The annual Undergraduate Research Network Symposium was held March 31 and showcased student research in a vast range of disciplines within the humanities, sciences and social sciences.
Partnering with the Center for Undergraduate Excellence, the Symposium incorporated CUE grant winners as participants in the program.
Students presented their research to members of the University faculty and competed for various cash prizes.
Third-year College students Aarti Purohit and Jenny Liu, co-chairs of the Symposium committee, said the symposium took several months of planning.
“A big part [of planning] was outreach as well as getting in contact with different groups at U.Va.,” Liu said.
Organizers emailed 200 faculty and got 45 to judge, Liu said. The College Council also helped with putting on the event.
There were three categories of projects — humanities, natural sciences and social science — with three winners in each category. The first prize won $300, the second prize won $150 and the third prize won $50, Purohit said.
Third-year College students Sarah Koch and Orion Williams took first prize in the social sciences category, fourth-year College student Emma Kitchen won first prize in the humanities category and third-year Engineering student Jonathan Valenzuela earned first prize in the natural sciences category.
All winners had the option of submitting their research project abstract to “The Oculus,” the University’s journal of undergraduate research.
Next year, the Symposium committee hopes to grant all winners automatic admission to be featured in “The Oculus,” Purohit said.
The feedback from faculty was one the the highlights of the symposium, Purohit said.
“[The biggest highlight] was having observing faculty come up to us and tell us positive feedback about the projects,” Purohit said. “That’s the whole purpose of the symposium, and I think students really appreciated that, as well.”
Kitchen her category with her project titled “Reflections of Nineteenth-Century American Literature in Louis Agassiz’s Science.”
“It was incredibly gratifying to share the research I worked on for the past couple of years,” Kitchen said in an email statement. “It forces you to put your interests into perspective, consider why they matter to you and why they might be interesting to other students and faculty.”
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