Celebrating Student Research & Creativity
Bringing Jane Austen’s writing to life through dance. The ethics of Wall Street’s shadow markets. Turning algae into green energy. The history of POW war crimes trials. How Pakistani honor killings impact women and men. More accurate friend recommendations for Facebook. How blogging might change Iran.
These are just a few of the topics to be found at two upcoming campus events that put UMBC students’ intellectual curiosity and artistic creativity front and center.
The 13th annual Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day (URCAD) will be held Wednesday, April 22, followed by the 31st annual Graduate Research Conference (GRC) on Friday, April 24. Both events are extraordinary opportunities to discover original research and to enjoy free arts performances and exhibits.
Led by the Office of Undergraduate Education, URCAD gives students valuable experience preparing for graduate school or future careers, and in many cases, competitive grants of up to $1,500 over an academic year to support selected work. Nearly 200 student participants are involved with 165 scheduled presentations or performances at this year’s event.
“URCAD embodies and celebrates UMBC’s commitment to creativity, research, scholarship and a distinctive undergraduate experience,” said Teresa Viancour, associate vice provost for undergraduate education. “The outstanding professional maturity and social impact of student work presented at URCAD underscores the truly high quality of our students and the substantial commitment of faculty and staff who teach and mentor them. UMBC really is quite a special place.”
The GRC is a partnership between UMBC and University of Maryland, Baltimore and is sponsored by UMBC’s Graduate Student Association (GSA). Through its mentorship, support, outreach, social life and advocacy efforts, the GSA serves the more than 2,600 graduate students on campus. This year’s GRC keynote speaker is Marla Oros, president of the management consulting firm the Mosaic Group. The day will include 72 oral and poster presentations by UMBC and UMB graduate students.
“The GRC gives graduate students a special opportunity to present their research to the entire UMBC community,” said Katisha Smith, GSA vice president and a Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering. “As the biggest fan of UMBC graduate students, the GSA is proud to plan and host the GRC each year. We hope this event help students sharpen their presentation skills and take pride in their hard work, dedication and passion for knowledge.”
Selected highlights of 2009 URCAD and GRC presentations and performances include:
- A team of economics and philosophy students analyzed the business ethics of Wall Street’s “shadow market,” the unseen transactions of credit default swaps, hedge funds and other speculative products that contributed to the current economic crisis.
- “Letters from Jane,” by senior dance and English major Mary Rzasa combines literary history with choreography to bring Jane Austen’s letters to her elder sister Cassandra to life. Rzasa worked with UMBC dance alumna Elena Consoli ’07 to combine voice, music and dance sequences based on Austen’s life and filmed on location at historical sites in Hampshire, England into a 20-minute video.
- Autumn Marie Reed, a graduate student in Language, Literacy and Culture, studied honor-related violence in Pakistani culture. She will also present on this topic later this year at the annual conference of the International Society for Language Studies.
- Sophomore interdisciplinary studies major Yelena Dewald examined how the Internet and blogging are impacting youth culture, dissent and tradition in Iran, where the majority of the population is under 30 years old.
- A team of chemical and biochemical engineering students developed a design for an industrial-scale plant to produce biodiesel and ethanol biofuels from algae.
- Senior computer science major Roger Guseman worked with faculty and doctoral student mentors to create algorithms that could help social networking sites like Facebook increase accuracy when recommending potential new friends for their users.
- Information systems graduate student Huimin Qian is working on touch-based mobile phone technologies to help provide sighted tech users with safer driving directions and to improve mobile tech interfaces for the blind.
URCAD will be held on Wednesday, April 22, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the University Center and Fine Arts Building. In addition to a morning session devoted to live dance performances, an afternoon session will focus on video and animation. For more information, visit the URCAD Web site.
The 2008 Graduate Research Conference will be held on Friday, April 25, 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the University Center. For more information, please visit the GSA’s Web site.
(4/16/09)
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