MGA’s First STEMposium To Highlight Undergraduate Students’ Research

Author: News Bureau
Posted: Thursday, April 14, 2022 12:00 AM
Categories: Pressroom | School of Computing | School of Health and Natural Sciences | Faculty/Staff | Students

Macon, GA

Oyster spat settlement patterns on Jekyll Island and exploring Riemann’s rearrangement theorem are just two of the many research topics Middle Georgia State University (MGA) students will discuss at STEMposium, hosted by the departments of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and Statistics.

STEMposium is scheduled for 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, April 22, starting in room 102 of the Jones Building on the Macon Campus. The sessions are open to all MGA students, faculty, staff, and visitors.

“We wanted to give our undergraduate students involved in STEM research an opportunity to present their work,” said Duane Day, assistant professor of math who co-chairs the STEMposium organizing committee with Dr. Christine Rigsby, associate professor of biology. “Students who participate will gain valuable experience summarizing and presenting data, communicating to an audience of peers, and answering questions related to their research.”

STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and math education.

In addition to students presenting research, MGA’s STEMposium will feature guest speaker Dr. Clive H. Bock, research plant pathologist at the USDA-Agricultural Research Service in Byron. Bock has worked on crop diseases in various regions of the U.S., United Kingdom, Africa, and Australia. He has collaborated nationally and internationally with the aim of improving plant disease management to provide more sustainable, competitive, and safer crop production for producers and consumers. His topic will be “Plant Pathology: Digging Up the Dirt on Plant Diseases.”

The students presenting and their research topics are:

Kara Cruse: Water quality and physical character assessment of three oyster spat (Crassostrea virginica) settlement sites on Jekyll Island, Georgia. Faculty advisor: Thomas Hancock

Miracle Odom & Haley Starr:  Separation Techniques for Isolating Magnetotactic Bacteria from Environmental Samples. Faculty advisors: Ed Wallace & Dr. Sharon Standridge.

Kyra Morris, Katelyn Collins, & Michael Walker: How does water quality, physical setting, and coastal development affect oyster spat (Crassostrea virginica) settlement on Sapelo Island, Georgia? Faculty advisor: Dr. Thomas Hancock

Garrethe Edge: Exploring Riemann’s Rearrangement Theorem. Faculty advisor: Duane Day

Erin Taylor: Monte Carlo Simulation. Faculty advisor: Duane Day

Tanner Dupree: Derangements and the Hat Check Problem. Faculty advisor: Duane Day

Jacob Cook: Pascal, Tetrahedron and The Trinomial Theorem. Faculty advisor: Duane Day.

Alex Kirkland: Design and Prototyping of a Tidal Flow Meter. Faculty advisors: Dr. Chris Hornung & Dr. Edwynn Wallace

Mark Lucas: Design and Prototyping of a Robotic Arm. Faculty Advisor: Dr. Chris Hornung.

John Aguilar: Identifying the Genetic Homology Among Drosophila Species. Faculty advisor: Dr. Pushpa Yadav

STEMposium also will feature several MGA faculty discussing the development of course-based undergraduate research experiences (CURE) and other topics related to teaching.

More details about the event are at https://inside.mga.edu/2022/04/2022-mga-stemposium.php