RIT’s CSTEP Students present at the 27th Annual State Wide Conference | May 2019
RIT students participated in the 27th annual statewide Collegiate Science Technology Entry Program (CSTEP) conference. The statewide conference was held April 12-14, 2019 at The Sagamore on Lake George, Bolton Landing NY. The conference, first held in 1992 to highlight the different research CSTEP students had participated in. This year’s theme being “Journeys Beyond Excellence”. RIT is included in the 52 CSTEP College/Universities that were present at this year’s conference.
RIT CSTEP had three student presenters, fourth year student Nina Wilson taking home an Honorable Mention award presenting in the Human Services/Social Sciences 2 category, with her Oral Research Presentation titled Women and Their Professional and Personal Trajectories, fourth year student Cianna Hall and fifth year student Jennifer Pfaff also presented in the Poster Session. Hall presenting a poster in the Cell/Micro/Molecular Biology category with her poster titled The Catheter Solution-KR-12 Antimicrobial Peptide Material Construct and T24 Urinary Bladder Cells. Pfaff presenting in the Chemistry and Biology I category with her poster titled, Angle Analysis Protonation Effects on Nucleic Acid Structure Determination.
RIT CSTEP also gives students who are not presenting the opportunity to take part in the conference. This is important because it allows students that may not be done with their research at the time of the actual conference to see what to look forward to next year. It also allows the presenters to receive support from their CSTEP peers. CSTEP students who did not present this year, but did attend the conference were Maria Morcos, Natalia Montilla, Diamond Guy, Samantha Tavarez, Fatoumata Barry, Ampofo Adjei and Martin Sosa. Martin Sosa represented RIT as conference Ambassador. CSTEP Program Assistant Yulanda Florence attended the conference with Assistant Director of HEOP Alisha Balkum and Assistant Director, Trio Upward Bound, Ivanna (Ivy) Colon.
The CSTEP conference included academic and professional workshops such as Funding Your Graduate Education, Unleashing the Leader in You and Writing Your Personal Statement/ Statement of Purpose for Graduate School. The weekend offered many fun and entertaining events for students such as Zumba, Boot Camp, Video game Tournament and the CSTEP Awards Banquet. The students had opportunities to win some great prizes. Martin Sosa won the grand prize, an iPad mini as well as many students in our group winning additional prizes.
“The CSTEP conference is always a wonderful event that students look forward to attending every year,” shared Program Assistant for CSTEP Yulanda Florence.