Students, faculty and staff will present their research at the 30th annual Research Day, an all-day conference where participants present their research papers and display a synopsis of their research in a poster exhibition.
All disciplines are represented, from music to mathematics to history. NSU will host the event on April 20 in Morrison Hall and the Student Union Ballroom. The paper presentations will occur in four 20-minute segments.
Research Day also features keynote speaker Dr. Richard Jensen, Professor of History at the Louisiana Scholars’ College and last year’s awardee of the Dr. Jean D’Amato Lifetime Achievement Award. His lecture, “Terrorism from Anarchism to Al Qaeda and ISIS,” will discuss global terrorism.
The day will also headline an award ceremony recognizing winners of the following five awards: the Dr. Jean D’Amato Thomas Achievement Award, the Dr. Mildred Hart Bailey Faculty Research Award, the Dr. Marietta LeBreton Louisiana Studies Award and the Phi Kappa Phi Student Research Award and the Student Design Award.
Kirsten Fontenot, a senior liberal arts major with a concentration in scientific inquiry, will present part of her undergraduate thesis on the Ebola virus and computational chemistry at the event. Even though she has presented her research before, Fontenot said there is something special about presenting at NSU’s Research Day that makes her feel successful in her undergraduate career.
“[Presenting] gives me the opportunity to show what I’ve learned these last few years and show how much I’ve grown,” Fontenot said. “It gives me a sense of pride that my advisers feel that I have achieved enough and can present my research well enough to earn this opportunity.”
Junior English major Ashlyn Guidry said she has attended Research Day for the past two years and recognizes its value to the academic community.
“I personally love it because it is an opportunity for me to learn new things and gain a sense of different perspectives,” Guidry said.
The director of the Louisiana Scholars’ College, Associate Professor Kirsten Bartels, will also present at Research Day. Bartels was hired at the Scholars’ College last summer, and this will be her first attendance and presentation at NSU’s Research Day.
“Normally, I present to people that don’t know me, so to actually present… in front of my students, who I value quite highly, and my colleagues that don’t know my research; it puts it in a different perspective,” Bartels said.
Bartels’ paper presentation titled “Just Felix, Adaptations in Morris Gleitzman’s Protagonist across Literary and Literal Time” focuses on Holocaust fiction and Gleitzman’s “Once” book series.
The paper presentations begin at 8:15 a.m., and the last round of presentations begins at 2:30 p.m. The full schedule with abstracts is available online at researchday.nsula.edu.
