Leah DeLorenzo, graduate student in UCF’s TESOL program, won the Arts and Humanities Award for her presentation at the very first statewide Graduate Student Research Symposium. Leah (pictured far right), presented a poster titled, “Parental Beliefs and Attitudes on Enrollment in a Dual Language Program at an Elementary School.”
Graduate students from across the state came together on April 19, at the University of South Florida to showcase their research and creative projects. The University of Central Florida had an impressive showing with four first place winners from just seven categories.
The inaugural Symposium, put on by the Florida Council of Graduate Deans, allowed students to earn bragging rights for top research projects in the state, as well as provided them opportunities to share scholarly research and to network and discuss possible research collaborations with other students and faculty in the state of Florida.
More than 75 graduate students representing eight universities from across Florida displayed their research through poster presentations. Students had already earned top marks in their category from their own respective university graduate research competitions. First and second place certificates were awarded in each of the seven categories: Arts and Humanities, Education, Health Sciences, Social Science, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Physics Sciences.
UCF had 21 students compete in the Symposium, all winners from this past year’s Graduate Research Forum. More than half of the first place winners of the Symposium represented UCF.