The 22nd Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement (EURēCA) took place April 16–20 at the John C. Hodges Library. Students from across the university entered their undergraduate research, senior design projects, clinical projects, and creative achievements for judging. Over 800 students presented 626 projects. One contributing factor for the rise in participation is the addition of approximately 280 student projects from English 298 classes. 99 projects received recognition at the EURēCA Awards night.
Each undergraduate college selects and awards their top students. College awards ranged from first place to honorable mention. The top students on Monday night and Wednesday night also received ORE Gold, Silver, and Bronze Awards for Undergraduate Research funded by the Office of Research and Engagement. These awards are presented across research areas and highlight the best of the best in undergraduate research and creative achievement on our campus. In nine categories, students were awarded 10 gold, 10 silver and 8 bronze awards. These Awards of Excellence provide prizes in the following amounts: $500 for gold awards, $300 for silver awards, and $200 for bronze awards.
The 2018 gold awards were awarded to:
- Logan Houston from the College of Agricultural Science and Natural Resources, for his project “Geographical Location Drives the Population Structure of the Native Asian Cornus Kousa Population.”
- Mustapha Williams from the College of Architecture and Design, for his project “Urban Identity.”
- Kimberly Bress from the College of Natural Sciences and Arts & Sciences, for her project “Effects of Social Dominance on Defeat-Induced Neural Activity in a Ventral Hippocampus-to-basolateral Amygdala Circuit.”
- Austin Smith from the College of Nursing, for his project “Increasing Vaccination Rates Among College-Aged Males.”
- Adelaide Davis from the College of Art, Arts & Sciences, for her project “Teaching Children About the Importance of Honey Bees.”
- Augustus White from the College of Social Sciences, Arts & Sciences, for his project “The Medicaid Expansion: Modeling of Important Factors in State Decision Making.”
- Haley Boles from the College of Social Sciences, Arts & Sciences, for their project “The Department of Environmental Quality’s Role in Impression Management During the Flint Water Crisis.”
- Sarah Henson from the College of Social Work, for her project “The Population Characteristics of Children Served by a School-Based Interprofessional Clinic.”
- Megan Pitz from the Tickle College of Engineering, for her project “Analyzing memcapacitive capabilities of lipid and polymer bilayers for use in smart materials.”
- Matthew Herald from the Tickle College of Engineering, for his project “X-Means Clustering Implementing the Gap Statistic for Multiple Positron Emission Particle Tracking.”
Between the colleges and the Office of Research and Engagement, monetary awards for the evening totaled approximately $20,000.
Two additional university-wide awards were presented.
Phi Kappa Phi, the nation’s oldest, largest, and most selective honor society for all academic disciplines, presented awards to three of the top EURēCA entries. Award winners were Augustus White from the College of Arts & Sciences, Mustapha Williams from the College of Architecture and Design, and Sarah Henson from the College of Social Work.
The William Franklin Harris III Undergraduate Research Award is named for a former Vice Chancellor of Research and highlights a student for innovation and excellence in research. The winner of the William Franklin Harris III Undergraduate Award for 2018 was Kimberly Bress from the College of Arts & Sciences.
To see the full list of winners, visit eureca.utk.edu.
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CONTACT:
Raphael Rosalin (865-974-2152, rrosalin@utk.edu)