2017 Undergrad Research Symposium “a lively mix”

The 2017 ACS–St Louis Section Undergraduate Research Symposium was held Friday, December 8th, from 2:30 to 5:00 pm in the Science Laboratory West building at Southern Illinois University–Edwardsville.

Twelve presenters shared work from ten projects. There was a lively mix of students early in their research experience getting a chance to express what they had learned and students who had been working on their project for a while but maybe had not presented publicly yet. So close to the end of the semester, other floors of the building hosted senior presentations from other departments. A comment from one URS participant was that she got asked “do you have to do this to graduate?” and her response was “no, I want to do this to get better and not be nervous when presenting my research is a requirement”.

We experimented with a new system for evaluating awards which involved more of the faculty in attendance and was, perhaps, a little less time-consuming for the judges. Awards were made to the following presenters (co-authors and collaborators are not listed):

• 1st: Nicolas Revelt, mentored by Dr Sarah Luesse, for Influence of phenol substitution on tandem Ugi-Smiles Diels-Alder reactions
• 2nd: Haleigh Sperry, mentored by Dr Sarah Luesse, for Method development for preparation of triazole-based Ugi-Smiles derivatives
• 3rd: Hannah Schlarman, mentored by Dr Susan Wiediger, for Comparing the productivity of science-specific and general databases for chemistry primary literature
• 4th: Breanna Blackwell, mentored by Dr Susan Wiediger, for Shedding light on student perception of chemical exposure

I’ve included only a few photos from the event. There are many more on the Section’s Flickr photo stream. Check it out!

Appreciation is extended to all the attendees and volunteers, especially so close to the end of the fall semester! Save the date for next year’s Undergraduate Research Symposium, which is planned for Friday, November 2, 2018.