Five UALR students participated in the recent “Posters at the Capitol” event, which demonstrates to state legislators the high level of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research students and faculty are engaged in at Arkansas universities.

The event, held in the Capitol Rotunda on Feb. 11, also elevates the importance of STEM research to Arkansas citizens.

Undergraduate STEM majors from colleges and universities across the state shared their scientific work in layman’s terms to elected officials, the media, the general public, faculty, as well as high school students.

The UALR students presenting posters included:

• Zachary Hicks, a chemistry major, University Science Scholar, and a Donaghey Scholar. His research concerns novel carbon-based supercapacitors, and his mentor was Dr. Tito Viswanathan of the Department of Chemistry.
• Jeffrey Jones, an engineering major and also a member of the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation. His research involves determining the best physical characteristics for a small solar updraft tower to generate energy. His mentor was Dr. Shawn Bourdo from the Center for Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences.
• Lafayette DeRamus III, a physics and a geology major. DeRamus is a member of Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, a University Science Scholar, and member of the Chancellor’s Leadership Corps. His research involves the photovoltaic characteristics of solar cells of different compositions using a computer simulation. His mentor was Dr. Hye-Won Seo of the Physics Department.
• Mary-Kate Williams, a biology major, University Science Scholar, and a member of Chancellor’s Leadership Corps. Her research focuses on how environmental conditions affect the persistence of protozoan spores that infect monarch butterfly populations. She conducted her research at the University of Georgia last summer.
• Silas Duke, an engineering major, whose research focuses on redesigning endotracheal tubes using computational fluid dynamics techniques. His mentor was Dr. Srikanth Pidugu of the Department of Engineering and Technology.