As a means to present student research on water quality and the environment, a few graduate students in civil engineering are hosting a symposium today.
The 2007 Water Resources and Environmental Engineering Spring Symposium is taking place in Mann Hall. Judges will be introduced and a buffet lunch will be open at noon in Room 206. Presentations begin at 1 p.m. in the lobby.
Julie Zimmerman, an assistant professor at Yale University, is speaking about “Green Engineering: The How of Sustainability” at 4 p.m. in Room 216. A poster awards ceremony will be held at 5 p.m., also in Room 216.
Jason Tillotson, a graduate student in environmental engineering and symposium chair, said the symposium provides an excellent experience for both undergraduate and graduate students to explore their fields as environmental scientists and engineers.
According to Tillotson, the water resources and environmental engineering group created the symposium to give graduate students a chance to present their research.
“It gives the graduate students an opportunity to practice doing poster presentations, because when they go out into the real world they’ll go to one or two symposiums a year. The judges from the symposium are usually people from the consulting world. This gives a way to network and meet consultants and get a jump start on getting jobs,” Tillotson said.
Hossain Azam, a graduate student in environmental engineering and publications committee chair, said he values the experience and exposure graduate students can receive from the symposium.
“There will be more people from the professional field from North Carolina,” Azam said. “This is a kind of connection between the students and the professionals. The [professionals] will know what we are doing here, and they will know if we are fit enough for the professional world,” Azam said.
Naresh Devineni, a graduate student in civil engineering and a publications committee member said he believes that the symposium provides a good opportunity for graduate students to share their work within the environmental engineering community.
“It’s a good place to actually talk about yourself, talk about your research,” Devineni said. “It’s a good medium to see what each person is doing in detail with their current research.”
Azam agreed.
“It’s a confidence-building process,” he said. “We’ve started for a couple of years. Now we are able to present ourselves to professionals. Through this process we have gotten a lot of confidence as future engineers.”
According to Tillotson, one of the good things about the spring symposium is that graduate students organize it.
“We are mostly expecting students from the civil engineering department,” he said. “We want as many people as possible because we’re proud of our work.”
