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Undergraduate students from across the university, as well as students who travelled to FIU from all over the U.S. and the Caribbean, had the opportunity to present their research, hear feedback from peers and faculty, and meet with graduate admissions officers at this year’s McNair Scholars Research Conference.
Mia Pierre travelled to FIU from the University of Guyana, along with three of her peers, to present her research concerning the low number of students graduating with STEM degrees at her university. She began with a survey of the Guyanese job market to see what kinds of STEM jobs are available to graduates, and she found that the pickings are slim, so aspiring scientists have a tendency to move away from Guyana to find work in another country.
University of of Guyana students Sheikh Mohamed, Mia Pierre and Dayshawn Billingy with their research posters at the McNair conference
Her research, though still in its preliminary stages, will also look at retention rates of students and the socioeconomic factors motivating their career decisions She plans to use her findings to create a logistic model of graduates’ migration expectation for the government’s use.
“I’m hoping to expand it to the entire Caribbean once I’m done,” Pierre said.
Pierre and her peers were encouraged to participate in the McNair conference by Gordon Osborne, a two-time FIU alumnus who came to Miami as an international student from Guyana.
Osborne wanted to help students from his homeland broaden their horizons and find graduate school opportunities outside of Guyana’s one university. As Osborne says, this conference is an opportunity for students “to see what it can be like, not only to compare themselves with the people at their level, but also to look at the number of universities available to them.”
This year’s McNair conference featured a graduate school fair with 47 different schools, including Yale University, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Rensselaer Polytechnic University and many more. The graduate fair took place at the same time as the poster presentation, so graduate admissions officers had the opportunity to see first-hand the caliber of undergraduate students and their research.
“Some of the graduate school reps who have come up to me and said they’ve talked with students said how and pleased and excited they are with the quality of the research. In fact, one of them said, ‘Are these graduate students?’” Assistant Vice Provost for Access and Success E. George Simms said during the graduate school fair. “That speaks very, very clearly to the quality of the research the students are doing, even at the undergraduate level.”
Another important characteristic of the undergraduate research presented at the McNair conference is the partnership created between students and their faculty mentors, who guide students through the research process and help them produce academic papers ready for publishing.
FIU senior psychology major Emily Caproni and biology and psychology double-major Greilys Lopez worked with FIU’s Center for Children and Families to research parenting behaviors associated with selective mutism, a childhood anxiety disorder characterized by a child’s inability to communicate effectively in social settings. Caproni and Lopez were mentored by faculty members Jami Furr and Jonathan Comer.
“It’s amazing,” Caproni said of collaborating with the professors. “We’ve been able to work clinically with these kids and learn from specialists in the fields of selective mutism. That’s a really rare disorder, and Furr is a leading person in that field.”
For local and international students alike, the opportunity to share their work with other undergraduate researchers and to hear feedback on their work at the McNair conference was invaluable.
“I got to see other types of research. I got to learn about other things, and it really is informative. I think it helped us to really understand where our research can go—how much further we can actually go with it, and what we can do with it in the future,” said Sheniele Grant, a soon-to-be graduate of the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. Grant, along with three others from the University of the West Indies, researched potential mathematical models that can predict stock prices, and they developed a computer program to determine what fair stock prices might be in the future based on current prices.
In total, 107 students presented undergraduate research at the McNair conference, with 19 students representing schools around the U.S. and the Caribbean, including Washington State University, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, St. Edwards University and more.
“One of the things we strive for is to ensure that student presenters are diverse, and I’m pleased with the diversity in terms of the disciplines of research, as well as the diversity of the student population and schools represented,” said Simms. “This will only further their aspirations as far as graduate school.”
For more information on the FIU McNair Scholars Research Conference, click here.
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