More than 200 undergraduate students representing more than 50 colleges and universities nationwide will gather July 29-31 at The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel for the 13th annual Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program Summer Research Conference at Penn State. These students, known as McNair Scholars, will present their research findings to a national audience; network with professionals and other students in their areas of discipline; meet with graduate school representatives from around the country; and learn from experts on how to best prepare for graduate school.
The keynote speaker for this year's conference is Julian Earls, the director of NASA's John H. Glenn Research Center, a former colleague and friend of the late McNair, who was a member of the crew of the Challenger space shuttle that was destroyed upon launch in 1986.
Penn State faculty and staff interested in attending the students' research presentations can stop by The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday, July 30. Oral presentations will run in 90-minute panel sessions of four students each. The morning sessions run from 8:30 to 10 a.m. and 10:15 to 11:45 a.m.; the afternoon sessions run from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Poster presentations will be available from 1 to 2 p.m. A conference schedule of presenters and their research topics and abstracts will be available at the registration desk area. It also may be accessed after July 22 on the conference's Web site at http://www.outreach.psu.edu/C&I/McNairScholars/
The Summer Research Conference is part of the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, a national initiative to help prepare academically gifted, low-income, first-generation and underrepresented college students for doctoral studies through involvement in research and other scholarly activities. Conference sponsors at Penn State are the Office of the Vice Provost of Educational Equity, The Graduate School's Office of Graduate Educational Equity Programs and Penn State's McNair Scholars Program. For more information about this conference or the Penn State Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program, contact Teresa Tassotti at (814) 863-8195 or check http://www.outreach.psu.edu/C&I/McNairScholars/ online.