A sea of posters detailing topics from the impact Yik Yak has on college campuses to the merging of galaxies in the solar system filled the Union on Wednesday during the 16th annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research.
The event featured original student research as well as collaboration efforts between faculty and students. It included more than 700 projects encompassing six core topics: health and well-being, diversity and equity, environment, fine arts, education and the U.S. and foreign relations.
Savannah Jacaruso, a senior, has been working in collaboration with the UNC School of Dentistry on an analysis of dynamic facial soft tissue through a multi-million dollar grant.
“We recruit patients with cleft pallets and track their facial movements with a series of tiny dots as they move through a series of facial movements that the patient would want to perform,” said Jacaruso.
The ultimate goal of the project, she said, is to provide information to surgeons and help them optimize results on cleft pallet repairs.
“Projects like this are so important because they help with self confidence, it’s just one of the amazing things that this study can do," Jacaruso said.
Senior Kayla Leonard conducted a study on a 19th century cultural collection in England known as the India Museum — which grew out of the colonial relationship between Britain and India but today has nearly vanished from memory. Her work was entitled “The Wandering Collection: The India Museum and Perceptions on the Empire."
“I really wanted to look deeper into the relationships between museums and empires because the relationships interest me," Leonard said.
Leonard used her project to dig deeper into what she called the "unplumbed gold mine" that is the Indian collection and examine how British culture interacted with the museum.