Undergraduates Showcase Explorations During Research Week

University of Texas at Dallas students got the opportunity to envision a possible future in research that they may not have considered during the annual Exhibition of Excellence in Undergraduate Research held April 10-15.

“I never saw myself being a physicist or something like that when I went into college,” biomedical engineering senior Connor Hoy said. “It’s kind of shocking just how possible this is to do.”

Sponsored and organized by the Office of Undergraduate Education, the exhibition aimed to recognize undergraduate research while inspiring others to try their hands at the art of inquiry.

“Participating in undergraduate research is one of many ways that students can enhance their experience while cultivating transferable skills,” said Courtney Brecheen MPA’09, PhD’17, interim dean of undergraduate education. “The Exhibition of Excellence in Undergraduate Research provides opportunities for all students to explore undergraduate research and celebrates the research productivity of undergraduates and their supporting faculty and staff.”

The exhibition culminated with the Undergraduate Research Scholar Awards Poster Contest Finals, which featured 12 projects that had been narrowed from 241 entries. Three winners were chosen by a panel of industry judges from Honeywell International Inc., Motorola, Olsson, TIAA and Veritex Community Bank.

For the first time, a team of students won the event. Six undergraduates, led by computer science senior Nivedha Sreenivasan, wowed the judges with their work developing a machine learning model to detect deception across different languages. Dr. Dohyeong Kim, professor of public policy, geospatial information sciences, and social data analytics and research in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, served as an advisor on the project.

Biology senior Laura Hua received second place for her work studying brown fat — the type of fat commonly known as ‘‘good fat.’’ Physics junior Minori Norah Kikuchi placed third with her research on how Global Navigation Satellite System signals degrade in certain conditions.

In addition to the poster contest, students attended a research panel of faculty and students, demonstrations of tools to locate research labs, resume workshops, and a match-day with more than 20 labs and 160 students.