Student Research

This year several students from MRC attended the National Conference for Undergraduate Research (NCUR). Included below are some reflections of MRC students on their experience at NCUR. 

NCUR is an experience from my freshman year that I will always treasure.  Because of NCUR, I had the opportunity to meet and interact with like-minded young students like myself from over the country.  In addition to meeting students from other universities, NCUR allowed me to forge tighter bonds with fellow students at the University of Michigan. The conference also provided an environment for me to practice my presentation skills. I now feel confident in my ability to represent myself well at more specialized conferences. I was also able to connect with several esteemed graduate schools at the Grad School Fair hosted by the conference. I am confident that the networking that I began in Kentucky will become very helpful later on in my academic career.  

-Molly Moroz

NCUR 2014 has been the second conference I have attended as an undergraduate. Earlier this semester, I attended the SPIE Photonics West Conference presenting research on photoacoustic imaging. Arriving at NCUR 2014, I could tell this conference was very different from the SPIE Conference. The majority of people presenting were undergraduates like myself. I formed stronger relationships with friends from the Michigan Research Community and new relationships with the students from Wayne State who accompanied us on the trip and students at the conference. Conference events, including the professional fair, were beneficial in exploring options in graduate school. My favorite part of the conference was the poster sessions. At the previous conference I had attended, the focus was on biomedical imaging and optics. It was a great experience to be at a conference featuring research from so many different disciplines. Through this conference, I had the opportunity to present my research. My research is focused in biomedical engineering, specifically neural engineering, which was very different from most of the other posters. Because of this, I had the opportunity to thoroughly explain my research, from very basic material to technical details and the overall goal of the research and my lab. Throughout this trip, I have created relationships which will be beneficial to my future career, learned more about different disciplines, and improved my undergraduate research experience. I hope to continue my undergraduate research experience by presenting my research in the future.

-Anastasia Ostrowski