7th Annual UO Undergraduate Research Symposium Preview

Established in 2011, the UO Undergraduate Symposium celebrates the remarkable contributions undergraduates make to research and creative scholarship in a wide range of disciplines. The Undergraduate Symposium is hosted by the Division of Undergraduate Studies with support from University Housing, the Robert D. Clark Honors College, and the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation.

The Symposium invites students to showcase their work through oral, poster, and creative work presentations encompassing art installations, science demonstrations, film screenings, and live music, dance, theatre, and spoken word performances.

The Undergraduate Symposium debuted in 2011 with 69 presenters and 40 faculty mentors spanning 20 majors and four colleges, and in its seventh year has grown to 292 presenters and 177 faculty mentors spanning 60 majors and eight colleges. Over the past seven years the Symposium has hosted nearly 1200 student presenters.

This year the Symposium is back in the EMU and taking over the second floor with oral presentation sessions, creative work installations and performance, and a poster session. Events begin at 10 am and run throughout the day until 7 pm.

For more information about the Undergraduate Symposium, visit http://undergradsymposium.oregon.edu.

New this year:

The 2017 Symposium is debuting the integration of “Academic Residential Communities Day” to support the curriculum of Academic Residential Communities (ARC), which foster a scaffolded engagement with undergraduate research for first- and second-year students throughout the academic year in their ARC seminar courses. ARC Faculty Directors, Program Coordinators, peer mentors, and ARC students will deliver group presentations sharing their experiential, applied, and community-engaged research projects beginning with the Umoja Pan-African Scholars and LGBTQIA+ Scholars ARCs.

Highlights:
  • 128 poster presentations in the EMU Ballroom starting at 5:00 pm
  • 87 oral presentations during three concurrent sessions beginning at 10:00 am
  • 12 creative work projects beginning at 3:30 pm
  • 119 presenters received research funding from 61 internal and external sources

Quick Facts:

Date:     Thursday, May 20, 2016
Location:    EMU
Time:     10:00 am – 7:15 pm (see full schedule below)

Total presentations:     235 (a new record!)
Total presenters and co-presenters:     281 
Total faculty mentors:     177
Total majors represented:     59

Science projects:     104
Social science projects:     68
Humanities projects:     44
Fine/Performance Arts projects:     6
Design Projects:    5

Symposium Schedule

Registration/Check-in Opens         9:00 am

Concurrent Oral Session 1          10:00 am – 11:30 pm

Session 1a, Maple Room
Survival and/of the Fittest: Fatigue, Stress, Mutation, and Potential – Maple Room: Session 1a

Session 1b, Oak Room
Speaking in Tongues: Accents, Variations, and Interpretations

Session 1c, Swindells Room
Women’s and Feminist Stories, Histories, and Legacies

Session 1d, Cedar Room
Patriot, Protester, Spectacle: Representations of Blackness in the United States

Session 1e, Spruce Room
Jorge Luis Borges and his Poetics of Rewriting

Session 1f, Gumwood Room
Native American Studies and Decolonizing Research

Session 1g, Redwood
Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal: Ongoing Issues of Representation: Stereotypes and the Practice of Research

Concurrent Oral Session 2          12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

Session 2a, Maple Room
Global Health & Development: Contemporary Issues, Student Perspectives

Session 2b, Oak Room
How We Perceive, How We Learn: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Session 2c, Swindells Room
Thinking Globally: New Approaches, Social Implications, and “Asparagus Justice”

Session 2d, Cedar Room
Of Bees and Men: Pursuing Questions of Climate, Restoration, and Ecology

Session 2e, Spruce Room
Making Connections, Understanding Choices: Issues and Opportunities Facing Today’s Students and Young Adults

Session 2f, Gumwood Room
Humanities Undergraduate Research Fellowship: Truth, Experimentation, and Spectacle: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Session 2g, Redwood
Stories of Yesterday and Visions of Tomorrow in the Field of Literary Studies

Concurrent Oral Session 3          1:45 pm – 3:15 pm

Session 3a,  Maple Room
From Particles to Galaxies: Research in Chemistry, Physics, and Computer Science

Session 3b, Oak Room
Environmental Education and Environmental Leadership Program

Session 3c, Swindells Room
Thinking “Green”: Seeing, Imagining, and Interpreting Environmental Studies

Session 3d, Cedar Room
Pieces of the Whole: Ecology, Evolution and Design

Session 3e, Spruce Room
The Way Things Were: Resources, Customs and Cultures in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods

Session 3f, Gumwood Room
Interpreting the Inner “I,” Limiting the Eagle Eye: Philosophical Considerations

Session 3g, Redwood
Rewriting Curriculum, Reimagining the World: New Approaches to Educational Design

Session 3h, Bean East Conference Room
Humans and Their Interactions with Nature

Creative Works Session 4          3:30 pm – 5:00 pm

Session 4a,  Maple Room
Steeped in Sri Lanka: A Multimedia Exploration

Session 4b, Oak Room
Understanding the Creative Aspect of Music

Session 4c, Swindells Room
Sound Manipulation Techniques and “Meditations of Bilateral Consequences

Session 4d, EMU Ballroom
Piano Performances

Reception and Remarks     5:00 pm

Lisa Freinkel, Vice Provost & Dean of Undergraduate Studies
Andrew Nelson, Associate Vice President for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Benjamín Aleman, Assistant Professor of Physics

Poster Session          5:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Posters and creative work installations on display in the EMU Ballroom

Academic Residential Communities and FIG Session 5          5:20 pm – 7:00 pm

Session 5a,  Maple Room
Our Bodies, Our Country, Our World: Freshman Interest Group

Session 5b, Oak Room
The History of Black Resistance from Phillis Wheatley to Martin Luther King: Their Contributions and Our Questions: Umoja Pan-African Scholars Academic Residential Community

Session 5c, Spruce Room
Project Pronoun: The LGBTQIA+ Scholars Academic Residential Community Year-Long Colloquium Project