The University of British Columbia

2009 Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Conference

PLEASE VISIT THE NEW MURC WEBPAGE FOR 2009 APPLICATIONS AND REGISTRATION.

This webpage is part of the new Undergraduate Research Opportunities (URO) website.

Our websites are currently under construction. We apologize for any resulting inconvenience and confusion. For more information, please contact Sonja Embree, Conference Coordinator, at sonja.embree@ubc.ca.

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The Mission

Make your project count for more than just a grade... present it at the next Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Conference and make it count toward your future.

The Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Conference celebrates the contributions of undergraduate scholarly inquiry/research at UBC. It provides an opportunity for students from across campus to present a project they have been working on while engaging in scholarly debate amongst each other.

Participation in the conference is on a voluntary basis, with students having the choice of giving either an oral, poster or visual arts/performance presentation of their work.  Presentations are judged by graduate students, and prizes for the top 6 oral, top 6 poster, and top 2 visual arts/performance presentations are awarded at the end of the conference day.

The conference is sponsored by the 3 Offices of the Vice President Research, Vice President Academic, and Vice President Students, and is part of the mandate of TREK 2010 and the University Academic Plan, which state that undergraduate students who choose to attend UBC should have the opportunity to benefit from attending a major research institution. That is, every student should have the opportunity to engage in scholarly inquiry/research should they desire. And because the research process includes the dissemination of results, the conference provides students with the opportunity to do just that! 

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Who is Eligible to Participate?

Students from any undergraduate discipline (science, arts, medicine, forestry, education, land and food systems, engineering, business, fine arts, etc.) who has worked on a scholarly project in which s/he has taken a leadership role in its development and execution are eligible to participate in the conference.

Some examples of eligible scholarly works are:

• interpretation of a performance, piece of music or art work
• interpretation of a piece of literature/literary criticism 
• model design and development
• scientific experiments
• textual analysis
• historical interpretation
• case study
• research/ term/analytical paper
• engineering research or development projects
• qualitative or quantitative research projects

Not sure if your project/essay/research will fit?  Ask Sonja Embree, the conference coordinator, at info.murc@ubc.ca.

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Ways for Faculty and Staff to Get Involved

There are several ways that faculty and staff can become involved in this conference, including:

• Promotion within your department (departmental meetings, distribution in faculty mail boxes, posting flyers)
• Faculty announcements in class 
• Conference organization and preparation
• Assisting on the day of the conference
• Serve as a panel moderator
• Faculty sponsor (mentor a student to participate in the conference)

If you are interested in being involved in the conference, please contact Sonja Embree, the conference coordinator, at info.murc@ubc.ca.

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2008 Conference Program

Click for the 2008 MURC Conference Program.

You will find there the conference day agenda, a list of the presenters, the presentation schedule, and abstracts of all the presentations to be given (both poster and oral).

2008 Prize Winners

Congratulations to the following 11 award winners of the 2008 Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Conference.  The oral and poster presentation winners received their prizes on the evening of Thursday March 13, 2008 at the Celebrate Research Gala held at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.  And congratulations as well to the 11 Runner-Up/Honourable Mention presenters.

Oral Presentation Winners

1. Tracy Tan
      “The Effects of IPI-504, an Anti-Cancer Agent, on
      Synovial Sarcoma”

2. Yuan Fang
      “What Is the Proteomic Difference in the Honeybee Legs
      Between the Three Castes (Queen, Worker and Drone)?”

3. Nadia Formigoni
      “Getting into the Kitchen: Housing, Kitchen Access, and
      Nutrition of Women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside”

4. Katherine Lyon
      “Empowering Representations of Femininity?: Girl
      Power, Sexuality and Physical Appearance in Popular
      Western Music”

5. Mark Homenuke & Matthew Lam
      “Microfabricated Small-Volume Nuclear Magnetic
      Resonance Spectroscopy”

6. Namrata Jhamb
      “The Brighter Smiles Africa Program: Addressing the Oral
      Health of Children in Rural Uganda”

7.  Waldan Kwong
      “Antibiotic Resistant Bugs in Our Wastewater”

Poster Presentation Winners

 1. Kevin Ma
      “Comparisons of Fish Populations and Benthic Insect
      Fauna Between Stream-Trail Junctions, Pools and Riffles
      of North-Western Costa Rican Streams”

2. Ryan Pettersson and Atsuko Tsukamoto
      “Natural Autumn Senescence of Hydrangea Leaves”

3. Leya Eguchi
      “Child Behavioral Difficulties: Exploring the Parent’s
      Experience”

 4. Amber Lo
       “Going Gaga: Infant Response to Linguistic Stimuli”

Runner-up/Honourable Mentions

 Oral Presentations

1. Laura Gosset, Jian Hui Cheng, David Farmer, Venessa
   Allain, Heather Russell, Tegan Adams
      “Laying the Foundations for the UBC Farm Ambassador
      Program: An Investigation Toward Increasing Awareness
      of On-Farm Student Directed Studies”

2. Sarah Dosanjh
      “Illuminating Neuronal Activity – An Examination of the
      Role of Actin in Synapse Formation”

3. Charles Chen
      “Labour and Leisure in the Harem of ‘Odalisque with Slave’

4. Tonia Relkov
      “Marijuana Use and Prospective Memory”

5. Carolina Tropini
      “Non-Invasive Detection of Fetal Down Syndrome”

6. Autumn Chilcote
      “Sex, Drugs and British Columbia: Foundations of
      HIV/AIDS”

7. Maziar Seirafi, Souzan Bakhtiari, Salima Jamal
      “The Politicization of the Veil: Comparative Analysis of
      Policies Concerning Women’s Post-Secondary Education
      in Secular Republic of Turkey and the Islamic Republic of
      Iran”

Poster Presentations

1. Jacky Yeung
      “Sublocalization of Bcl-2 and Bcl-X in Beta Cells”

2. Ankur Midha
      “P-glycoprotein Down-Regulation in Human Embryonic
      Kidney Cells via RNA-Interference”

3. Nikta Fay
      “Minute Virus of Mice (MVM) Hijacks Cellular
      Components for Its Own Survival”

4. Benny Lee
      “Cultural Differences in the Perception of Health Care
      Decision-Making”

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