Seven Students from the Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Guyana (UG) were selected to participate in the Florida International University (FIU) McNair Scholars Research Conference 2017, from Wednesday, October 19 to October 20, 2017. The conference is being held at the FIU’s Modesto A. Maidique Campus, the participants from a number of institutions will share their research and explore graduate studies possibilities.
The contingent consists of six undergraduates and one faculty member. Joenitta Arthur-Mc Kenzie of the Department of Biology will speak on her research assessing the prevalence of intestinal parasitic helminths in children of Silvercity, Linden, Guyana. Puja Jaichand of the same Department well present her work on the consumption patterns and the economic impact of wild-meat on the Essequibo Coast.
From left: Rajiv Indarjeet; Alicia Layne; Puja Jaichand; Diana Seecharran, Assistant Dean, Faculty of Natural Sciences; Joenitta Arthur-Mc Kenzie; Lisa Bublin; Owen Grant.
From the Department of Chemistry, Lisa Dublin will present on the development of highly mesoporous activated carbon from coconut shells for water treatment, while Rajiv Indrajeet will present on the characterization of the physicochemical properties of various cassareep available on the local market for the purpose of preparing a grading standard for local cassareep. From the Department of Computer Sciences, Alicia Layne will be presenting on an integrated health information systems for improved diabetic outcomes in Guyana and Owen Grant will speak on his work focused on distributed object computing – complexity reduction and interoperability. The students will be accompanied by Ms Diana Seecharran. Assistant Dean of the Faculty.
The Faculty sees this as an opportunity to showcase the valuable scientific work its undergraduates conduct annually. More importantly we see this as an opportunity for our students to gain exposure, build international networks and explore their graduate study options in the US. Participation in this conference is now used to motivate students to an even higher level of performance in undergraduate research.
The Faculty of Natural Sciences is grateful for the opportunity to participate in this conference once again and for the support of the University of Guyana, Florida International University and other donors for their generous contributions to the venture.
This is the second time that the UG will be participating in this annual event. In 2015 the Faculty sent a team of five to the conference. Feedback from the students and staff as well as the conference organisers was extremely positive. The students selected are among the best of the student researchers in each of the three departments in the Faculty with a research component in their Bachelor of Science programme. The selected students were then required to submit an abstract of their research for oral presentation or poster display to be evaluated by the conference committee. All submissions from the University of Guyana were accepted.