School of Arts and Sciences Review Winter 2014 | Page 21

A Closer Look Canadian schools like McMaster,” he said. “It was quite an honor to be asked to present at the RAS poster session,” said Alpha. “I’ve been working on my research for about a year and a half now and am aiming for publication before I graduate, so being asked to present helped confirm that I am on the right path.” What stood out the most to Alpha was the diversity of the subjects of his peers’ presentations. “There were posters and talks from students and professors on an incredibly wide variety of topics. Some of the ones that stood out to me included talks on the synthesis of iron oxide nanoparticles, computer-assisted molecular modeling of lipopeptide dynamics, and the importance of the MCH receptor. Other talks involved physics, zoology, botany, analytical chemistry, neurobiology, and science education,” he said. “The presentations themselves were fairly informal, in the sense that people would simply approach me to discuss my research or ask questions about material on my poster,” said Mo. “I think it was a rewarding experience to not only share with others what I had been doing in the research lab, but also look at what my peers in other universities have been working on. This was also the first time I had put together a research poster, so I learned a lot about writing an abstract, organizing my results, and presenting my work in a clear, simple manner.” “One thing we were proud of was that [the students’] posters were clear and easy to understand,” said Hilmey. “We stress that when you are presenting science it’s hard for people who aren’t in the exact field that you’re in to comprehend your work, so we want to make sure that when students have a poster up there, whether the student is there or not, someone could go up to that poster and get the general idea of the information there without having to read through two pages of text,” he said. Hilmey said the posters were well presented and the students’ work was significant. “Our students owned these projects; from start to finish they knew what was going on, they understood the background and they understood what the future directions are and where the next person is going with the project,” said Hilmey. “I think that preparing for the RAS paper session helped me realize how much I had learned in Dr. Zhang’s lab in the past two semesters,” said Mo. “By working in her lab, I was finally exposed to what an entire research process entails, from designing and performing experiments, to interpreting the collected results, and ultimately to presenting the findings. Not only did I learn new research techniques, methods, and scientific concepts, but I also learned how to be more independent in a lab setting.” “I hope to continue my education with an M.D./Ph.D., where research will be a big part of my career,” said Alpha. “Experiences such as the RAS poster session really help me hone my skills in presenting the results of my research in a way that is accessible to people of all knowledge levels. I’ll definitely take that with me as I continue pursuing my research interests,” he added. “I think it was a rewarding experience to not only share with others what I had been doing in the research lab, but also look at what my peers in other universities have been working on.” Cecilia Mo, ’13 21