On Wednesday, Apr. 25, 2007, the campus gathered at the Student Activities Center for the yearly celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (URECA). With sponsorship from the Long Island Group Advancing Science Education (LIGASE) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the URECA Celebration featured work from’ 300′ Stony Brook University undergraduates, with approximately 20 students presenting more than one project. Five high school students also attended the event as poster presenters.
Departmental sponsored competitions were held through the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS) for Senior Design, Department of History, and Department of Psychology. For CEAS Senior Design, 1st Place was awarded to Varsha Jain, Jiong Chen, and Ana Liao from the Department of Biomedical Engineering for their project under Professors Helmut Strey and LR Mujica Parodi titled ‘Automated MRI-Compatible Blood Collection Device for Use in Humans.’ In the Department of History, 1st Place was awarded to Brian Kachejian for his work under Professor April F. Masten titled ‘Liberation of the Soul.’
In Psychology, separate awards were given for poster and oral presenters. Poster presenter Arpana Rayannavar won 1st Place for her work under Professor Hoi-Chung Leung titled, ‘The Pronunciation Length Effect in Visual Working Memory.’ Crystal Sandiford won 1st place in the Psychology oral presentation for her project, ‘Bilingualism, a Disadvantage: Investigating the Effects of Native Language Phonological Grammar on Secondary Language Perception and Discrimination’ under Professor Nancy Squires.
Projects presented at the celebration came from a wide variety of departments on campus. From the College of Arts and Sciences, projects came from the disciplines of African Studies, Anthropology, Art, Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chemistry, Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, Ecology and Evolution, English, Geosciences, History, Humanities Institute, Neurobiology and Behavior, Physics and Astronomy, Psychology, Theatre Arts, and Woman Studies. Artwork was on display at the SAC Gallery from Apr. 12-25. Two projects also’ came from the College of Business.
From the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, students researched in areas of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering. Projects also came from the Health Science Center in divisions of Oral Biology and Pathology, Anatomical Sciences, Anesthesiology, Medicine Division of Hematology, Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Pathology, and Physiology and Biophysics, Preventative Medicine, and Psychiatry. Students also conducted studies through the Marine Science Research Center, School of Journalism, off-campus nearby at Brookhaven National Laboratory and further away at institutions such as Bucknell Univeristy, Duke Univeristy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mote Marine Laboratory, National Institutes of Standards and Technology, and the Oregon Health Sciences University.
On the last page of the yearly URECA publication, URECA Collected Abstracts 2007, Karen Kernan, Director of URECA, has recognized all individuals who provided support for the celebration with regard to funding, organization of departmental competitions, and technical assistance, along with all the students who participated and faculty members and departments that provided collective encouragement for participation.
