Graduate students at Grand Valley State University will have the opportunity to display their research and share their findings at the seventh annual Graduate Showcase, which will include more than 30 participating graduate students presenting different research activities.

The showcase will take place Tuesday, April 18, from 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Loosemore Auditorium in the DeVos Center. The Graduate School at GVSU is co-sponsoring this event with the Center for Scholarly and Creative Excellence.

The research topics that will be presented include social media and consumer engagement, the reproductive behavior of crayfish, bilingual family literacy programs, cardiopulmonary bypass, Michigan school wellness policies, pre-injury assessment, promotion of women’s health issues and land management work at nature centers.

“Students will create a poster presentation based on their research, internship or work, (or) scholarly activities,” said Jennifer Palm, assistant to The Graduate School. “They will have the opportunity to present that for the Grand Valley community at the Graduate Showcase.”

Palm thinks this event will be a great opportunity for students who are interested in a particular graduate program to get insight on what current graduate students do.

“If you are interested in a graduate program, this is a great place to see what graduate students do,” Palm said. “It’s also a way for those attending to expand their knowledge on (a variety) of topics.”

For example, if a student is interested in a particular topic based on what their undergraduate major or senior thesis is about, there may be a graduate senior who is presenting on a similar topic.

“It has been a great experience every year,” Palm said. “We have seen so many different topics and ideas presented. It’s really neat, for lack of a better term, to see what our graduate students are doing.”

All presentations are poster presentations. The showcase will be an open forum where people can walk around at their own pace and visit the different topics. The students will present their work and answer any questions that may be asked.

“It gives the graduate students the opportunity to discuss their work and answer questions about their work,” said Mark Luttenton, association dean for The Graduate School. “It gives the students a deeper knowledge of the work that they have been doing.”

Luttenton said the presenters would need to have a firm understanding of their research and why they conducted it to be able to answer the questions that may come about.

To prepare for the showcase, the graduate students submitted abstracts of their work to The Graduate School offices. 

“We then review it to see if they fit into what we expect the presentations to be like,” Luttenton said.

If a student’s project fit the criteria, they then began to create and design their presentation. 

“These kinds of events are designed to give graduate students greater self-confidence in their work and themselves individually,” Luttenton said.

Palm said she hoped this event would show attendees the value of a graduate education and an overview of the things you can do with a master’s degree.

“I hope that they come away learning something new, inspires them to volunteer or learn something they were not aware of, basically to build the knowledge of the Grand Valley community,” Palm said.

For more information about the Graduate Showcase, visit www.gvsu.edu/gradshowcase/.