Celebrating our Undergraduate Student's Achievements in 2020-21

On Thursday, May 27th, our department convened to celebrate the outstanding research and academic achievements of our undergraduate majors in the chemical sciences at the 15th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium. The event is the key platform for undergraduate researchers to present their work to our academic community at UC San Diego. It is planned and hosted by our award-winning American Chemical Society pre-professional student organization (ACSSA), in collaboration with the amazing staff of our Student Affairs Office (Director Erica Lennard and Advisors Hanna Foley, Selaina Mansheim, and Gelsey Thomas). For the second consecutive year, the Symposium was held virtually as result of COVID-19 restrictions. Twenty-seven students delivered digital poster presentations in individually assigned breakout rooms, to which attendees and judges could visit. A number of other students submitted videos describing a research project of interest to a new Symposium Video Competition that was intended to reinforce creativity, communication skills, and chemistry connections for those students not yet engaged in research. The final awards ceremony was launched with a live keynote address by Prof. Dontaire Stallings, who emphasized the importance of mindset and resilience. Teri Vogel, who has been a steadfast supporter of student’s development of information literacy as the UCSD Library Subject Specialist for Chemistry and Biochemistry, presented Taylor Wenquian Yang with the Annual Library Award. Six faculty and 14 graduate students donated their time and expertise to judging posters within discipline-specific categories. In Biochemistry, the awardees were: Minh Le (Faculty Research PI: Mark Herzik), Eleanor Sievers (Faculty Research PI: Galia Debelouchina) and Amalia Villagran Suarez (Faculty Research PI: Betsy Komives). Recipients of the Organic/Inorganic Chemistry and Analytical/Physical Poster Awards were Nicole Nolan (Faculty Research PI: Jeremy Klosterman) and Christopher Nowak (Faculty Research PI: Vicki Grassian), respectively. Overall, we are very proud of all our undergraduate students for their commitments to and progress in research. We are also grateful for our faculty and their research lab members who work to create an inclusive and supportive mentoring environment for these trainees. Undergraduate research is one of the high impact educational practices our department strives to make accessible to all our majors, recognizing its potential to deepen learning, increase belonging, cultivate transferrable skills and clarify career pathways. The fact that students were able to engage in this exciting activity in the midst of a global pandemic is a testament to the dedication, persistence and creativity of all involved. As noted by Vice Chair of Undergraduate Education Prof. Thomas Bussey, “This year was really innovative and a truly great showcase of the talents and accomplishments of [our undergraduate students].”