School of Arts and Sciences Review Winter 2014 | Page 21

A Closer Look

Canadian schools like McMaster,” he
said.
“It was quite an honor to be asked
to present at the RAS poster session,” said Alpha. “I’ve been working
on my research for about a year and
a half now and am aiming for publication before I graduate, so being
asked to present helped confirm that
I am on the right path.”
What stood out the most to Alpha
was the diversity of the subjects of
his peers’ presentations.
“There were posters and talks from
students and professors on an incredibly wide variety of topics. Some of
the ones that stood out to me included talks on the synthesis of iron
oxide nanoparticles, computer-assisted molecular modeling of
lipopeptide dynamics, and the importance of the MCH receptor. Other
talks involved physics, zoology,
botany, analytical chemistry, neurobiology, and science education,” he

said.
“The presentations themselves
were fairly informal, in the sense that
people would simply approach me to
discuss my research or ask questions
about material on my poster,” said
Mo. “I think it was a rewarding experience to not only share with others
what I had been doing in the research lab, but also look at what my
peers in other universities have been
working on. This was also the first
time I had put together a research
poster, so I learned a lot about writing an abstract, organizing my results, and presenting my work in a
clear, simple manner.”
“One thing we were proud of was
that [the students’] posters were
clear and easy to understand,” said
Hilmey.
“We stress that when you are presenting science it’s hard for people
who aren’t in the exact field that
you’re in to comprehend your work,

so we want to make sure that when
students have a poster up there,
whether the student is there or not,
someone could go up to that poster
and get the general idea of the information there without having to read
through two pages of text,” he said.
Hilmey said the posters were well
presented and the students’ work
was significant.
“Our students owned these projects; from start to finish they knew
what was going on, they understood
the background and they understood
what the future directions are and
where the next person is going with
the project,” said Hilmey.
“I think that preparing for the RAS
paper session helped me realize how
much I had learned in Dr. Zhang’s lab
in the past two semesters,” said Mo.
“By working in her lab, I was finally
exposed to what an entire research
process entails, from designing and
performing experiments, to interpreting the collected results, and ultimately to presenting the findings.
Not only did I learn new research
techniques, methods, and scientific
concepts, but I also learned how to
be more independent in a lab setting.”
“I hope to continue my education
with an M.D./Ph.D., where research
will be a big part of my career,” said
Alpha.
“Experiences such as the RAS
poster session really help me hone
my skills in presenting the results of
my research in a way that is accessible to people of all knowledge levels.
I’ll definitely take that with me as I
continue pursuing my research interests,” he added.

“I think it was a rewarding experience to not only share with
others what I had been doing in the research lab, but also look
at what my peers in other universities have been working on.”
Cecilia Mo, ’13

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