2024 Student Scholars Symposium highlights student research of yesterday and today
Symposium keynote Paul Ayers, award-winning theoretical chemist, found his calling and his career skills in Lipscomb’s science classrooms.
Janel Shoun-Smith |
The 13th annual Student Scholars Symposium (SSS) was held throughout campus on Thursday, April 11, showcasing the scholarly and creative works of almost 300 undergraduate and graduate students from every college on the Lipscomb campus.
Thirty-five oral and poster presentations were awarded as “outstanding” in their group. The presentations of empirical research ranged from in-class research projects and extra-curricular one-on-one research with professors to artistic performances, senior capstone projects and a student panel on the development of a historic event on campus.
Lipscomb considers research as fundamental to students’ growth and success in their careers. The symposium allows students headed for research-focused programs at graduate schools a taste of what an academic conference is like, while also improving all students’ communication skills and confidence by allowing them to develop and present presentations on their studies.
The 172 presentations at the event involved almost 300 undergraduate and graduate students.
The event has also played a major role in expanding the amount of in-class research conducted on campus, in courses called CUREs (Course Based Undergraduate Experiences), and provides a showcase for graduate students conducting research in Lipscomb’s pharmacy and molecular biology labs and social science programs.
The 2024 SSS featured keynote speaker was Lipscomb alumnus Paul Ayers (BS ’96) who is now the Canada Research Chair for Theoretical Chemistry at McMaster University.
The North Carolina native graduated from Lipscomb with three majors (physics, mathematics and chemistry), nearly 20 elective courses, a 4.0 GPA and a wealth of research experience from internships and the lab of (retired chemistry faculty) Dr. Paul Langford under his belt.
In his talk, he used his own life experiences that led to his career as a theoretical chemist to pass on sage advice to the young researchers in the audience: failure to get desired results in an experiment, does not mean one has failed as a researcher. In fact, he noted, failure is an important part of the process of discovery.
Paul Ayers speaking at the 2024 Student Scholars Symposium.
Ayers holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he was a postdoctoral associate in Duke University’s chemistry department, where he held a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.
He has published 370 papers and book chapters, given more than 300 invited lectures and has won a plethora of awards including several of the top international awards in the field: the Dirac Medal, the annual medal of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science, the Rutherford Medal and a fellowship in the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Highlights from this year’s symposium included a presentation by the first graduate in Lipscomb’s new humanitarian engineering minor program, built on the foundation of the missions project coordinated by the Peugeot Center for Engineering Service in Developing Communities.
Reid Murdock (’23) presented the background and outcomes of his practicum project to earn the minor. He worked with two professional engineers to learn the EPA standards for emissions and the best ways to test a prototype biomedical waste incinerator. In 2023, senior engineering students designed, constructed and installed a bio-incinerator at the Beersheba Springs Medical Clinic in Beersheba Springs, Tennessee, as a prototype for an incinerator to be built at the Predisan medical clinic in Honduras.
this year’s symposium included a presentation by the first graduate in Lipscomb’s new humanitarian engineering minor program Reid Murdock ('23).
In disadvantaged nations, disposing of medical waste can be harmful to local residents through emissions from open pit burning or the proximity of residents who live near a disposal area. The results of Murdock's project showed that the student-built prototype incinerator was more effective and safer than open pit burning of biomedical waste.
The Department of Fashion and Design hosted a panel discussion with eight of the student leaders of the 42-student team that coordinated the fall 2023 exhibit “Dolly Parton and the Makers: My Life in Rhinestones.” The exhibit drew 8,000 visitors from across the globe to campus.
Through the scholarship and hands-on application required by the months-long project, students learned leadership skills, the real-world processes involved in their chosen major, how to pivot quickly and how trying something new can uncover a new passion.
“I learned that leadership is an opportunity to empower other people,” said Bex Olesek, student lead for gallery installation. “You are given this role in order to empower other people to do what they love.”
The Department of Fashion and Design hosted a panel discussion with eight of the student leaders of the 42-student team that coordinated the fall 2023 exhibit “Dolly Parton and the Makers: My Life in Rhinestones.”
The pilot year of Lipscomb’s new Master of Pharmaceutical Science produced four presentations on various studies involving drug development and pharmacokinetics, how the body processes a drug. Three studies at the poster presentations were tied to specific clinical trials. Dana Dishman’s study determined the stability of an asthma drug in order to prepare it in larger volumes for a pediatric trial. Ashley Rector worked to develop a measurement of a breast cancer drug in the body to see if it could ultimately be paired with other drugs in a human trial. Joanna Cravens’ and Katelyn Covington’s research developed a way to measure for one of three drugs in a potential drug cocktail for patients in a human clinical trial. Finally, Kevin Wu conducted tests on a new drug to see if it is effectively absorbed into the body to treat heart arrhythmias.
Every Lipscomb nursing student is required to take a research methods course, and this year 50 students presented nine literature review research projects on topics of interest, ranging from how forensic nurses can promote healthy recovery for victims of trauma to strategies to help children cope with pain of treatments, from comparisons of water birth versus land birth to factors that contribute to nurses’ burnout.
The pilot year of Lipscomb’s new Master of Pharmaceutical Science produced four presentations on various studies involving drug development and pharmacokinetics, how the body processes a drug.
“I tell them that someday they will wonder, ‘Why do we do things this way?’, and it won’t be good enough to say, ‘There has got to be a better way,” You need to be able to go pull the research,” said Jennifer Hicks, instructor in Lipscomb’s nursing program in the College of Health Sciences
The 172 presentations at the event involved 69 students from the biology department, 50 students from the School of Nursing, 39 from the Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering, 21 from the Department of Kinesiology, 17 from the Department of Nutrition, 15 from the Department of English and Modern Languages, 11 from the College of Pharmacy and 68 from the various other departments and colleges on campus.
Every Lipscomb nursing student is required to take a research methods course, and this year 50 students presented nine literature review research projects on topics of interest.