Graduate Research Symposium

May 8, 2006

Graduate Research Symposium draws varied crowd

UCSC's University Center became a sea of research Friday as more than 100 graduate students shared their work with curious townspeople and members of the campus community.

Chancellor Denton talks with electrical engineering Ph.D. student Hiroyuki Takeda about his research, "Kernal Regression for Image Processing and Reconstruction."
Photos: Jim MacKenzie

Photo: Michelle Antolos

Ecology and evolutionary biology student Michelle Antolos, whose work is on "Albatrosses as Ocean Sensors: Validating Remotely Sensed Sea Surface Temperature in the North Pacific," was one of three winners for best presentation in the PBSci division.

The occasion was the Graduate Research Symposium, featuring oral and computer presentations as well as detailed posters by more than 100 graduate students.

"It's great to see the students sharing their excitement about their research," said Lisa Sloan, vice provost and dean of Graduate Studies. "I'm also very pleased that this year we had visitors from town come to experience what our graduate students are doing."

Irma and Peter Andrews of Aptos were impressed with how well the students explained their research to a wide audience.

"It's good to get a picture of what they're doing," said Irma Andrews, a retired math teacher. "The variety of subjects surprised me."

"A lot of them were fascinating," said Peter Andrews, a retired accountant. The couple said they found anthopology student Rosa E. Ficek's research on the Pan American Highway especially interesting because they had traveled the highway themselves.

Now in its second year, the Graduate Research Symposium is designed to recognize and promote the outstanding and diverse research being carried out by graduate students from all disciplines. A list of the student presentations at the symposium is available online.

Winners for best presentations at the symposium are:

Arts
Michael Dale and Abram Stern
Christopher Ramirez
Leaf Tine

Engineering
Firas Khatib
Craig Lowe
Laura Chiticariu

Honorable mention: Matt Bromage Bautista Fernandez, Martina Koeva

Humanities
Ruth Kramer
Noah Constant
Justin Nuger

Physical and Biological Sciences
Heather Mostman-Liwanag
Michelle Antolos
Veronica Sholin
Madhury Chattopadhyay

Honorable mention: Kena Fox-Dobbs, Kirsten Howley, Daniel Simon

Social Sciences
Joan Brunkard
Chris Baker
Heather Swanson

Honorable mention: Jessica Chevalier