SURE summer Symposium 2022 highlights

The annual summer SURE: Student Undergraduate Research Experience Symposium wrapped up its hybrid event on August 31^st, leaving students, judges, and visitors all the richer for the experience.

Organized by the Undergraduate Research Initiative, part of Research Acceleration and Strategic Initiatives of the Office of the Vice President Research, the 2022 hybrid event combined both online and in-person components.

Students registered in the Symposium could participate from anywhere in the world by recording and uploading an online video presentation of their research work. Canvas, the USask learning system, served as the home base.

“Using Canvas allows us the ability to showcase research to the USask community,” noted organizer Dr. Merle Massie (PhD), coordinator of the Undergraduate Research Initiative. “Yet, Canvas allows us to limit access to just USask, which satisfies many supervisors who may be looking to co-publish the summer research findings with their students as a journal article.”

The Symposium Canvas course can be found here: https://canvas.usask.ca/courses/62006 and if you have a USask NSID, you may enter.

A cadre of 38 judges from across USask – faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows and senior PhD students – viewed the online presentations. Each student submission had three judges, and their scores tabulated to determine the winners.

The judges had three days to view and give marks, which fit well with busy schedules – a holdover from pandemic needs that serves well going forward.

The 2022 Symposium also included an in-person component in Convocation Hall on August 25^th. Students, split into three sections, came to showcase their research via posters or laptop presentations and enjoy a pizza lunch.

The three sessions were buzzing with students talking about their summer research projects. Supervisors, research colleagues, friends, family, judges, and others interested in USask research dropped by throughout the day.

Student Huzaifa Saeed sent a note: “Thank you so much for organizing the amazing event, I had a blast!” Another student, Maria Haneef, wrote: “I wanted to send you a quick message of appreciation for all the work put into today's event. This was my first time participating in research work and the undergraduate symposium and it had always been an experience on my bucket list for my university career.”

Maria added, “I am really grateful for the effort and time you put into organizing this and for the opportunity to take part in it. Looking forward to many more research opportunities and events in the future!” Student James Macaskill echoed: “Thanks for the wonderful SURE Symposium - it was great to be able to present my research.”

The in-person event wrapped up with a few speeches and then awards. Dr. Baljit Singh, Vice-President Research at USask, was on hand to ask students about their summer research. Students enthusiastically called out what they’d done, where they’d travelled, and what they’d learned about research. He also drew laughs when he said, undergraduate research days are far more interesting than graduate research days!

Dr. Jay Wilson, interim Vice-Provost of Teaching, Learning, and Student Engagement, gave an engaging talk about leadership and learning, and how the two go together. Dr. Steven Rayan was on hand to represent the College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (which offered the prizes for this summer’s event) and talked about how undergraduate students have the power to change research direction, simply by asking questions no one else has asked.

Abhineet Goswami, President of the University of Saskatchewan Students Union, dropped by to talk about his own experiences as an undergraduate researcher, and how formative they were for his development as a student.

Then it was time for the awards. This year, there were five students who drew Honourable Mentions for their research work: Jesse Adrian, Amanda Ewen, Morgan Lehmann, Tessa Lester, and Vanessa Brown. Those at the ceremony received a certificate and a USask water bottle.

Third place went to computer science student Mykyta Shvets, for his project “Magnetic Force Graph Layouts for Cytoscape.”

Second place went to health sciences student Leah Macfarlane, for her work on “Assessing Neurodevelopmental Changes in Rat Following Prenatal Chronic Cannabidiol Exposure.”

And the SURE summer Symposium first prize winner was computer science student Chi Vu for her work on “Visually Guided Scientific Workflow Management Framework (VizSciFlow).

Congratulations to all of the winners, and a big round of applause for all the amazing undergraduate research work at USask.

If you're an undergraduate student, and wondering how to get involved in the USask research community, you can join SURE: Student Undergraduate Research Experience to get connected!