Students display culmination of annual work
Written by Kalie McCausland, Apr 25, 2012, 0 Comments
From posters on polymerization research to a series of portraits, the Ninth Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium showcased research and creative work from USF St. Petersburg Students in Davis Hall on April 19.
The symposium yielded undergraduate students from all different majors, from biochemistry and pre-med to mass communications and English. Almost 80 undergraduate students participated, with 26 different faculty members sponsoring the projects.
“The symposium represents USFSP at its best,” said Thomas Smith, director of the Honors Program. “The room was abuzz with ideas and information and arguments.”
Projects that were presented at the symposium included Kristina Gemayel’s research project on polymerization for specialized drug delivery, which develops less invasive cancer treatments. She spent over 400 hours analyzing data.
“It was a lot of hard work, but it was great to be able to work on groundbreaking research developments that can change cancer treatments altogether,” Gemayel said.
She isn’t the first person to work on this type of polymer research, but her project is one of the first to successfully locate a stable polymer.
Thien-Bach Huynh, a management major, created a software program for the Xbox Kinect. Huynh developed a program that connects his computer and a Kinect camera and allows the user to control the objects on the screen with their hands.
Josie Griffin, an English literature major in the Honors Program painted a series of portraits of four of her family members to accompany her 15-page thesis on portraiture and expression. The painting process took over 60 hours as she captured the individuals’ expressions and personalities in her portraits.
The room was crowded with traffic from students, faculty members and spectators. Organizers believe this will change at next year’s symposium when it is held in a larger room in the new student services building.
Photo by Daniel Mutter
