About 60 University of Maryland graduate researchers across varying disciplines presented their research in Stamp Student Union on Wednesday.
This university’s Graduate Student Government hosted the Graduate Research Appreciation Day event to allow graduate students from different academic backgrounds to showcase their research, receive feedback and improve their communication skills, according to the GSG’s website.
Research presentations included topics ranging from mental health to biophysics. Students presented their findings through either a poster in the Grand Ballroom or giving a talk on their research in various rooms of Stamp.
Keegan Clements-Housser, GSG’s operations director and Graduate Research Appreciation Day committee chair, helped organize the event. He said the event aimed to help researchers practice presenting in a lower-stakes environment, but also to publicize graduate students’ research.
“Even very good research projects will never see the light of day,” the journalism studies doctoral student said.
The event’s judges consisted of mostly doctoral candidates and faculty members, according to Clements-Housser. The judges will determine the top five oral presentations and top two poster presentations to receive monetary awards ranging from $100 to $500, he said. The awards will be announced Thursday, according to Clements-Housser.
[UMD GSG urges university to lower fees, administrative costs for international students]
Beyond the awards, the event was a “a chance for [researchers] to hone their experience in presenting and maybe answer questions from other fields that they never would have considered,” Clements-Housser said.
Chia-Shuan Chang, a behavioral and community health doctoral student, said she presented her research on the association between Autism Spectrum Disorder treatments and adequate sleep among children with autism to practice translating research into everyday language.
“Everyone in different fields, they have their own professionalism and sometimes to translate all of the findings that we have to the general public, it’s really hard,” Chang said.
Chang said she found the judges’ feedback helpful for strengthening her research and figuring out her next steps to take. The Graduate Research Appreciation Day event is a good opportunity for researchers to practice presenting, she added.
“When we go outside and register for conferences, it’s so expensive,” Chang said. “But because the school has this free resource and everyone can just come, and without any stress, I think it’s a really, really good opportunity.”
[Federal government revokes visas from some UMD international students]
Nairita Ahsan Faruqui, a biological sciences doctoral student, said the event provided a good opportunity to present her research on the influenza virus for the first time.
Faruqui is researching the use of T-cell-based flu vaccines to achieve broader and longer-lasting protection against the virus.
“This was a good opportunity to put my work out there with so much going on with science work terms, like budget cuts and everything,” Faruqui said.
The judges evaluated presentations based on five criteria: the research question, methodology, results or implications, contribution to the field and the presentation itself.
Jay Thomas, one of the judges, was GSG president from 1992 to 1993 and earned a doctorate in geography in 1994. This was his fifth or sixth time serving as a judge for the event, he said.
“Graduate students at any place like the University of Maryland are the people who are doing the scholarship that creates our future,” Thomas said.
Thomas said the researchers have succeeded if they can explain to him — a non-specialist in their field — their work and results, why it matters and how they’re conducting it.
Thomas added he hopes presenters leave the event with an understanding of the importance of properly explaining their work to an audience.
“Being able to communicate what you do is essential and I’m happy to be able to play a small part in coming back to help folks learn to do that,” Thomas said.
