Author: Logan Waddle | Major: Physics – Biophysics | Semester: Spring 2025
My name is Logan Waddle, a senior biophysics major (with math and biology minors) from Fulbright College doing research with Dr. Jian Zhang of Biomedical Engineering in Fall 2024 and Spring 2025. My project’s goal is to determine mechanical factors that drive collective cancer cell invasion and connect these to cellular bioenergetics.
From April 7th to 10th I traveled as part of a group to Pittsburgh, PA to attend the National Council on Undergraduate Research (NCUR). This conference spanned three days, with two of the three being full of undergraduate posters and oral presentations.
Getting ready to present for the first time!
At NCUR I was fortunate enough to present my research as a poster on the final day. This conference gave me my first-ever opportunity to present my research. I have two more poster presentations and my thesis defense scheduled later in this semester, this conference was great practice for these opportunities.
In the main exhibit hall, with all of the poster presenters, were rows of tables with admissions faculty from varying graduate schools. While at the conference I was able to connect with admissions officers from a variety of medical schools such as Mayo Clinic, Virginia Tech, Alice Walton, and a few others. I was able to get a lot of insight on how to improve my application to better my chances of getting into medical school after my gap year.
NCUR is an interdisciplinary conference, so finding presentations that focused on biomedical engineering was difficult. I attended a few poster presentations in the field, but they all covered topics that felt far removed from my research. However, they were still fun to watch. Two presentations stood out to me, neither of which were biomedical. First, the student presenting next to me at the conference wrote a children’s book for her research. It sounded like a very fun project and was something that I hadn’t even considered could be presented at a research conference. Second, NCUR hosted a plenary talk by Hayley Iben, the director of engineering at Pixar Studios, who was responsible for developing their model for simulating hair. This talk was insightful to learn about how research plays an important role in more than just academic settings.
They announced that next year’s NCUR will be in Richmond, VA. I think that any undergraduates who are far enough along in their research should apply to present. The entire experience was very memorable, and the insight I gained into my own research was very worthwhile. Getting an opportunity to present research for the first time is exciting, and with the sheer quantity of research presented at NCUR, I’m sure that everyone who attends will walkaway with an increased appreciation for research in general.
Now that I’ve attended this conference, I feel considerably more confident presenting my research. Just yesterday I defended (and passed) my honors thesis. Next week I’ll be presenting my research twice. Using the takeaways from NCUR on what makes a good research presentation I’m very confident that I’ll be able to present my research well in these upcoming weeks and when I inevitably pursue research during medical school.