Two undergraduate researchers returned home with first place awards following the annual Emerging Researchers National Conference in Washington, D.C.

UALR senior Lafayette DeRamus brought home a first place award in nanotechnology and physics, while junior Jeffrey Jones won first place in engineering. They competed against more than 600 poster entries. The conference also included 150 oral presentations.

DeRamus, a double major in geology and physics, presented a poster on the photovoltaic characteristics of solar cells of different compositions using a computer simulation. His mentor is Dr. Hye-Won Seo of the UALR Physics Department.

Jones, an engineering major, presented research determining the best physical characteristics for a small solar updraft tower to generate energy. His mentor is Dr. Shawn Bourdo from the UALR Center for Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences.

DeRamus and Jones were among six University of Arkansas at Little Rock students to attend the conference that attracted students from 240 colleges and universities during the three-day event, held Feb. 19 through 21.

The ERN conference is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the American Association for the Advancement of Science to encourage undergraduate and graduate-level research in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).

All six UALR students earned fully funded travel awards to attend, according to Dr. Jim Winter, director of the Arkansas Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation and the University Science Scholars Program at UALR.

The travel awards were each valued at more than $1,100, said Winter.

The conference provides an opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students in STEM fields to enhance their science communication skills through poster and oral presentations judged by 140 scientists and engineers. Attendees also have opportunities for networking, plenary talks, graduate school fairs, and workshops.

“This is a great opportunity for students,” Winter said. “Our students all did super jobs with their posters and were very engaged. Many of the presenters represented well-known laboratories and universities, so the competition with regard to the quality of the research and presentations was excellent.”

Winter said it is also notable that the two first-place winners were mentored by UALR researchers, indicating the high quality of research being conducted on campus.

Other UALR students presenting research included:

• Senior Kelly Ho, who spent eight weeks during summer 2014 researching the vent locations and eruptive behavior of an old volcano through an geology internship at Northern Arizona University.
• Senior Mary-Kate Williams, whose research focused on how environmental conditions affect the persistence of protozoan spores that infect monarch butterfly populations. She conducted her research at the University of Georgia during summer 2014.
• Junior Autumn Brown, a biology major, who conducted a thermal analysis of polymer-nanoparticle film under the mentorship of Drs. Alex Biris and Shawn Bourdo.
• Recent graduate Sam Shry, who investigated the genetic basis of the migratory timing of Chinook salmon at Oregon State University.

The research of Ho, Shry, and Williams was funded by the National Science Foundation through the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) internship program.