The University of Texas at Dallas held its first Research Day on Oct. 14 to celebrate the cutting-edge research endeavors taking place across campus.
The event included faculty networking sessions, workshops by event sponsors Amazon Web Services Inc. and Hanover Research, a new-faculty research symposium and a graduate student poster showcase.
Dr. Joseph Pancrazio, vice president for research and innovation at UT Dallas, said the successful event helped highlight UTD’s deep foundations in scholarly inquiry.
“Research Day at UT Dallas gave our community an opportunity to share our enthusiasm and energy around curiosity-driven research,” he said.
Keynote speaker Dave Copps, an entrepreneur and CEO at Worlds, discussed the future of artificial intelligence as it relates to research and innovation.
“This was a vibrant showcase of engaged graduate students showing why we are a Tier One research institution.”
Dr. Joseph Pancrazio, vice president for research and innovation at UT Dallas
During the poster showcase, more than 60 graduate students presented their research in a wide variety of disciplines to more than 300 attendees. Projects ranged from the characterization of next-generation solar cells and forecasting COVID-19 cases to studies of fracking, wind-generated energy, cancer and autism.
Attendees voted for their favorite presentations, with winners receiving “people’s choice” awards. First place and $500 went to Nursadul Mamun, a doctoral student in electrical engineering, for his work on techniques to enhance speech intelligibility for cochlear implant users. Yalini Wijesundara, a chemistry doctoral student, earned second place and $300 for her research on a potential new drug-delivery technology. Third place and $100 went to Satwik Dutta MS’20, a doctoral student in electrical engineering, for his research on speech-processing tools to study language development in early childhood.
“This was a vibrant showcase of engaged graduate students showing why we are a Tier One research institution,” Pancrazio said.
Dr. Nikki Delk, associate professor of biological sciences, Fellow, Cecil H. and Ida Green Professor in Systems Biology Science, and assistant vice president for research development, emceed a symposium where several new faculty members presented their research to established faculty.
Topics included the material and cultural history of the Islamic world, interactions between the immune and nervous systems, sedimentology and natural sand transport, and the economics of cyberlaw and policy.
The goal was to help foster new collaborations.
Dr. Pumpki Lei Su, who joined the faculty this fall as an assistant professor of speech, language, and hearing in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, said presenting her work at Research Day was a unique opportunity to connect with other new faculty members from different departments and schools and to find potential collaborators. Her research focuses on language development and caregiver-child interaction in autistic children and bilingual children.
One connection she made was with Dr. Noah Sasson, professor and undergraduate program head of psychology, who shares her interest in studying various aspects of autism.
“We are brainstorming on a project that looks at caregiver-child interaction that involves autistic parents with a neurotypical child versus autistic parents with an autistic child,” Su said.
Su is also interested in pursuing studies in conjunction with the Callier Center for Communication Disorders.
“Given that I am also trained as a speech-language pathologist, I love the possibility of collaborating with clinicians here to keep my research clinically relevant,” she said.
In addition to Amazon Web Services and Hanover Research, event sponsors were Worlds, AEM Creations LLC and the UT Dallas Office of Graduate Education.
Original source can be found here.
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