The Week in UR - March 27, 2026

Happy Friday! It has indeed been an especially busy Week in UR for just about everyone involved with undergraduate research at TSC. Our annual Undergraduate Research Symposium is now just days away, and everyone, especially our student researchers, has been hard at work making final preparations. TSC’s 2026 Undergraduate Research Symposium will be held next Wednesday, April 1, from 9:00 to 6:00, at locations throughout TSC’s campus. The symposium is the final, culminating event of the academic year for the Undergraduate Research Program. It’s a celebration of the incredible work that our student researchers have done throughout the year, and I’m excited to share a few final details about next week’s symposium.

First, I want to emphasize that TSC’s annual Undergraduate Research Symposium is open to anyone who would like to attend, including members of the broader community. Indeed, we strongly encourage anyone with an interest in research to come out and hear about the fantastic work that our student researchers have done throughout the academic year. What all of us want most when we present at a research conference is for an attentive audience to engage with our research findings, and we welcome all members of our TSC community, and the community at large, to be among our presenters’ audience members. Complete details about event, including the times and locations of individual presentations, and individual presentation abstracts, can be found in the event program, which is now published on our website: www.tsc.fl.edu/research

For student researchers presenting at next Wednesday’s symposium, I also want to reiterate that the leadership of OSPUR, our undergraduate research student organization, will sponsor, for the first time this year, a pre-symposium peer review session, where our presenters can do a trial run of their presentations, on the day before the symposium and in one of our symposium venues. Additionally, our OSPUR student leaders- Moises Chacon, Sunny Thomas, and Mikayli Ingram- will share some tips for success when making research presentations. All three of our OSPUR leaders have presented at multiple statewide research conferences, and they have much knowledge to share, which will be especially helpful for first-time presenters. This first annual OSPUR Pre-Symposium Peer Review Session will be held this coming Tuesday, March 31, in the Student Union Ballroom, from 3:00-4:00. We hope that all symposium presenters will be able to attend!

Finally, I just want to extend a special invitation to anyone and everyone who has contributed in some way to the Undergraduate Research Program over the past year (Even if just in the form of well wishes!), to attend the closing awards ceremony and reception for next week’s symposium. At this time, we will recognize each of our student presenters with a personalized certificate and award medallion, announce the winners of our cash awards and, most importantly, celebrate the accomplishments of our student researchers. There will be refreshments on offer for all attendees, and we especially welcome all friends of the UR Program to join us. The closing awards ceremony will be held in the Workforce Development Center (WD), room 105, from 4:30 to 6:00. A campus map is included on page 6 of the event program for anyone who might need it.

That’s about it for this installment of the Week in UR. I’ll be back in another two weeks or so with more announcements about exciting opportunities for student researchers at TSC, and news about the great work that our researchers will be doing right up until the final weeks of the academic year. In the interim, I very much hope all friends of the Undergraduate Research Program will join us Wednesday for the TSC’s 2026 Undergraduate Research Symposium!

The Week in UR - March 13, 2026

Happy Friday! And a joyous Spring Break to one and all. To say that the past few weeks have been busy ones in the life of UR at TSC would be laughably inadequate. And so I won’t say it. Because I daresay the English language is incapable of capturing the full extent of peripatetic energy that has been pulsing through the UR Program oe’r these waning weeks of spring semester. And I’m an English professor, so I suppose I get to have an opinion on these things. But spring semester is the busiest season in the world of UR, and for TSC’s UR Program, it has been the busiest yet. Like ever. So what is it that has kept our little UR alliance so active these past few weeks? Well, let me explain.

First and foremost, we are just off a fine jaunt to the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference (FURC), now the nation’s second largest conference on undergraduate research. This year’s conference was held at the University of North Florida, in Jacksonville. A record 11 TSC students were selected to present at FURC this year, though we were able to sponsor travel for just 7. One of the unique challenges of operationalizing UR at a community college, we’re finding, is that students sometimes transfer before they can access all of the research experiences we have on offer, which is, unfortunately, what transpired in this case. But of course, we’re proud of each and every one of our researchers selected to present at FURC. Our student researchers presented their research alongside students from colleges and universities throughout the state of Florida, including Florida State University, the University of Florida, the University of South Florida, and other research-intensive institutions. And…after a hard couple days of conferencing, we may have also had a bit of time to enjoy some of the abundant natural resources on offer in Northeast Florida, which just happens to be my birthplace. Here’s our group at the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve and Jacksonville’s Kathryn Abbey Hannah Park. A great time was had by all, as you can see. Rising TSC sophomores should be on the lookout for upcoming announcements about the opportunity to present at FURC 2027!

From left, Dr. Daniel Beugnet, Halden Euridge, Mikayli Ingram, Vanessa De Freitas, Kathryn Kofler, Moises Chacon, Sunny Thomas, and Dr. Joseph McNeil

Annabeth Norris

Halden Euridge

Annabeth Norris, Halden Euridge, Moises Chacon, Vanessa De Freitas, and Mikayli Ingram

And speaking of large undergraduate research conferences, you may have noticed I said that FURC is the second largest undergraduate research conference in the country. “And so what of the first?” One might ask. “And might TSC students have the opportunity to present there, as well?” Well. Let me tell you. The largest undergraduate research conference in the country would be none other than the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR). And yes indeed! For the first time in these pages, or anywhere else, for that matter, I am at once delighted, elated, and positively overjoyed to announce that 3 TSC students were selected to present at NCUR this year, the nation’s largest, and most competitive, undergraduate research conference. Our three TSC presenters, Moises Chacon, Sunny Thomas, and Mikayli Ingram, were selected to present at NCUR through a rigorous, double-blind review process, carried out by disciplinary experts in the presenters’ respective fields. We’re all so proud of their incredible accomplishment. And so our three TSC NCUR presenters will be off to Richmond, Virginia, in the coming weeks, and you’ll certainly be hearing more about their experiences in a forthcoming issue of The Week in UR. Moises, Sunny, and Mikayi, congratulations on this incredible accomplishment.

And speaking of conferences (It is conference season, after all.), we’re gearing up for our own campus-based Undergraduate Research Symposium, which is now just a little less than three weeks away! TSC’s annual Undergraduate Research Symposium will take place Wednesday, April 1, at locations across TSC’s main campus. This year, more than 110 TSC students were selected to present their research, and we’re anxiously anticipating their presentations. Selected presenters should be closely monitoring their TSC email accounts for additional communications about the symposium, particularly during the week of March 23, when a full conference program will be published. Additional information about presentation times and locations, and other symposium-specific information, will also be sent out during that week. And presenters should remember that required visual aids are due on Monday, March 23. Lots of resources are available on the UR Symposium webpage, linked below, and the video of this week’s visual aid workshop, sponsored by OSPUR, our UR student organization and embedded below, should also be helpful to presenters working on their visual aids.

https://www.tsc.fl.edu/academics/academic-enrichment/undergraduate-research/howtoparticipate/

 

That about does it for this Week in UR. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with some additional symposium-specific updates. Until then, I wish everyone a splendid Spring Break, even, or maybe even especially, if you’re putting some final touches on a research presentation. Because these things are really a labor of love, aren’t they? And what better way is there to spend one’s time. Nonetheless, I do hope all readers of this newsletter take at least a little time for some much-deserved rest and recreation amid this little interregnum that we get at this particularly frenetic time of the academic year. Happy Spring Break, everyone.