Have you ever wondered how your sleeping habits affect your GPA? Are you interested in curing cancer? Do you enjoy programming, psychology, or literary conjecture? Then chances are you were in attendance at the 9th Annual Concord University Undergraduate Research Day on April 14, 2016 in the Student Center Ballroom.
Undergraduate Research Day is a grand annual spectacle where Concord’s students are given the opportunity to present papers and posters on topics they have been studying for classes, capstones, and professor assisted research projects. The day begins with a formal presentation by students of papers they’ve written under the guidance of various professors. There were two different sessions being held simultaneously: one in the Ballroom, and one in the AB Conference Room. Topics in the Ballroom ranged from a variety of subjects including programming, history, cancer research, and sociology. Meanwhile, in the AB Conference Room, topics of a more literary nature were discussed, with conjecture on such works from Wordsworth to Shakespeare.
After the paper sessions, students presented their research in the form of poster presentations. As was stated earlier, there were several topics of interest ranging from how music affects memory to how hallucinatory drugs affect cancer to developing artificial intelligence that could play computer games. This is a chance not only for students to proudly present their hard work and research, but also for them put on a show for the various graduate school representatives in attendance such as Marshall, West Virginia and King Universities.
Near the end of the schedule came the Keynote Address by Dr. Daniel G. Erlanger entitled “From Man to Mouse: Uncovering the Neural Circuits of Developmental and Psychiatric Disorders in Animal Models.” Dr. Ehlinger is a second year postdoctoral research fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. As of right now, Dr. Ehlinger is studying the structure and function of serotonin in treatment of certain psychological disorders in mouse models. With this research, he plans to further study how these results might be analogous to humans and how he might treat people with similar disorders.
Students are urged to look forward to the next Undergraduate Research Day as well as the similar Pre-Professional Day, in order to keep up to date with cutting edge research and technology being influenced by the university’s very own students and professors.