Graduate Students Gain Valuable Experience at Symposium
| Nov. 1, 2016 | Experience was the name of the game at the UAMS Graduate Student Association Research Symposium – experience developing posters, giving presentations and even organizing a symposium.
Thirty UAMS Graduate School students participated in the Oct. 28 event, which was held in both the Helen Guinn Adams Atrium and the Rayford Auditorium of the Biomedical Research buildings.
Organized by the Graduate Student Association, this was the third year for the event which provides students the opportunity to hone their presentation and gain valuable feedback.
Haleigh B. Eubanks takes questions from the audience as part of her presentation.
“It’s a symposium by students for students,” said Gregory Berbusse, M.S., GSA president. “It gives us experience talking about our work and presenting it to people who aren’t immersed in the same field as us, which exposes us to different viewpoints. A lot of students want to be principal investigators and run their own labs someday, so doing this helps us figure out our organizational style and work together to get something accomplished.”
The symposium included a morning poster session and an afternoon session featuring 10 oral presentations – both judged by faculty. The oral presentations were selected as the top 10 from among all the submissions in a pre-screening round of judging.
Berbusse said the symposium was intentionally modeled to be similar to the format students will face at other conferences they will attend. They not only got to practice presenting within a realistic setting, but they also gained from having additional people provide constructive criticism of their work.
“We get valuable feedback from each other and from the judges as far as, ‘Did you think of this?’ ‘Did you try doing it this way instead?’” Berbusse said. “It’s an extra set of eyes.”
Wezley Griffin, left, won first place in the oral presentation category, presented by GSA President Gregory Berbusse.
In addition to the student research, a select group of faculty and recent UAMS graduates who now work at UAMS presented their work as a part of a research showcase during the morning session. Berbusse said this was added to give first-year students who might still be deciding on a discipline a chance to consider a wider range of options.
Awards were given for the top three presenters in the poster and oral categories:
- Wezley Griffin, first place oral presentation
- Sarah M. Zimmerman, second place oral presentation
- Lorenzo Fernandes, third place oral presentation
- William MacCain, first place poster presentation
- Samantha McClenahan, second place poster presentation
- Elizabeth Naglak, third place poster presentation
William MacCain, a fourth-year microbiology student, left, explains his research to Kirk West, a fourth year biochemistry student. MacCain won first place in the poster presentation category.
Fifteen faculty volunteered to work as judges during the event, and the GSA’s efforts were supported by the Graduate School office: Dean Robert E. McGehee Jr., Ph.D.; Associate Dean Kristen Sterba, Ph.D.; Regina Dennis; and Allyson Douglass.
“All it took was asking and they all happily agreed,” Berbusse said. “We are thankful for their support.”
This was the first year for the symposium to be held in the fall rather than the spring. It was moved in order to keep it from competing with other similarly timed events. Berbusse encouraged more students to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the event.
“We’d like to have more student participation,” Berbusse said. “Turnout this year was great, but we always want to have more. It is a great way for us to gain experience in a familiar setting, so why pass it up?”