Organizers are finalizing the lineup for the upcoming Western Student Research Conference, but said that time still remains to sign up to connect with peers from other disciplines and potentially generate cross-campus collaboration at the event.
Scheduled for March 26 in the Faculty of Health Sciences, the third annual conference, organized by undergraduate students and run through the Western Student Success Centre, will showcase research from students of all faculties. For the first time, the conference will be open to researchers from universities across Ontario.
Kathleen Walsh, conference co-chair, said the initial idea for the conference was hatched through Western’s Scholar’s Electives Program.
“We had already been doing research, which is multidisciplinary, and our friends and families where sick of hearing about it. We were dying to tell everyone about what we were doing,” the fourth-year Science student laughed.
This year, the conference will feature 40 oral presentations and 50 poster displays on work ranging from self-directed study projects, internships, summer research opportunities and volunteer research, among others.
This year, monetary prizes will be awarded to the top three presenters in both categories. All abstracts will be published in the Western Undergraduate Research Journal. Two will be selected to be published in the STEM fellowship journal.
“It’s the sharing of information,” said Raymond Huynh, part of the marketing team for the conference. “You can be stuck in your own realm and don’t really get to see what other people are doing. This, in a sense, sheds light on all the other research projects across campus, in other labs and in other facilities.”
Deadline for students to participate in the conference is midnight Friday, Jan. 20. Organizers are also looking for faculty and/or graduate students to assists as judges for the day. Details can be found at the event website, success.uwo.ca/scholars/western_student_research_conference.