The Business & Library Hall lobby was lined with standup posters and buzzing with students, staff and guests on April 19.
Among these students and their projects stood Marilyn Garcia, a psychology senior at Texas A&M University-San Antonio, who presented her own research during the morning poster session of the 10th Annual Student Research Symposium.
“What inspired me to conduct my research was exploring men’s emotions in a relationship versus work,” Garcia said. “I wanted to advocate for men’s mental health.”
With the help of Dr. Amy K. Bohmann, department chair of health and behavioral sciences, Garcia began her research at the end of the summer of last year.
Garcia’s research focused on the different emotional regulations for both genders in both work- and relationship-based scenarios.
The Student Research Symposium allows students like Garcia to showcase their research projects to the community as well as present to a panel of judges.
The daylong event was not only a showcase for the students presenting their projects, but also held panels with guest speakers, a luncheon and more.
Attendees are offered both breakfast and lunch and are invited to attend educational panels, watch the Three-Minute Thesis competition, and ask students about their research.
Guest speakers this year included Laurie Ann Guerrero, associate professor of poetry and writer-in-residence at A&M-San Antonio, and Rodney E. Rohde, professor of medical laboratory science at Texas State University.
Students attended panel talks, learned from fellow students and even became inspired to conduct their own research in the future.
Ingrid Moncivaez, psychology freshman, and Chanel Medina, psychology sophomore, were two students who attended the event as guests.
Both attended the morning concurrent oral presentation sessions where they heard lectures and participated in intellectual conversations.
“Afterwards they had asked for questions, and I feel like the questions were very intellectual and stimulated my brain,” Moncivaez said. “Like I felt my brain like moving and the wires connecting and the neurons firing.”
The session that Moncivaez attended discussed using graphic novels in secondary education as opposed to longer classical novels.
Medina attended a session titled, “The World on Women’s Shoulders: A Quantitative Analysis of the Relationship Between Gender and the Environment,” from which she left feeling intrigued by a different field.
“This was done by a sociology student. I found this interesting because I never saw it as a place for feminism,” Medina said.
Both students would encourage more students to go and participate in next year’s Student Research Symposium to expand their knowledge on all different subjects.
This event is held every year to give students who completed research a chance to present their projects to faculty, staff, students and members of the community.
Any student can participate in research opportunities if they are interested in doing so.
Nicole Becerra, public health major, encouraged other students to form connections with faculty to become aware of research opportunities at the symposium.
“Talking to my professors has been a huge difference because they’re actually doing a lot of research and I didn’t realize that I could use those connections,” Becerra said. “So I would say talk to your professors, go to office hours, talk to them about what you want to pursue and I think that you’ll be able to find opportunities.”
For more information about the Student Research Symposium email at srs@tamusa.edu.
This story was updated at 11:48 a.m. May 2 to correct the last name of Dr. Amy K. Bohmann.
