As the Young Scholars Program headed into its fourth week (7/19 – 7/22), the students continued finalizing their research and preparing for the July 29th presentation day. As usual, they attended more research seminars presented by Northeastern professors, which were led by Sijia Dong (Theoretical and Computational Chemistry), Erin Cram (How (Living) Tubes Squeeze), Samuel Chung (Optical Approaches for Studying Neuroregneration), and Ruobing Bai (Soft Materials and Soft Machines). Additionally, YSP had the privilege to meet the Dean of the College of Engineering at Northeastern University, Gregory Abowd, who joined Northeastern in March 2021. During this session, he informed the students about his extensive journey through academia and his interests in human-computing interaction and ubiquitous computing research. Some students even had the chance to talk to him about their YSP research and their experiences with learning coding software.
To wrap up the week, 20 out of 22 scholars finally had the chance to meet each other in person for the first time this summer! This was the first time that YSP was in person in over a year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the YSP students and staff couldn’t have been more excited. The day was filled with activities, including but not limited to: an admissions session, a campus tour, lab visits, a campus scavenger hunt, and an egg drop contest. While YSP had lunch atop the Curry Student Center terrace, some students got to meet their professors and/or mentors! After a long year of uncertainty, we are so grateful to have had this experience and we thank everyone who was part of the effort to bring YSP to campus!
Pictures of the in-person field trip can be viewed here.
Mark Casto’s “Mind Maps” Activity with REU-POWER students – describing experiences in YSP/REU-POWER
