Graduate students from across the state came together on April 19, at the University of South Florida to showcase their research and creative projects in the very first statewide Graduate Student Research Symposium. The University of Central Florida came out victorious with four first place winners from just seven categories.

Arts and Humanities

Leah DeLorenzo

Parental Beliefs and Attitudes on Enrollment in a Dual Language Program at an Elementary School

Education

Patrick Craanen

The Effect of a Self-Monitoring Treatment Intervention Package on the Academic Productivity Behavior of Three High School Student with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Social Science

Mercedes Beaudoin

Prospective Solutions and Barriers of Integrating Sustainable Development into Local Planning and Management

STEM: Physics Sciences

Tracy Becker

Unique Solar Occultation Measures Particle Sizes in Saturn’s F Ring

The inaugural Symposium, put on by the Florida Council of Graduate Deans, allowed students to earn bragging rights for top research projects in the state, as well as provided them opportunities to share scholarly research and to network and discuss possible research collaborations with other students and faculty in the state of Florida.

More than 75 graduate students representing eight universities from across Florida displayed their research through poster presentations. Students had already earned top marks in their category from their own respective university graduate research competitions. First and second place certificates were awarded in each of the seven categories: Arts and Humanities, Education, Health Sciences, Social Science, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Physics Sciences.

UCF had 21 students compete in the Symposium, all winners from this past year’s Graduate Research Forum. More than half of the first place winners of the Symposium represented UCF.

Congratulations to all of our students who represented UCF at the Statewide Symposium, and congratulations to our winners.