Symposium to Showcase Undergraduate Researchers and Artists at UTEP

What:4th Annual COURI Symposium

When: Friday, April 25 and Saturday, April 26

Where: Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts and Undergraduate Learning Center

UTEP’s fourth annual College Office of Undergraduate Research Initiatives (COURI) Symposium – open for the first year to projects by students representing all UTEP colleges and schools – gives undergraduate researchers, scholars and artists the chance to present and discuss their research with faculty, peers and the El Paso community. The event is free and open to the public.

Undergraduate art exhibits will be on display from 4-6 p.m. Friday, April 25, at the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts. Guest speaker Rob La Frenais, Ph.D., noted critic and curator of The Arts Catalyst, will talk at 4 p.m. The Arts Catalyst is a London-based organization that commissions art that experimentally and critically engages with science.

Project poster presentations will be on view from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 26, in the Undergraduate Learning Center. Guest speakers that day will include UTEP Professor of Chemistry Luis Echegoyen, Ph.D., and Herb Childress, Ph.D., ?co-founder and director of Metaphor at Teleidoscope Group, a consulting firm on higher education, design, community development, consumer behavior and attitudes, and communications.

Student presentations take place from 11:05 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. Saturday with an awards ceremony at 3 p.m. A full schedule of events and information on parking can be found here.

“Our goal is to showcase the research, scholarly and creative work conducted by UTEP undergraduates under the mentorship of faculty,” said COURI Director Lourdes Echegoyen, Ph.D. “Attendees can view the excellent, novel, state-of-the-art work taking place at UTEP and being conducted by undergraduate students.”

According to COURI data, UTEP students who participated in undergraduate research were more likely to graduate in six years and stay with their original college. Unlike many other universities, UTEP provides paid research opportunities for undergraduate students.

The COURI Symposium began in 2011, the first year COURI was established in the College of Science. As COURI expanded and incorporated other colleges on campus, the symposium grew in size with the goal to become campuswide by UTEP’s Centennial year.