The research is in: annual gathering for student presentations is bigger than ever

Insecure people tend to post too-good-to-be-true profiles on the dating app Tinder. China’s air pollution contributes to air pollution along the Pacific west coast. Forty-six percent of the U.S. population believes  an economic collapse will befall the country in 25 years. Women with more family support following childbirth are less likely to suffer postpartum depression.

Those are just a handful of the findings presented Wednesday at the 2015 Spring Chapman University Research Day. More than 200 undergraduate and graduate students participated in this year’s Research Day, the largest ever, according to Anna Leahy, Ph.D., co-director with Christopher Kim, Ph.D., of the Office of Undergraduate Research.

That kind of turnout added to the vibrant and festive atmosphere of the day, punctuated with prize drawings, conversations and refreshments.

“Anyone who was at the poster sessions today heard the buzz, the excitement, the exchange of ideas. This is a place where research and creative activity gets noisy,” Leahy said.

The day’s events opened with a morning poster session dedicated to student research projects from the arts, education, humanities and social sciences. In the afternoon the poster session highlighted behavioral, health and natural sciences.

At mid-day students and faculty lunched together in Beckman Hall and were treated to a keynote talk by writer and culture critic M.G. Lord. Among Lord’s books are
Turf: The Private Life of Rocket Science
and
The Accidental Feminist: How Elizabeth Taylor Raised Our Consciousness and We were Too Distracted by her Beauty to Notice
. In a humorous presentation that included movie outtakes and insights into the history of the Barbie doll — the topic of one of her books — Lord shared stories of how she began as a cartoonist and evolved into a columnist and author.

The Abstract Volume containing summaries of the posters presented during Research Day can be found at the Office of Undergraduate Research website.

“Don’t ever assume that your first career is your last career,” Lord said.

Throughout her career, though, research has always been key to her nonfiction work and the source of her inspiration.

“The moment I find something that someone more powerful doesn’t want me to find, I’m excited. I know there’s a book there,” she said.