Students, professors and alumni joined panelists and judges to experience Rowan University’s second annual ArtSci Symposium, held on March 13 in the Enyon Ballroom. The event featured panels from 15 students who brought all their research together into one visual display. 

Students from all majors could apply for a chance to showcase their work and win a scholarship. Each participant was judged based on their knowledge of what they presented and its visual appearance. 

Kerem Yildiz, the chief of operations and a judge for the symposium, spoke about the event’s purpose.

“We started the symposium as a response to the pandemic… the main factor that started the big spike in mistrust and the scientific community, combined with a sort of lack of communication between science and the public. We wanted to bring together all of the research that we do at Rowan,” Yildiz said.

Each panelist was able to demonstrate and articulate their research with great clarity. It was impressive to learn that the research for a few of the panelists took many months to put together.

The showcased student research included Aedan Rosolia’s “The Art of Smell,” Andrew Pinto’s “The Spoils of Microscopy,” Sarah McClure and Logan Johnson’s “Flow Floward,” Natalie Page’s “Titanium Heart” and many more. Rosolia’s presentation was about the smell of the trillium, an endangered flower native to the temperate regions of North America and Asia as well as the Appalachian mountains.

“We’re trying to reintroduce, advocate and spread awareness to everyone that this is a flower that we should care about. We shouldn’t be caring about the lilies or the daffodils. For trilliums this is their home too,” Rosolia said.

The presentation featured many trilliums that Rosolia encouraged attendees to smell. After, they would spin a wheel that depicted all the different scents that come out of a trillium flower. 

As the event was nearing its end, the judges announced the two winners of the ArtSci Symposium. “Titanium Heart” by Page was the judge’s choice winner and “Flow Forward” by McClure and Johnson was the people’s choice winner.

Page’s presentation explained that the infection rate of implanted devices like pacemakers is too high for the safety of the patient. While these devices are supposed to save the patient, they could potentially create an infection in the body, causing more health issues.

Page spoke about how she is researching more of this discovery, a process that has taken several years.

“I’m working on biomedical electrode coding. Right now the infection rate of these devices is 1.5% and there’s a 10% mortality rate of infection which can mean life or death for some people,” Page said. “Some examples of electric coatings or electrodes that would go in the body, and I’m working on titanium nitride coating. So hopefully, adding silver into our coatings can reduce the infection rates of these devices.”

Each of these panelists expressed their findings with enthusiasm, demonstrating just how determined they are to solve the issues presented to them. The ArtSci Symposium’s volunteers and officers want more of the student body to discover that they too can showcase their work, creating an impact on the student body that can inspire them all together. Those who want to learn more about future ArtSci Symposium opportunities can find information at Rowanartsci.com.

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