Hybrid research symposium planned for Undergraduate Research Week

LAWRENCE — The Center for Undergraduate Research is hosting online and in-person research presentations to celebrate Undergraduate Research Week. The 27th annual Undergraduate Research Symposium provides students a venue to share the results of their research and creative projects and the KU community the opportunity to learn from their discoveries.

There are 149 presentations registered for the 2024 Online Undergraduate Research Symposium. Student presentations (in PDF format) will be live on the symposium website April 15-19. 

This will be supplemented with three students presenting (A)ccessible, (C)reative and (E)ngaging (ACE) Talks from 3:30 to 5 p.m. April 16 in the Alderson Auditorium of the Kansas Union.

An additional ACE speaker, Kaitlyn Sy, a senior majoring in biotechnology, and her research mentor, Jack Treml, will present their research on the assessment of the effects of lactic acid on T cell viability and T cell receptor signaling in vitro at 3:30 p.m. April 17 in the English Room of the Kansas Union.

“We are continually impressed with the exciting research and creative projects KU undergraduate students are completing. The impact of these projects often spans far beyond KU’s campus. I hope the KU community will visit the symposium website and attend the in-person events this year to celebrate the amazing students, mentors and their inspiring work,” said Erin Wolfram, associate director of the Center for Undergraduate Research and Office of Fellowships.

The Undergraduate Research Symposium began in 1998 with the vision of Professor Emeritus K. Barbara Schowen, who wanted to provide an opportunity for students to share the results of their research and creative projects and hone their communication skills. Over the past 25 years, the campus has seen an increase in the number of students, faculty and staff participating in and supporting this annual event.

ACE Talks

The ACE Talks are the keynote presentations for the online symposium. Students applied to give an ACE Talk by submitting an abstract of their work and a short video of themselves talking about their project. Selected ACE Talk presenters each receive $500 and have a video of their presentation posted on the homepage of the 2024 Symposium website. The 2024 ACE Talk winners:

• Kaitlyn Sy, a biotechnology major from Olathe, “Hiding in Plain Sight: Is Lactate an Invisibility Cloak for Cancer?” mentored by Jack Treml and Randall Logan, School of Professional Studies.
• Logan Edmondson, a behavioral neuroscience major from Fairway, “Effects of End Times Messaging on Temporal Horizons,” mentored by Mark Landau, psychology.
• Duong (Diana) Nguyen, a psychology major from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, “Identity-Relevant Perceptions of Immigration among Asian Americans,” mentored by Glenn Adams and Syed Muhammad Omar, psychology.
• Alyson Honeyman, a biochemistry major from Lenexa, “Subcloning and Mutagenesis of Shigella Virulence Proteins Involved in Antimicrobial Resistance,” mentored by Roberto De Guzman, molecular biosciences.