Keynote Speaker | History | Partnerships
The UO Undergraduate Research Symposium celebrates the remarkable contributions of our undergraduates to research and creative work across the humanities, sciences, arts, and social sciences. As a top-tier research institution, discovery and inquiry underlie everything we do. Central to our mission is fostering critical questioning, logical thinking, effective reasoning, clear communication and creative action and the symposium is an embodiment of that mission. The symposium, chaired by Kevin Hatfield, aspires to engage undergraduates in the research enterprise of the University of Oregon by supporting the creation and dissemination of knowledge.
Students at all stages of their undergraduate careers actively participate in the symposium as attendees and presenters. The symposium partners with Academic Residential Communities (ARCs) and First-Year Interest Groups (FIGs) to create pathways for first-year students to present their inquiry-based projects from their first-year experience seminars. The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), Center for Undergraduate Research and Engagement (CURE), DucksRISE Program, McNair Scholars Program, and various other units sponsoring academic-year and summer research fellowships and internships have formally incorporated the symposium as a culminating experience for these awards. The Symposium also provides a platform for graduating seniors completing their departmental and Clark Honors College capstone research presentations.
The event occurs all day long featuring concurrent presentation sessions, poster presentation and an Alumni Keynote Speaker and Welcome Reception. In 2024 we also welcome a new session to feature student films.
2025 Alumni Keynote Speaker
Francesca Fontana '17 Journalism is an award-winning reporter and writer based in New York City. She has been a reporter for the Wall Street Journal since 2018 and hosts What's New in Markets, a weekly podcast. At the Journal, she has written personal finance columns and feature stories across a variety of areas that blend first-person narrative and robust reporting. In 2020, Ms. Fonatana was awarded a Front Page Award for Specialized Reporting: Personal Service by the Newswomen's Club of New York.
She is working on her first book, The Family Snitch: A Daughter's Memoir of Truth and Lies, a deeply reported memoir about her search for the truth about her body-building father's secret criminal past. The Family Snitch is an investigation into the stories we tell and those we don't as well as the limits of truth and the perils of seeking it out at all costs. The Family Snitch will be published by Steerforth Press in Spring 2026. In 2019, Francesca wrote a cover story for The Wall Street Journal's weekend Review section about her father's criminal case.
A first-generation college student, Francesca attended the University of Oregon's Clark Honors College and School of Journalism & Communication's Honors Program. She graduated magna cum laude in 2017, receiving a B.A. in journalism. Both her viral Review cover story and The Family Snitch grew out of her CHC and SOJC Honors Thesis: Seeking Truth through Investigative Memoir, which passed with distinction.
Francesca's research was supported by grants from the CHC and SOJC. She was also awarded a 2017 Humanities Undergraduate Research Fellowship (HURF) by the UO's Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP). She presented her thesis at the 2017 Undergraduate Research Symposium.
Francesca is an alumnus of the Daily Emerald, OR Magazine, Flux Magazine and the SOJC in NYC program. In 2015, she was awarded an internship by the Charles Snowden Excellence in Journalism Program, spending a summer working as a reporter for The Register-Guard in Eugene. She returned to the newspaper for several more intern stints before being hired as a staff reporter during her senior year at UO.
Fun Fact: To deliver the keynote at the 2025 Undergraduate Research Symposium, Francesca will be returning to Eugene for the first time since the day she graduated in June 2017!
History
Since the debut in 2011, with 69 presenters and 40 faculty mentors spanning 20 majors and four colleges, the Undergraduate Research Symposium has only grown. It reached a pre-COVID-19 high-water mark in size and breadth its ninth year with 513 presenters and 290 faculty mentors spanning 75 majors, 21 minor programs, 33 minors, and eight colleges. Over the past 13 years the Symposium has hosted over 4,000 student presenters.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the symposium transitioned to a virtual platform in 2020 and 2021, enabling 667 students to continue presenting their research and creative work with an expanded reach to peers, families, mentors, alumni, donors, and community members. The opportunity to record these presentations catalyzed the creation of a permanent digital exhibit of UO undergraduate research on the symposium YouTube Channel, curating 454 videos comprising over 1,100 research presentations.
Last year, over 450 presenters and their 379 research mentors exhibited work at the 2023 symposium representing all eight colleges, the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact, 76 majors, 18 minor programs, 45 minors, and 27 institutes and centers.
Partnerships
The symposium proudly partners with the Summer Academy to Inspire Learning (SAIL), which hosts a robust pre-college collaboration day, including a welcome ceremony, interactive sessions with poster presenters, lab and studio visits, campus tours, and panels with undergraduates.
Our collaborations with Lane Community College, Central Oregon Community College and Umpqua Community College have also culminated with the highest number of community college student presentations and visitors at the symposium to date, as well as a new series of transfer student and community college student panels facilitated by the UO Alliance for Diversity in Science and Engineering.
We welcome visitors from near and far hoping this showcase of undergraduate research and creative work can inspire hope, curiosity, innovation, and discovery.
The Undergraduate Research Symposium is proudly sponsored by the Division of Undergraduate Education and Student Success, the Center for Undergraduate Research and Engagement (CURE), the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation, University Housing, the Robert D. Clark Honors College, the UO Libraries, and the Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program.
We wish to extend our gratitude to the UO Libraries for funding the cost of printing research posters for presenters.
Questions? Please email ugresearch@uoregon.edu. For information from peers about research and how to get involved, please email ASURE at asure@uoregon.edu.