Graduate Research Interaction Day Showcases Student Research

On Wednesday, April 11 2012, the Graduate Student Government organization hosted the annual Graduate Research Interaction Day (GRID). The event was held at Stamp Student Union from 9:30 am to 5:00 pm. The purpose of GRID is to create the opportunity for graduate students to share research, obtain valuable faculty and peer feedback, and hone their conference presentation skills.

The event included over one hundred panel presenters, more than fifty poster presenters and a plenary session for nominated students’ presentations. All participants were in competition for prizes such as more than $20,000 in award money for student travel to academic or professional conferences. All presenters were also eligible to win door prizes including the Amazon Kindle, iBeats earphones, Sandisk USB drives, gift baskets, and more.

The GRID was composed of three sessions of presentations. Students within each session were divided into subgroups by themes. These themes included Education: Pedagogy & Learning, Exploring our Physical Environment, Health, Pushing the Boundaries of Science, Politics and Public Policy, Modeling and Simulation, Addressing Environmental and Energy Issues, Science of the Cell, and many, many more. Special sessions also took place during the day, such as workshops on How to Become a Better Graduate Student, What’s Graduate School Really Like, and a Graduate Student Resource Fair.

A lunch break was held midday in the Colony Ballroom, where the Plenary Session took place. Graduate students nominated by their respective colleges for their excellence in research presented their work. Vice President of Research Dr. Patrick O’Shea gave a brief speech and Dr. Ben Shneiderman, professor of Computer Science, gave a keynote presentation entitled, "Social Media: Expanding Opportunities for Research."

The closing session included a talk by Steven Cohen entitled, “Learn How to Network.” Anna Bedford, the Graduate Student Government President, introduced the awards ceremony, which was then led by Dr. Charles Caramello, the Graduate School Dean.

The first place winners of the Graduate Research Interaction Day 2012 were Crystal Romeo, Hyoshin Park, Adam Richards, Mark Avara, Yogendra Rajawat, Davit Potoyan, Kathleen Mulvaney, Deepa Subramani, Abdel Hameed Badawy, Candise Lin, Amilcar Guzman, Kelly Madden, Theresa Donofrio, Katie White, Mary Furlong, Deepa Anagondahalli, Tiffany Carro, Babak Eslami, Dheeraj Pasham, Michael Lam, Ruth Oni, Amy Schwietzer, Alfredo Nava-Tudela, Rebecca Renberg, Kanika Gera, David Gleason, Claudia Rosales, Xin Zhang, Laura Sherman, Katie Zdilla, and Sean Luechtefeld.

April 14, 2012