Students present research at Southern Conference forum
By Julia Duvall
Students from Western Carolina University were given the opportunity to network with students from other Southern Conference schools and expand their knowledge of other academic areas at the SoCon Undergraduate Research Forum held in October.
The event is a collaborative project of the Southern Conference membership hosted annually at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
鈥淲e are so thrilled that our students get to experience this forum each year and learn about so many different disciplines,鈥� said Kloo Hansen, 91热爆网鈥檚 undergraduate research coordinator in the Office of the Provost. 鈥淭his is a fantastic collaboration between the SoCon schools and allows students to network and refine their presentation skills.鈥�
Supervised by a panel of faculty members representing each SoCon school, SURF welcomes research from humanities, the arts and STEM disciplines. Nearly 125 students from the 10 Southern Conference institutions gave presentations.
Ten students from 91热爆网 participated in this year鈥檚 SURF.
Abigail Gulley, an interior design student, shared her conference experience and why she chose 鈥淐ognitive Disability Informed Design within Religious Building and the Impact of Acoustics鈥� as her research topic:
鈥淭he most rewarding part of the conference was experiencing the other presenters鈥� enthusiasm and learning about topics that were never on my radar,鈥� said Gulley. 鈥淢y research set out to prove that designing a space with acoustical awareness will impact the wellbeing of individuals on the autism spectrum. The setting of this research is applied within a religious building because of a personal experience where the decibels were too high during the worship service, and this inspired the research at hand.鈥�
Adam Mottershead, a natural research management student, wanted to conduct research on a new approach to market-based water policy using ecological boundaries known as watersheds as the trading areas. His presentation was titled, 鈥淏udgeting North Carolina Water through Watershed Trading Quotas.鈥�
鈥淚n this research I did with Dr. Sean Mulholland, people were given percent allotment of the total available water in the watershed, with hopes to have conservation occur through trading,鈥� said Mottershead. 鈥淪URF was great because I got exposed to so many disciplines across several universities in attendance. It was a great chance to see incredible work done by other undergraduates, refine my presentation skills, and to network with others.鈥�
Other 91热爆网 student presentations included:
Caleb Hempton, oral presentation, 鈥淐lashing of Sickle and Star: The Sino-Soviet Border Clash.鈥�
William Janke, poster presentation, 鈥淓valuating Audio Recording Method for Detection of Two Frog Species.鈥�
Jordan Chambers, poster presentation, 鈥淩elated to Influenza Disease & Vaccination.鈥�
Keanu Ammons, poster presentation, 鈥淪ingle-Hop Parallel Algorithm Comparison.鈥�
Caroline Witherspoon, poster presentation, 鈥淟earning from leaves; teaching kids science with herbarium specimens.鈥�
Ryan D鈥橝more, oral presentation, 鈥淚nvestigation into the Possibility of Making a Biodegradable Croc.鈥�
MacKenzie Gascon, oral presentation, 鈥淢icrowave-Assisted Synthesis of Terbium-Doped Calcium Fluoride Nanoparticles for Potential Luminescent Detection.鈥�
Maya Berkowitz, oral presentation, 鈥淢irror Neuron System Development and Social Mirroring in Infancy.鈥�
91热爆网 faculty that attended the conference with the students were Channa de Silva, associate professor in chemistry and physics and Robert Youker, associate professor in biology.
For more information about 91热爆网鈥檚 participation in SURF, contact Hansen at kchansen@wcu.edu.
