Pre-Inauguration Student Showcase
Honoring the Full Spectrum of Student Accomplishment
Student summer researchers got the opportunity to present their work last Friday, October 4, prior to President Audrey Bilger’s inauguration. The purpose of this showcase was to both celebrate the work of students as members of Reed in front of a non-specialist audience including notable figures, from trustees to summer research donors and the keynote speaker, and to provide a more prominent space for the display of non-STEM summer research, internships, and creative opportunities both in and outside of Reed.
Ideally, this showcase can serve as a kick-off event allowing future opportunities for students to present their work beyond the traditional STEM poster format, Faculty Administrative Coordinator Kristy Gonyer told the Quest.
“I hope that the showcase is a yearly event. We have begun speaking about how this could happen, and how we might improve on it for next time,” said Professor of Spanish and Humanities Libby Drumm.
The showcase was laid out so that non-STEM posters, of which there were only a handful, were placed in front of the stage. The STEM posters were positioned in a central ring around the rest of the auditorium, with booths for non-STEM, non-poster displays in a concentric outside ring. Video clips of the showcase, including some interviews of student presenters, will be included in a highlights reel of the entire inauguration.
“I thought it was a great success!” Drumm said. “Although there has been a successful poster session for students in STEM fields for many years, this was the first time that we attempted one for students across campus engaged in summer research [as well as in] other opportunities funded or administered by Reed, like internships or creative work… It was wonderful to see the range of interesting summer work.”
Reedies, indeed, presented on a wide swath of topics, from “Why (Don’t) We Talk About Race: Exploring the Relationship Between Academic Social Norms and Faculty Members’ Perceptions of Conducting Race Talk in the College Classroom” by Marshall DeFor to “‘The Aesthetics of Shock:’ Tracing the history of shock in music and theatre from the 17th through the 20th century” by Katelyn Ehrenberg and “Chemical Mechanisms of Atmospheric Particulate Matter Production from Tree Emissions” by Emily McLaughlin Sta. Maria.
Below is a non-comprehensive list of additional presentations from the showcase.
Several exhibitions highlighted community activism, including “Working with young homeless artists at Youth Spirit Artworks in Berkeley, California” by Jillian de la Torre, “China’s Minimum Wage Policy and its Impact on Migrant Labor Markets” by Ellen Chen, “White Bird Clinic Internship” by Elise Garrison, “Reed Community Pantry: Expanding the Contact and Shaping the Impact” by Alyse Cronk, and “The TransYouth Project: Interning with the First and Longest Longitudinal Study of Trans Children to date” by Rishi Krishnamurthy.
Other non-STEM displays included “Ngoma across the Atlantic: Zimbabwean Music on the West Coast of the United States” by Anesu Ndoro, “The Occasional Poems of Gerald of Wales: An Edition and Translation” by Kashaf Qureshi, “Making French Medieval influences of Little Red Riding Hood visible through illustration & bookbinding” by Hannah Jensvold, and “The Vigla Archaeological Project” by Hayley Curtis.
STEM presentations included “Molecular Mechanisms of PET Biodegradation” by Jamie Lindner, “Factors influencing abundance of sucking insects on native plants in agroforestry system” by Sophia Varaday, “Social Stress Effects on Telomere Length and Telomerase Activity in A. Burtoni” by Miffy Guo, “Breaking the diffraction limit using expansion microscopy” by Maham Zia, “Forestry Data Science: Inventory and Analysis in the Interior West” by Salma Huque, “Calibrating and analyzing photomultiplier tubes for the ICARUS experiment” by Kees Benkendorfer, and “Investigating Amplitude Death in Directly-Coupled Optoelectronic Oscillators” by Thomas Malthouse.