By Crystal Chiechi, UW senior majoring in English and transfer student, Edmonds and South Puget Sound Community Colleges
On May 15, 2009, the University of Washington brimmed with the energy of nearly 700 talented undergraduates, including several from local community colleges, showcasing their contributions to innovative and groundbreaking research at the Twelfth Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium.
Poster presentations and panels with community college student involvement emanated from a wide variety of disciplines:
These panelists came from North Seattle Community College and Seattle Central Community College.
"The most important ingredients are interest and passion," says Janice DeCosmo of the projects she oversees as director of UW's Undergraduate Research Program (URP), which facilitates research experiences for scholars in all academic disciplines. "This is a way for students to learn the process of presenting research."
URP organized the event with the UW Alumni Association to give students a venue for presenting their engagement with a diverse array of research topics to a larger audience through posters, oral presentations, and performances.
Cameron Rule, a senior majoring in Russian, presented his research comparing bilingual speakers in Lithuania and Estonia. He said the symposium was "an excellent opportunity to engage with other young researchers across a multitude of academic disciplines."
Rule's parents, who drove over from Spokane, remember their son being intrigued by all things Russian from a fairly young age and are proud of his contributions to undergraduate research, saying he has a "knack for languages."
"We are very impressed with the sheer quality of UW research projects," says Mike Rule. With projects ranging from linguistics to bioengineering to performing arts, students, faculty, and the community discussed cutting edge research and discovered how undergraduate research is solving real-life issues.
Wanting to solve the problem of bus uncertainty, recent graduates Raman Ahluwalia and Evan Hwang along with seniors Mark Javate, Daniel Nguyen, and Alex Poon presented their research called "Where's My Bus: King County Bus Visualization and Improvement."
Seeing an issue students deal with on a daily basis, they set up a website where riders can log on and track their bus by its route number. They said the most important design element was "ease of use" and got a broad view of public needs by testing their design with people from diverse backgrounds.
Senior bio-engineering major David Linders is also solving real world issues with "a disposable clinical force-sensing glove for measuring the forces [physicians] apply to their patients." With far-reaching applications in chiropractics, surgery and cardiology, Linders and his team plan to take their product presented at the Symposium to full commercialization soon.
"This project has given me more business sense," Linders states. "Educationally, I never saw myself as entrepreneurial, but have come to enjoy that aspect." He credits his mentors Dr. David Nuckley of the University of Minnesota and UW's Dr. Weichih Wang for their "quality of work and flexibility" in allowing him "to expand the project and contribute" his own ideas to the project.
Students at the symposium took the opportunity to honor the mentors who balance the guidance and flexibility essential to their achievements. Brittney Patterson, a junior economics major has been studying Bachata, a music and dance style from the Dominican Republic.
She credits her mentor, Juliet McMaines from the dance department, for her help in researching how "dance can be used as a tool for social change." "I can relate to her passion and she is so knowledgeable," Patterson says, "but she doesn't press her ideas on me. She lets me come to my own conclusions."
The Symposium is held every May and community college students are welcome to participate or just attend. You can learn more at: www.washington.edu/research/urp/symp/.
