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Undergraduate Research Symposium


About


The Undergraduate Research Symposium, hosted by the Undergraduate Research Network (URN), is a forum which provides students with the opportunity to present their research to a responsive audience of peers, faculty, and mentors and is the culmination of the University-wide Research Week that is held in April. The Symposium is held in the Fall as well as the Spring semesters. The Spring Symposium 2008 will be held on April 4th in the Byrd Room in the Special Collections Library.

Undergraduate students from all disciplines and from all schools at the University of Virginia are invited to apply to give a 12-15 minute research presentation to an audience of peers. A panel of faculty members will evaluate the presentations, ask questions pertaining to the research and provide feedback. Download the application here. After the first reading of applications, URN will invite applicants to give a 15 minute PowerPoint/Oral trial presentation. URN will then make final selections based on the quality of the research and the clarity of the presentation. Finalists will be invited to present their research at the Undergraduate Research Spring Symposium on Friday, April 04th, 2008.

Questions? Comments? Please contact Caryl Huynh at ch5cc@virginia.edu or Upasana Bhattacharya at ub2d@virginia.edu

Click here for the application.


Schedule


..coming soon!

Previous Schedules


Schedule for Spring 2007


The Spring 2007 Symposium will be held from 10:30am to 4:30pm on Friday, April 27 in the Harrison Byrd Room of the Harrison Special Collections Library. Undergraduates from a variety of fields will present their research throughout the day. Feel free to come and go. Refreshments will be provided. Note: For a downloadable Word document version of the schedule, please click here.

  • 10:30am: “A Voyage of Spectacle: Oppositions in Contemporary French Noir Fiction” (Laura Wagner; French and Cognitive Science)
  • 10:50am: “A Cost-Effective, Portable Device for Obtaining Accurate Joint Angle Measurements” (Brian McReynolds, Peter Siy, Hiok Por Low; Electrical Engineering)
  • 11:10am: “Wireless Alert Motion Sensor” (Ashley Adams, Neveen Elnahal, Jerome Moore; Electrical Engineering)
  • 11:30am: “Measurement of Psychological Traits of Chronic Pain Patients” (Juliana Schroeder; Psychology)
  • 11:50am: “Structure of the Cog4 protein in the Golgi apparatus” (Ayumi Nakamura; Biology)
  • 12:10am: “Embryo Ethics: Science and Morality” (Craig Iffland; Political Philosophy, Policy, and Law; Religious Studies)
  • 12:30pm: “Integration in Actuality: A comparative study of public housing in Paris” (Christina Calabrese; Architecture, French)
  • 2:00pm: “Self-assembled Monolayers of Iridium Complex on Single-Crystal Silicon” (Gary Shambat; Chemistry, Electrical Engineering)
  • 2:20pm: “Controlled Assembly of Protein-mediated Lipid Multi-bilayers” (Armanda Roco; Biology)
  • 2:40pm: “Numerical Modeling of Heat Transfer in a Honeybee Comb” (Elizabeth Dykes; Chemical Engineering)
  • 3:00pm: “Literature in Political Rhetoric: Effective or Defective?” (Margaret Bolton; Political and Literary Thought)
  • 3:20pm: “Spectral Properties of the Radiosity Operator on Unoccluded Curves” (David Isaacs; Mathematics)

After the presentations, there will be a round of judging. The following professors have kindly donated their time to judge the presentations and offer feedback to the presenters:

    1. Karen M. Schmidt: Department of Psychology
    2. Ruth Gaare Bernheim: Department of Public Health Sciences
    3. Keith Williams: Department of Physics
    4. Jennifer DeForest: Curry School of Education
    5. Karlin Luedtke: Studies in Women and Gender
    6. Brian Balogh: Department of History
    7. Clare Terni: Department of Anthropology
    8. Michael Palmer: Teaching Resource Center/Chemistry
    9. Bob Swap: Department of Environmental Science
    10. Mitchell Green: Department of Philosophy
    11. Deborah McDowell: Department of English

Topics from Fall 2006


  • A Comparison of the Binding Kinetics of Lamotrigine and YW-192, Sodium Channel Blockers (Ellen Merrick; Neuroscience, Biology)
  • A Gradient of Glutamylated Tubulin Marks the Cell Periphery (Courtney Schroeder; Chemistry)
  • Multiplex Microfluidic-based DNA Purification (Travis Michael Hartberger; Chemistry, Biology)
  • Constructing Analytical and Counterterrorism Frameworks for Combating Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia (Prashanth Parameswaran; Foreign Affairs, Economics)
  • Hybridization and Evolution in the Woodfern Genus Dryopteris (Emily Page Behler; Biology)
  • Disk Level Malware Detection (Adrienne Felt; Computer Science, Mathematics)
  • Candomblé and Healthcare in Bahia (Stephanie Doupnik; Comparative Literature)
  • An Investigation of the Medical Atmosphere in South Africa: the Role of Community Home-Based Caregivers (Melissa Mallory; Biology)
  • ecoMOD 3 (Lindsay Hochman; Architecture)
  • Affordable and Ecological Residential Design Using Sustainable Construction Systems (Anna Badyoczek, Tina Cheng, Chris Donnelly, Virginia Friar, Cody Pannetti)
  • Home Wireless Health and Energy Monitoring (Michael Pilat, Jon Zimmerman, Ernie Bowden)
  • ecoMOD Green Roof (Carolyn Hiller, Ezekiel Fugate, Jeff Rominger)

Submissions


Click here for the application.

Once you have been notified of the selection results, then you can submit some anonymous feedback on the selection process if you would like. Please feel free to use this anonymous feedback form.

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