On Friday, May 1, the Office of Undergraduate Research held their largest-ever Research Symposium featuring 20 panels and over 50 poster presentations. The symposium showcased student work from across departments, with projects spanning climate science, neuroscience, literature, linguistics, and social behavior. Students presented research ranging from experimental studies on climate communication to analyses of the influence of Indigenous language.

“I am just astounded by the breadth and depth and variety of research that is happening on campus, and these campus-wide events like the Symposium, like Lab Crawl, are a really incredible way for people to experience a taste of what’s going on on campus,” Director of Inclusive Excellence in Undergraduate Research and STEM Education Abby Aresty said.

The event spanned the entire day, with oral presentations from 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m. and poster presentations from 12–2 p.m., showcasing students’ work at every stage of the research process, from pilot studies to completed honors theses and capstones.

This year, OUR also expanded Undergraduate Research Week, which has been celebrated for several years, into Undergraduate Research Month. Throughout April, OUR organized preparational workshops hosted by research ambassadors across several class years and areas of study. Some of the workshops informed students about different elements of presenting research, from writing abstracts to speaking skills. OUR Student Research Ambassador and College fourth-year Nyrobi Whitfield said research ambassadors have also been working on making resources on research more available online to mitigate the intimidation that students might feel scheduling an in-person, one-on-one meeting.

According to OUR staff, the increase in participation in recent years is partially due to their efforts in branching out to departments outside of STEM, emphasizing that engaging in and presenting research is not exclusive to STEM.

“There’s this perception that OUR is very STEM-oriented, and so what we’ve been trying to do is bring that attention more towards the humanities and social sciences too,” OUR Student Research Ambassador and College fourth-year Tanisha Shende said. 

This year’s presentation titles include “Can Exposure to Localized Climate Information Increase Support for Climate Policies?”, “The Lexical Impact of Latin America on the Spanish Language,” “Serving the Public: How Public Places Function in Lorain County,” and “‘Detached from Purity’: How Catholic Dress Coding Practices Disproportionately Target Black Girls.”

“What’s beautiful about a liberal arts context is that you could have someone looking at mosquitoes and mosquito viruses from a biology perspective, like [Assistant Professor of Biology Andrew] Pike’s lab versus [Assistant Professor of Statistics and Data Science] Zeinab Mohamed’s lab,” Aresty said. “And we have students that are doing both of those things.”

Whitfield also emphasized how the Symposium helps motivate students to pursue research outside of Oberlin and encouraged her to branch out. She ended up participating in both international and national research conferences. 

“One of the biggest skills that I’ve been able to learn as a presenter at these symposiums [is] being able to communicate my science to someone who may or may not have a background in it, which is really useful,” Whitfield said. “My freshman year … the symposium was really a confidence-builder that showed me I could do it, even though I’m an undergraduate. …  At international conferences, it’s big research go-getters and people with PhDs, but really, anybody can do it.” 

STEM Program Coordinator Emily Hilpman highlighted the symposium as an opportunity for Obies to support and witness what their peers have been working on.

“There is so much research going on at Oberlin — even faculty whose research I think I know about are mentoring students doing research that goes completely in another direction,” Hilpman said. “I have truly enjoyed reading all of the submitted abstracts and getting more exposure to the huge variety of topics students here are interested in. I can’t wait to hear more from the researchers themselves!”