More than 170 students, faculty, staff and industry representatives attended the April 15 event, which featured 75 poster booths and 35 oral presentations, in the Student Union.
Jason Deibel, director of undergraduate research and experiential learning in the College of Science and Mathematics, said the event is a way to honor the success of the students and give those who are presenting their research for the first time a supportive environment. “One of the things that gets forgotten is the ability to communicate your results,” he said. “This is the start of it.”
Deibel said conducting research can help undergraduate students increase their chances of succeeding academically, graduating and finding jobs. “You identify in the field that you work with because you are actually doing the work,” he said. The event also enables industry representatives to interact with the students and find out about their research. “They want to know what’s in the pipeline,” he said.
Psychology undergraduate student, Ryaja Johnson, pictured with her team's poster, researched the lasting effects of maternal-separation on anxiety-related behaviors in rats. She and her team measured marble buring as this behavior is thought to be positively correlated with anxiety. Ryaja presented their results with Krystal Kelley, and Gina DeFancisco at the event. Dragana Ivkovich Claflin, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Psychology, was their faculty mentor. Other collaborators were psychology undergraduate students Emily Artz, Tiara Bishop, Katie Carroll, Brandy Schmidt, Joshua Sensenbaugh, Kristen Tijsterman, Montana Wear, and Jordan Young. You can read all abstracts in the 2016 Celebration of Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities Book of Abstracts in Core Scholar.
Among industry representatives attending the event and serving as panelist was Juan E. Catano-Montoya, a senior research engineer at the Sidney, Ohio-based Emerson Climate Technologies. “We’re interested in seeing the research projects at Wright State,” said Catano-Montora, adding that it could result in collaboration with the university and possibly jobs for students down the road.
Sponsors of the event are Peerless Technologies, Emerson Climate Technologies, Heraeus, Riverside Research, Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., InfoScitex Corp., Woolpert, Wright State University Hospitality Services and Barnes and Noble.
Read more in the Newsroom and view the WHIO video highlighting this event.
