academia,” he said. “I look forward to ongoing interaction with students, guiding and helping them figure out their lives and achieving success in whatever way they define it through experiential opportunities. I want to have that impact.”