
Griffin Pitt, right, works with two other student researchers to test the conductivity, total dissolved solids, salinity, and temperature of water below a sand dam in Kenya.
(Image: Courtesy of Griffin Pitt)
Setting new participation records, 436 undergraduates presented their research during the Fall Research Expo, this year expanding to three floors of historic Houston Hall.
Sponsored by the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF), the Expo featured 381 posters highlighting student research projects involving faculty from all 12 of Penn’s Schools. The event, which started in 2007 with 18 posters, is open to all Penn undergraduates who want to share their research with their peers and the Penn community.
Houston Hall was filled with animated conversations during the Sept. 18 event, as student researchers stood by their posters and answered questions posed by some of the 1,000 attendees.
“These students have been given the opportunity to work with world-class faculty to address some of the biggest, most important crises and challenges we're facing in the world today, and to make real headway in solving those problems,” says Ann Vernon-Grey, CURF’s senior associate director for undergraduate research. “When you step into the room you can feel the excitement and, frankly, hope for being able to effect change. It’s exhilarating and inspirational.”
In addition to the in-person event, an online archive of each research project, including the students’ posters and summaries, is available on the CURF website Penn Presents.
Number of student participants
Class with the most participants
Number of posters
Linear feet of posters
Schools/Departments involved
Number of visitors at the Expo
Cookies consumed
Countries where students conducted research: the United States, Argentina, Australia, France, Greenland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, Philippines, Switzerland, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.
Hours of research represented
Amount of grant funding represented
Louisa Shepard
Griffin Pitt, right, works with two other student researchers to test the conductivity, total dissolved solids, salinity, and temperature of water below a sand dam in Kenya.
(Image: Courtesy of Griffin Pitt)
Image: Andriy Onufriyenko via Getty Images
Four women street vendors sell shoes and footwear on a Delhi street.
(Image: Kannagi Khanna)
nocred