Dawn Bonker
As the chief operating officer for Lionsgate Home Entertainment, Chapman University Trustee Akin C. Ceylan ’90 doesn’t wear a white lab coat, mess around with beakers and burners or grow cells in petri dishes.
“Research is really paramount to everything that we do,” says Akin C. Ceylan ’90
And yet research is vital to everything he does. Ceylan was the keynote speaker at Chapman University’s Student Research Day on Wednesday, and he told students and faculty that inquiry and experimentation spark ideas on both the creative and business sides of his industry.
“When you have conception, you have to really pursue it and you pursue it through your research,” Ceylan said. “Research is really paramount to everything that we do. Because if you don’t do the research you risk not being able to get the output that you want.”
Ceylan spoke at a student lunch that was the midpoint in a day dedicated to celebrating undergraduate and graduate research. More than 140 research projects were presented by students throughout the day in the Bush Conference Center, with the morning session dedicated to science and technology and the afternoon to arts, education, humanities and social sciences.
A sampling of that work included:
- A study of voter participation and absentee voting by Alyse Frederick ’15, who found that one of the groups of registered voters least likely to make it to the polls was mothers of children younger than 10.
- An analysis of the treatment outcomes by Monica Hanna ’15 of breast cancer patients receiving radiation at the time of surgery, compared with those who received more extensive radiation following surgery. The research indicated that the less-involved treatment was equally successful and less disfiguring in cases involving small, early-stage tumors.
- A study of rising soil salinity in the San Joaquin Valley by Kristen Whitney, a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Computational Sciences. The work has implications important to the agricultural industry as it responds to drought conditions and changing crops.
Among the students presenting at Research Day were computer science majors Mirabel Rice and Aneesha Prakash, who are creating an app to help teens with autism select outfits that reflect social norms.
The growth of interest in the research event reflects the scholarly activity under way in all the University’s disciplines, said
Christopher S. Kim
, Ph.D., co-director of the
Office of Undergraduate Research
.
“These are all advancing the intellectual community and culture we’re building here,” Kim said, as he perused the multitude of posters on display.
And the experience of research – including the U-turns and regrouping when ideas don’t work out – are all foundational skills students will need in their careers, whether they continue academic research or join any industry today, Ceylan said.
“You get paid to be right,” he said. “But it doesn’t mean that we don’t take risks and that we don’t try to get out over our skis a little bit now and then.”
Watch for details about the spring Student Research Day at the Office of Undergraduate Research website.
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