| Council of Graduate Students conducts research showcase |
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| Written by Aseem Khanna | |
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The Council of Graduate Students (CGS) conducted graduate showcase on April 4, 2007. About fifty graduate students showcased their research through poster presentations. The event was a judged poster competition open to all graduate students with a total prize pool of eleven hundred dollars in cash and prizes. First prize of five hundred dollars went to Helen Carrie Bender, from the department of geology and geophysics. Second prize of three hundred dollars was won by Linu Sara Abrahm from the department of chemistry. Third prize of two hundred dollars went to Shishir Bashyal from the department of electrical engineering. Consolation prizes were given to Taresh Grover from department of engineering management and Suriya Shanmugam from the department of civil engineering.  The CGS research showcase gave graduate students a chance to expose their research to other students, as well as faculty members from various fields in order to gain feedback. Students showcased their research in various fields. Posters that drew special attention from the audience were; Environmental geochemistry of metal contaminated sediments in the Big River system of southeastern Missouri, Lead alters the oxidative status of immune cells in vitro, Facial Expression Recognition using LVQ, Financial Model To Justify Methane Remediation, Seismic Behavior of Bridge Columns under Combined Loadings, Predicting and Reducing Warranty costs based on Taguchi System amongst others. Dr. Venkat Allada who has recently been appointed as Vice-Provost for graduate studies was one of the audiences at the competition. He said, “It’s a very good event showcasing interdisciplinary research. At such a platform silo mentality of students to work within their own respective departments is broken. They get to know about the research in other disciplines. I would like to see that the work of students be more visible. Also I would like to work with CGS to conduct more events like this and get higher involvement from graduate students and faculty.” Raj Kanwar Singh the new president of CGS was very happy about the success of the event. He and other office bearers took office last month end and this was the first successful event they conducted. “We got all the guidance we required from the ex-office bearers. They planned the whole thing and helped us at every level in making this event a success. I especially want to thank Mr. Adam Sibley the ex-president of CGS who was there whenever we needed any guidance,” said Raj. As it turned out many students were not happy with the arrangements. “Time given per student for presenting the poster is very less. In half an hour you don’t get to capture much audience apart from the judges. Also there is variation in sizes of posters presented by students while CGS mentioned particular dimensions for posters,” said Swakshar Ray a PhD student from department of electrical engineering. All said and done the event brought forth the research from laboratories to a platform where graduate students could expose their research to other students and faculty members from various fields and get invaluable feedback on their ideas and approach. |
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