The Spring Academic Showcase featured student presentations on everything from COVID-19 affecting pregnancies to shark attacks in the Mabel Brown Room. The Dean of Faculty Affairs Office presented the Student Showcase on Friday, April 28 from 2-4 p.m. in the Mabel Brown Room.
More than 50 student research projects were on display. Some students were required to present at the showcase as part of their finals, while others were given extra credit for presenting.
Attendees would walk through the Mabel Brown Room and observe the poster boards or laptops that showed student findings on a variety of different topics. Students stood near their showcase projects in order to present their work, as well as field any questions that attendees may have.
Students presented from a variety of different courses including Research in Primitive Structure Creation, Pathology, Pharm & Exercise, Applied Statistics, and Human Factors in Safety among others.
Senior Leah Ferrazzani was attending for her Nursing Research II course. “This is for my nursing research exam. This is my final project. It’s a two-part course and this semester we take all the information we learned and put it into a systematic review,” Ferrazzani said.
Ferrazzani’s presentation discussed the birth outcomes of mothers who had contracted COVID-19 while pregnant, though with the recency of COVID-19 she noted that some long-term results may not have been discovered yet.
Fellow senior Lauren Cody was also presenting for her Nursing Research II course. Cody’s presentation discussed Endometriosis, a disorder in which tissue similar to the one that normally lines the inside of the uterus grows outside the uterus, and causes pain.
When asked about what she hoped to take away from the showcase, Cody stated “For me personally it’s cool to see what everyone else has been working on across campus, but I also wanted to bring awareness to this condition that a lot of people have heard of, but might not know what it actually is.”
Junior student Scott Clark’s presentation discusses the facts regarding the “True Danger of Shark Attacks”, and some common misconceptions that people may have about them. Clark’s research found that shark attacks are far less common than people realize and that fatal shark attacks are even less common.
Clark noted that most shark attacks do not happen because the shark is hungry or attacking, but because the shark is curious. Clark learned that “sharks use their mouths to investigate their surroundings”, which is what accounts for many reported shark attacks.
Clark mentioned that he was in a student research program on campus, and when asked what he hoped to come away from the showcase with, Clark stated “hopefully, make some connections networking-wise, and it’s good to get in the habit of proper etiquette.”
Zach Murphy can be contacted at
zmurphy@kscequinox.com
