Adelphi’s Scholarship and Creative Works Conference was super fun today! It was so chill. It was perfect! That was a wonderful way to spend the afternoon.

AUSCWC Leadership:

Great work Professors Nathan George and Alexander Heyl! Back story time! This was the first time in years that I have attended Research Day where I wasn’t in charge – alongside my main peep Professor Laura Brumariu. Professor George and Heyl did a wonderful job getting the conference together last year and then Covid happened. The conference was canceled. And I can’t even imagine that pain this year must have been trying to run a virtual conference. They pulled it off. If you know either one of these professors reach out and say thank you. I know from first hand experience how much of a struggle it is to get every detail right.

My Research Team:

I am super proud of my students getting their work out there. From what I could tell I was happy with everyone that was able to present from my team.

From an advisers point of view, I really struggled with what to do about research day this year. My students were working hard and everyone was so behind on everything this semester (dealing with the nearly virtual semester). Ultimately, what is more important: doing well in your class, making the best poster presentation, mental health, making some progress on your research, etc? To my own personal surprise, I decided that research day was a luxury. It is sad because it is one of the best days of the year.

The students who were at the end of the research cycle did great in their presentations. However, I asked most students just getting going on projects to withdraw their abstracts so they could get more done on their projects.

The Talks!

The talks were wonderful as usual. It’s always the non-physics talks that I really enjoy. Not to take away from physics. I love those talks too but I see those students and talk about physics everyday. It is getting to see the wonderful students at Adelphi in all the other majors that is a wonderful part.

There were two talks I went to yesterday that blew mind. One by Dragtivist or @CarbieThe. That was a poem and discussion about what it feels like to be an outsider. I also went to see a discussion about a young director’s short movie about mental health during Covid times.