Emerging Researcher’s National (ERN) Nigel Pugh - Travel Report

This past weekend (February 19 -21) in Washington DC, I attend the Emerging Research’s National Conference (ERN) 2015. The ERN Conference was a beneficial and excellent learning opportunity for me. The speakers that spoke were entertaining as well as informative. All of the workshops provided important resources and topics to become a successful graduate student and future STEM worker. Lastly, it was great to see different research projects that my colleagues have been working on in the past year.

The conference started on Thursday with an Opening Dinner/ Plenary Session. The guest speaker was Dr. Ainissa G. Ramirez, who is a Science Evangelist and also was a co-authored “ Newton’s Football. She also is a professor at Yale University. Ainissa keynote speech was excellent! Her topic was on being a minority in the STEM field. She explained her journey as an African American being a STEM major. A key part of her speech that stood out to me was “the imposter syndrome”. The imposter syndrome is how every individual feels when they are at a conference such as ERN. One feels like there not good enough to be able to be present at the conference and the skill to participate. She let us know that everyone goes through this syndrome (and she had before) and it is a normal feeling. However, she assured us that we are not what we think but better. We are the cream of the crop! Dr. Ramirez gave some tips to make this journey easier, such as: Stay strong, Have a support system, and know where you are going!

The next day was started with a Networking Breakfast and Plenary Session 2. Dr. Maggie Werner-Washburne was the guest speaker. Dr. Washburne is a Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico. She is also the president of SACNAS, which is a Society for Advancement of Hispanics/Chicanos and Native Americans in Science. She spoke about her life growing up and her academic pursuits that have made her who she is today. Some of the key takeaways for her keynote were: Always ask questions and be creative, your story is your own resource, and make today valuable!

Following her keynote I proceeded to go to the oral presentation seminar. I observed the Computer Science oral presentations. Different universities and students were represented for the oral presentations. There were various intriguing Computer Science project presentations such as: Password Differences Based on Language and Testing Memory Recall presented by Jacob Abbott from Indiana University.  Overall, there were many excellent research projects that were presented in this session.

Following the oral presentations I went and observed the poster presentations. One of the presentations I vividly remember was from a young lady from Norfolk State University.  Vanessa Hammond’s project was: Exposing High School Students to Computer Science via Visual Analytics. Her project was on getting high school students involved in computer science early. The concept dealt using visualization to teach computer science. The students would use a program the students would make different graphs based on different data on colleges in Virginia. The conclusion or result of her research was that thirteen percent of the students said that they liked what they were doing and became interest in computer science. Similar to the oral presentations, there were various university there to present their research.

The plenary session lunch that was held on Friday was probably my favorite event during the whole conference. Dr. Vinton Cerf was the keynote speaker. Vinton Cerf is one of the “Founding Fathers of the Internet” Without this man’s contributions; there would be no Internet! He spoke on how he and his colleagues journey about building the Internet. He also spoke about his life and his current job. He is also the Chief Internet Evangelist and Vice President of Google!  One important advice he gave his audience was to take risk while we are young. Currently there are 3 billion on the Internet, he working on converting the other 4 1/2 billion to the Internet. It was so nice to meet a man of this valor in my lifetime!

The last day I attended a Funding your STEM education workshop. In this workshop, Scholarships, Internships, Teaching Assistant, Fellowships, Important Deadlines, and tips on writing a strong and successful personal statement were all discussed in this workshop. Many of common graduate school application and funding questions were answered! Later that night was the awards banquet. We had a guest speaker who is a Biology professor at Georgia Tech Dr. Manu Platt. He graduated from Morehouse College and he spoke on his academic career and pursuits. Lastly, all the awards were given out according to specific categories that were represented in the conference.

Overall, attending this conference was a powerful networking tool and a good time to expand my STEM knowledge. I really enjoyed myself and would recommend others to going to this conference. If the opportunity presents itself, I plan on attending this conference next year!