15th Undergraduate Research Symposium set for May 22
More than 500 students are set to present their findings at the 15th annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, which takes place May 22 in the EMU, Collier House, and at the Allen Price Science Commons and Library.
The annual event empowers undergraduates to share their ideas, discoveries and artistic work with the campus and local community. Students can choose to present their research and findings through poster presentations, oral presentations, creative works performances and exhibits, or even films and documentaries.
The symposium “is a wonderful opportunity for undergraduates from every major to showcase their work,” said Kevin Hatfield, Assistant Vice Provost for Undergraduate Research and Distinguished Scholarships and director of Academic Residential and Research Initiatives.
Diego Solorio
Diego Solorio, who graduated at the end of winter term after studying political science and cinema studies, will air a scene from his short film, “Bien Pretty,” based on a short story of the same name by Sanda Cisneros.
“It’s a story that I’ve loved for a long time,” he said. “It’s a coming-of-age story, and it’s a love story, but it’s also about finding a sense of inner love.”
Making the film was very much a passion project for Solorio, as well as a bootstrap production. Alissa Phillips, his faculty mentor, helped him win the fellowship that granted him entry into the symposium.
“Looking back, I can’t believe a bunch of college students pulled it off,” he said.
He has wanted to make the film for a few years, and over winter break in 2023, he wrote a script. With the help of a friend, Anthony DiStasio, he held auditions and hired the principle four-person cast during winter term of 2024.
Over 10 weekends of spring term, the cast and crew shot the film, using equipment checked out from the School of Journalism and Communication, and shooting on location in Eugene and Salem. Solorio spent the summer editing the film, which ended up with a 45-minute run time.
Solorio aspires to be a filmmaker, and he credits his mentor, Masami Kawai, assistant professor of film studies, for showing him ways to break into the business.
“I’m recognizing there are a lot of backdoor, unconventional ways to get work out there,” he said.
Solorio will present a scene from “Bien Pretty” from 6-8 p.m. May 22 in Redwood Auditorium.
In addition to being a showcase for undergraduates, the event also is an opportunity for family members, mentors, local high school and community college students, alumni, and donors to get a sense of what is happening with the research enterprise at the UO, Hatfield said.
“It’s the one time of year where folks can come to campus and be at an event where every discipline is represented,” he said.
The keynote speaker is Wall Street Journal reporter Francesca Fontana, who graduated magna cum laude from the School of Journalism and Communication and Clark Honors College in 2017. Fontana writes business and finance features for the Journal and hosts a weekly podcast called “What’s News in Markets.”
A first-generation college student, Fontana will speak on “Investigation as Craft: Elevating Creative Nonfiction Through Research and Archival Methods.”
The symposium will be Fontana’s first time back in Eugene since she graduated eight years ago. Her first book, “The Family Snitch: A Daughter’s Memoir of Truth and Lies,” is set to be published next spring by Steerforth Press. The book recounts her journey investigating the details of her father’s criminal past, and how and why he ended up serving 44 months in prison when she was 9 years old.
What appealed to her about being a journalist was that she could report something approaching objective, black and white truth through eyewitness reporting, interviews, and public records. “What I found was that – and I was sort of devastated – there were a lot of limitations to the objective journalistic truth, especially when dealing with my father,” she said. “When I tried to report out this story, I found there were so many areas of ambiguity where I had to make hard decisions about what to believe and what not to believe.”
Lola Tagwerker
When Lola Tagwerker, a third-year student majoring in public relations, was studying abroad in Dublin last summer, she was struck by the grays and greens of the Irish landscape during field trips to Wicklow and Howth.
She started documenting what she saw with her iPhone camera and six of her images will be on display during the symposium. Her first solo exhibit is titled “Eyes on Ireland,” and she said it was inspired and informed by her time working as an intern at Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.
She called the exhibit “a love letter to all I never thought I’d be able to see.”
The lush and verdant Irish landscape reminded her a lot of what she experienced growing up in Oregon, she said.
“It was so similar, even the weather,” she said. “It was like seeing home, but so far away. I wanted to capture that and bring it home.”
Learning to navigate those ambiguous waters started as an undergraduate, she said. As part of her honors thesis, titled “Seeking Truth Through Investigative Memoir,” she conducted research into literary theory, and how to define truth in literary memoirs. She also delved into psychology and neuroscience, investigating the reliability and fallibility of memory.
“I was not only trying to define truth in investigative journalism and in literary memoir, but also coming up with my own framework and best practices for truth in the combined genre: investigative memoir,” she said.
She credits the support she received at the UO, in the form of grants and fellowships, as well as guidance from journalism professor Brent Walth, for helping her to find her way.
“Understanding what is true and what is fact and what is a lie and what is confabulation – all that started in my thesis,” she said.
Andrew Boeckman
Andrew Boeckman is a senior set to graduate this spring, majoring in geography with a minor in food studies. He’ll be presenting a poster on work he did last summer surveying residents of San Cristobal Island, part of the Galapagos archipelago in Ecuador, on how to craft equitable land-use policies while also conserving the landscape.
Ecuador has a “top-down” planning process which is focused on conservation and “not touching any of the land,” he said. Ninety-seven percent of the Galapagos is a national park that can’t be developed.
“It’s hard to work with outdated conservation policies, telling people not to touch the land but you kind of have to when you’re urbanizing so quickly,” he said.
Working for professor Yizhao Yang, a professor in the School of Planning, Public Policy, and Management, Boeckman spent a month last summer on San Cristobal as part of a Sustainable Cities and Landscapes GEO study abroad program. He created an interactive survey that will be used this spring and summer, asking local residents about what they envision for their local parks and open spaces.
“Our research focuses on what residents want in their public spaces and how their needs for community development can be met through working with local governments to create sustainable and ecologically focused spaces,” he said.
He also created a second, more intensive and more in-depth survey aimed at high school and university students on San Cristobal Island.
“It’s a very unique project,” he said. “It’s very cool they are investing a lot of research that is community- and people-focused on the island.”
A total of 520 undergraduates will present at the symposium, supported by 384 research mentors, of which 104 are graduate students, all new records. A record 492 presentations will be on offer from students representing all eight colleges and schools, the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact, and including 84 majors and 76 minors.
For the first time, the symposium will include an afternoon of music. Led by Professor Joyce Wei-Jo Chen, assistant professor of historical keyboards, the concerts will take place at Collier House. An early music concert begins at 2:30 p.m. An animal-themed concert takes place at 3:30 p.m.
The full schedule and program book is available on the Symposium website.
— By Tim Christie, Office of the Provost Communications