CUNY’s Office of Research hosted its first Celebration of Undergraduate Research at Borough of Manhattan Community College. On May 31, undergraduate students across all 20 undergraduate institutions at CUNY presented research that spanned a broad range of disciplines.
Organized by the CUNY Undergraduate Research Council, projects were nominated by the individual colleges and later selected for presentation by the Office of Research to best represent the disciplines across the different schools, according to Veer Shetty, the program coordinator.
For City College, that meant presenting engineering research such as “Strain Engineering Effects on the Optical Properties of Bilayer MoS2,” by Charanjot “CJ” Singh and, “Development of R744 Heat Pump for Northeastern Winter Markets,” by Geoffrey Turbeville. For John Jay College that meant projects more often related to criminal justice.
“We were aiming to balance the disciplines by having a very broad range to highlight CUNY’s deep and diverse undergraduate research enterprise,” Shetty said.
The celebration also featured live dance and music performances from students at BMCC, Queensborough, and Queens College. BMCC was chosen as the location for the celebration due to its central location in the city.
For future Undergraduate Research Celebrations, Shetty said the Office of Research hopes to work with the Office of Career Industry to invite professionals from industries to interact with students and to inform them of opportunities for promising researchers.
When asked what he hopes students take away from the celebration, Ron Nerio, the Research Programs Director in the Office of Research said, “undergraduate research is a path to student success both before and after graduation. When students complete research under the guidance of a faculty mentor, these efforts should be celebrated.”
In the upcoming August issue of The RICC, we will highlight CCNY students who participated in the Undergraduate Research Celebration this year.
Malina Seenarine is a recent graduate of Baruch College where she studied journalism and minored in theater. In addition to writing for The RICC, she’s a contributor for Baruch’s award-winning Dollars & Sense Magazine and wrote for the arts and news section of Baruch’s student-run newspaper, The Ticker. She’s also written for FSR magazine.