Engaged Scholar Symposium gathers area students for exchange of ideas

The Engaged Scholar Symposium (ES2 or “E – S – Squared”), the largest multidisciplinary gathering of undergraduate scholars in South Texas, on April 10 will kicks off its three-day conference, designed for sharing and celebrating multidisciplinary undergraduate research, service-learning projects and creative works being conducted by students at UTRGV and beyond.

The conference opens at 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 10, on the UTRGV Brownsville Campus, in the PlainsCapital Bank El Gran Salón.

It moves to the Ballroom on the UTRGV Edinburg Campus on Wednesday, April 11, and to the UTRGV Harlingen Campus Auditorium on Thursday, April 12, for an award ceremony.

The keynote address is by Dr. Melissa Reynolds, Ph.D., a scholar of chemistry and biomedical engineering. She will deliver the keynote on two days: 9:25 a.m. April 10, at the Brownsville venue; and 9:25 a.m. Tuesday, April 11, at the Edinburg venue.

During the symposium, participating students will showcase their research and other projects in the following session types: Oral Presentations (or Talks), Posters, Performances, or the Art Gallery.

· To view a more detailed descriptions of each session type, visit www.utrgv.edu/es2/program/session-types.

· The program listing of all presentations is available online at www.utrgv.edu/program.

· And a brief summary of sessions is available at www.utrgv.edu/es2/schedule.

Undergraduate students also have the opportunity to receive recognition for their work and compete for prizes. Last year, about 100 student presenters were awarded the Distinguished Scholar Award. Two scholars were honored for their creative works projects; 35 scholars were presented with Distinguished Scholar Awards for their oral presentations; and 63 students received awards for their poster presentations.

University organizers estimate roughly 1,000 attendees for this year’s event. For 2018, the number of creative works and service learning presentations have doubled since the symposium’s inception.

High-quality photos and video content will be posted for use at www.utrgv.edu/es2/press following the event.