Columbia State Community College recently hosted an Academic and Research Fair to display students’ research to promote opportunities for academic high impact practices participation among students and faculty.

The college-wide event was sponsored by the Columbia State Honors Program and organized by Columbia State faculty members Dr. Elvira Eivazova, associate professor of biology and Tennessee Board of Regents ambassador for high impact practices in undergraduate research, and Dr. Anna Duch, assistant professor of history and coordinator of the Honors Program.

“Undergraduate research and honors experiences are highly effective high impact practices that help facilitate student academic success,” Eivazova said. “We are thankful to our STEM and Humanities and Social Sciences faculty judges, and the director of the John W. Finney Memorial Library, Ms. Anne Scott, and her library team for their help and support of the fair.”

The fair invited students to showcase their talent and creativity by presenting a research project in the form of a poster presentation. These presentations covered a wide range of topics such as genomics, microbiology, general biology, biotechnology, anatomy and physiology case studies and modeling of biological objects.

The three-day exhibition was held in the Finney Library, and eight faculty judges ranked the students’ projects. The top three presentations and one honorable mention each received a monetary prize.

First place was awarded to Owen Rockenbach, a student in the Honors General Biology-1120 Research course for his biotechnology presentation on “Aquaponics: An Integrated Fish and Plant Production System.” Second place was awarded to Adrianna Sasser, a student in the Honors General Biology-1120 Research course for her presentation, “The tRNA Genes in Bacteriophages.” Third place was awarded to Wilson Myers, a student in the Undergraduate Biology Research-BIOL 2902 course for his presentation, “Impact: The Underappreciated Threat of Meteorites.” Honorable mention was awarded to Halie Moon, a student in the General Biology-1110 course for her presentation on “Cells and Cell Models.”