Graduate Symposium receives money, invites Nobel Prize winner
The Graduate Student Assembly received a $5,000 sponsorship from the Office of the Vice President for Research to help with the 26th Annual Graduate Student Assembly Research Symposium, to be held March 24, 2010, at the Graduate Life Center.
The money will be used to assist the assembly in bringing Nobel laureate, Andrew Weaver to Virginia Tech as the symposium keynote speaker.
Weaver was a lead author in the United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on climate change. This panel shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former vice president Al Gore. Weaver is a professor and climate research chair in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada.
The purpose of the symposium is to allow graduate students to present research and showcase their scholarly pursuits and achievements. Research may be presented through five different mediums, which are oral, poster, video, performance at the newly constructed Graduate Life Center Amphitheater, and video-conferencing for the students at the extension campuses of Virginia Tech. Sessions exclusively for advanced undergraduate students and post-doctoral scholars are also being considered.
“The Graduate Student Assembly is encouraging all graduate students to present their research,” says Ganesh Balasubramanian, of Kolkata, India, research symposium chair, and third year doctoral student in the engineering science and mechanics department in the College of Engineering. “We are especially encouraging scholars in the performance arts to participate since this is a new category,” he said.
Abstract submissions open on Jan. 31, and close on Feb. 26. Notification of acceptance will begin on March 6. For more information on the 26th Annual Graduate Student Assembly Research Symposium, visit the Graduate Student Assembly website.
