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Even as she was embroiled in details, dissections and statistics, Anne Bowen, who took home the prize for most impactful project for her research on how anthropogenic noise affects mating behavior and fitness in crickets, felt the gravity of her work. “What we are doing hasn’t really been done before,” she says. “With everything going on on our planet right now — all of the different environmental changes and conservation issues — this research is really important because it can have such a broad impact.”

Though winners were chosen and recognized, Siemens says that was hardly the highlight of the event. “The judging is a fun little extra, but the important aspect is to celebrate the amazing work that’s going on,” he says. “Some students have been working since the summer, some were just working through the school year — but for many, this was the culmination of three or four years of work. It’s a really cool final presentation for them to showcase what they’ve been working on.”

For many students, participating in the symposium represents seeing clearly for the first time in a long time, as they finally depart what Siemens calls “the cloud.” “You’ve gone through this whole scary process of figuring out how to address this question and trying multiple times to come up with methods and implementing them and making mistakes,” he says. “The symposium is the final piece of this. To be able to think through the steps it took, and the grit and resiliency you showed, and distill everything you’ve learned into an explainable message is a valuable experience.”

Even as the symposium is underway, the learning continues, says��, assistant professor of biology. “The currency of science is publication, and if you can’t communicate what you’ve done, it’s like it never happened. For students, this is a first opportunity to really do that,” she says. “The most successful people were able to take as many steps back from the nitty-gritty as possible and say, ‘Why would somebody actually care about what I’ve done?’” Tinghitella served as a faculty mentor for three participating students, including Bowen, and judged projects at the symposium as well.

Part of the symposium’s successful equation is simply giving students the chance to share their passions. “I got to talk to people about my research, which was really exciting because I love to share what I’m doing,” Bowen says. “It really brought everything together for me, and it was good to have a reminder of everything that goes into this.”

Tinghitella says the symposium is yet another reminder of the strength of ���app’s research community. “Undergraduates are a huge part of what is going on in terms of research,” she says. “They aren’t doing these cookie-cutter, silly experiments that aren’t going anywhere. They are really driving the research.”