A record number of poster presentations and an impressive evening of sharing ideas highlighted this year’s StFX Student Research Day held March 26th in Mulroney Hall, where visitors had opportunity to view over 100 poster presentations and to engage in conversation with the student researchers.
Presentations showcased a wide array of student research on topics such as Indigenous rights to understanding the impact of AI in financial services, from exploring the impact of labour force statistics on life expectancy in Atlantic Canada to how differences in cannabis use influence panic attack risk.
For Abby Ives, a third year honours English student from Stratford, PEI, who presented her work on “Understanding Daily Life in the 19th Century through Personal Letters,” the event was tremendous.
“Student Research Day is a great opportunity for us to share the hard work we’ve done that otherwise may not get recognized outside of class. I love sharing the projects I’m passionate about and getting the chance to discover other projects happening on campus,” she says.
Fellow student Allison Randall had similar sentiments.
“Student Research Day is a way of bringing your hard work to life! It brings students together to teach, inspire, and learn about the fascinating research going on at StFX,” shared Ms. Randall, a graduating BSC aquatic resources in biology student from Yarmouth, NS, who presented her work, The Symbiotic Relationship between Geukensia demissa and Fucus vesiculosus: An Ecological Perspective.
AMAZING JOB ENGAGING STUDENTS IN RESEARCH
Dr. Karen Brebner, StFX Associate VP Research, Graduate and Professional Studies (interim) says it is exciting to have a record number of poster presentations and to see the continued growth for the annual event, first held at StFX in March 2003.
Student Research Day gives students the opportunity to showcase their research or advanced studies undertaken as part of their upper-year classes, advanced majors, honours, or graduate programs.
Students present from a range of academic departments, including this year from Psychology, English, Economics, Biology, Chemistry, Health, Human Kinetics, Aquatic Resources, Sociology, Human Nutrition, Business, Modern Languages, Women and Gender Studies, and Earth and Environmental Sciences.
“We have a great group of enthusiastic faculty members who have volunteered to discuss the students’ research projects, and it is always a fun and energizing atmosphere for our undergraduate and graduate students to show off all the work they have been doing over the past year,” Dr. Brebner says.
“We do such an amazing job training our students to engage in research here at StFX,” she says. “We teach them to develop hypotheses and how to test them, to analyze data, to draw conclusions and to think critically and deeply about important questions across all faculties. These types of skills are so important to protect us from being manipulated by influencers with their own agendas who are profiting by encouraging people to reject scientific evidence. We train our students how to ask questions, how to look for answers and how to draw their own conclusions about what they discover, and this event allows them to show us what they have learned. It was a fantastic night!”
