Undergrad research on display at annual event

The Fourth Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, to be held noon to 5 p.m. Friday, May 4 in Mary Gates Hall, features the work of 260 undergraduates, in fields ranging from art to zoology.

Posters describing the student’s research projects will be on display all afternoon. Presentations will be from 1:30 to 2:45p.m. and 3 to 4:45 p.m.

For most of these students, the experience of conducting research has been the most important part of their education, according to Janice De Cosmo, director of the Undergraduate Research Program and coordinator of the symposium. “The opportunity to explore a subject in greater depth than can happen in the classroom, and to work closely with a faculty member in the process of research, sparks a passion in many students, even those who ultimately decide not to continue their studies in that vein,” she says.

Although there are no firm figures on how many UW undergraduates participate in research, their numbers are growing - in large measure due to the voluntary efforts of faculty. “My experience is that about nine out of 10 faculty members will say yes to having an undergraduate participate in their research,” DeCosmo says. “It turns out that once they’ve worked with an undergraduate, they are even more willing to do so in the future. Faculty report that undergraduates bring a fresh perspective to projects and a passion that sometimes rivals that of the faculty mentor.”

This year’s symposium contains a special focus on the faculty mentors. DeCosmo has received written acknowledgements and appreciative thoughts from 145 students, praising the faculty who have volunteered their time to assist in research projects. Ben Warrick (at right in photo above) was even moved to write a poem about his mentor, Robert Winglee, assistant professor of Geophysics (see below).

More information about the symposium is available at: http://www.washington.edu/research/urp/symp/.

Ben Warrick's poem:

Robert Winglee made a cool space-mobile
called the M2P2.
I asked him just what the hell does it do.
He said watch your mouth, and I’ll show
you,
So he taught me how and why it flew.

He let me help him build it too,
But I clumsily broke things in two,
So we used epoxy glue
To mend quartz tubes and replace many
screws.

We saved the M2P2,
But we weren’t yet through.
NASA wanted to prove the M2P2 would do
0 to 100 kilometers per second in a month or
two

Robert Winglee knew what to do.
He pulled strings to get a thust measurement
as proof
That it can swiftly get to Mars with a human
crew.
All because he made a cool space-mobile
called the M2P2.