The Brown & White

The fourth annual undergraduate research symposium will showcase student research from 15 different departments in all three colleges.

The symposium will be held on Thursday April 24 on the third floor of the University Center from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. The presentations are viewed and then judged.

A symposium is a meeting for discussion of a topic, usually where the participants form an audience and make presentations.

The symposium was organized by Alpha Chi Sigma fraternity in 2003. Alpha Sigma Chi is Lehigh's non-residential, professional chemistry fraternity, which was founded in 1999. Alpha Sigma Chi has chapters at most undergraduate universities, and also several professional branches.

The fraternity's adviser and professor of chemistry, Keith Schray, organized the symposium.

Individual departments sponsor similar events showcasing student research, but Schray said he wanted to make the event university-wide.

The goal of the symposium is to show undergraduate students that Lehigh has a lot of research opportunities, Schray said.

Presentations are usually in poster form. Some presentations also include films, models and speeches. The presentations explain student's methods used and conclusions drawn, Schray said.

Also, all of the students' presentations will also be posted on the symposium's Web site. The site is meant to benefit those who could not attend the symposium and to inform perspective students about Lehigh's research possibilities, Schray said.

Schray is trying to raise the profile of research outside of the university to make prospective students aware of Lehigh's active student researchers.

Eric Rosenberg, '08, participated in the symposium in the past and will be participating again this year. He is sharing his research about electrodes and nano-particles in a collaborative research project between Lehigh and Johns Hopkins University.

"It brings the scientific community together," Rosenberg said. "Right now it's very diverse, and the faculties are so far apart that the symposium allows everybody to see what everybody else is doing in the different subsections and divisions of Lehigh."

In addition to the ability to share research with Lehigh, Rosenberg said the symposium highlights faculty and how one-on-one work with students is so prevalent.

Alpha Sigma Chi member Danielle Rowles, '08, has participated in previous symposiums, as well as this year's,.

"As a future scientist it helped me prepare to explain my work to others, even people who are not in the field," Rowles said.

Rowles said she believes the symposium benefits students by allowing them to come together in a collaboration of research.

"Things don't seem as isolated anymore," Rowles said. "The collaboration potential at the undergraduate levels open a lot of opportunities."