The Graduate School of Arts & Sciences held its 13th annual Robert J. Huskey Research Exhibition yesterday in Newcomb Hall to publicize student research and reward exceptional projects. The Exhibition was part of Grad Days, a two-week celebration of graduate and professional student life and academic achievement.
The event kicked off early Wednesday morning with research presentations from students from various academic disciplines.
“People who are coming to your poster and your oral [presentation] care and want to hear about what you are doing,” said Morgan Bolden, a graduate Arts & Sciences student and one of the event organizers. “[Graduate students] don’t generally get the ability to present our research aside from our dissertation.”
More than $8,000 in prizes were awarded to selected presenters at an evening awards ceremony. University faculty judged the projects based on delivery, research design and clarity of presented content.
Among the award recipients were Graduate Arts & Sciences students Robyn Kondrad and Marissa Drell, who earned first-place in Social and Behavior Science for their poster “At Least She Said Something,” focusing on children’s cognitive development and susceptibility to inaccurate information; Graduate Arts & Sciences students Rebecca Frazier and fourth-year College student Julian Wills, who won first-place in the “Two Hoos” category for their presentation “Justified Corruption – Do we empower leaders to act unethically on behalf of the group?”; and Bolden, who took second place for her oral presentation “Nitrogen-based heterocycles in sphingosine kinase inhibitors” in the Science and Mathematics category.
Several undergraduate students also participated through the “Two Hoos” oral competition, in which a graduate student and an undergraduate who had been conducting research together were able to jointly present their work.