The Wayne State University Graduate School will host their 10^th annual Graduate and Postdoctoral Research Symposium on March 3, 2020. The event will take place in the Student Center Ballroom and will run from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

The day-long event is a celebration of research at WSU.

"The Graduate School Symposium is a perfect event for our scholars to present their work to a wide audience, to meet new peers and share ideas and experiences, and to learn more about the width and depth of scientific work happening at Wayne State," said pharmacology professor and Associate Dean of Compliance and Postdoctoral Development Sokol Todi. "For postdocs at Wayne, there is an added benefit: those who want to gain judging experience are welcome to sign up to judge in one or both poster sessions."

216 poster presentations will be broken up into morning and afternoon sessions and will be judged by faculty on the basis of oral presentation, design, and how well the research is conveyed to an audience outside the discipline.

After the afternoon poster session, a Three-Minute Thesis Competition (3MT) will take place, where participants present a compelling oration of their thesis and its significance in three minutes or less. The competition challenges students to consolidate their ideas and discoveries so they can be presented to a non-specialist audience. Monetary prizes are awarded by a faculty panel of judges for first, second and third place winners, and a People's Choice is chosen by the audience. The first-place winner will go on to compete at the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools 3MT competition at the Annual Meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 1-3, 2020.

Following will be faculty panel discussion on diversity and inclusion in academia.

The event will end with the awards ceremony.

For the second year in a row, the Graduate School will invite graduate student admits or prospective students who have indicated a strong interest in applying as part of its recruitment initiative, the Research Symposium Scholar Visit Program (RSSVP), which aims to recruit outstanding domestic students who are underrepresented in their discipline or program, including first-generation students, to WSU.

Doctoral student David Criss attended last year as a WSU master's student and participant of RSSVP. He credits the experience with bolstering his desire to pursue a doctorate here.

WSU's status as a tier-1 research university "is adequately accentuated and represented at the research symposium," Criss said. "Before the experience, I was merely focused on completing my course requirements in order to graduate. The Research Symposium Scholar Visit opened my eyes to the many research opportunities Wayne State University has to offer its students."

He looks forward to presenting his own research at the symposium in the future.

Three of the five RSSVP participants from last year have since enrolled at WSU.

Event agenda

8 a.m. Poster set-up, welcome and opening remarks
9 a.m. 1^st round of poster presentations begin
Noon 2^nd round of poster presentations begin
1:45 p.m. Three-Minute Thesis Competition
2:45 p.m. Faculty panel discussion
3:45 p.m. Awards ceremony