Call for Applications for 2019 Undergraduate Student Research Awards
The Mid-Hudson Section of the American Chemical Society invites applications for the 2019 Mid-Hudson ACS Undergraduate Research Awards from student researchers who plan to present their work at the 2019 symposium. Outstanding submissions will be selected to each receive a monetary award. This is a separate application and is not required of all students presenting posters only those students who wish to be considered for this very prestigious award need apply. Rationale: The Mid-Hudson Section wishes to reward undergraduate students who choose to write a short summary about their research and scholarship activities.
Criteria: Research work should be completed by a student currently enrolled (2018-2019 academic year) as an undergraduate at one of colleges in the Mid-Hudson ACS area. Students must also present their work at the 2019 Mid-Hudson ACS Undergraduate Research Poster Symposium at Vassar College on April 24, 2019.
Application Format and Procedure: All papers submitted must be primarily chemistry, not biology or physics.
Format: The paper must be written in Microsoft Word with a font type of New Times Roman and a font size 12. Margins should be set to the Narrow setting under page layout/margins in Word. The description part of the paper may not be longer than two pages; however, the Acknowledgments and References may cause the paper to run longer. Any papers longer than the requested two written pages will not be considered.
The summary should be written in normal scientific format and divided into appropriate sections in the following order:
Title with authors: The title of the paper should be at the top with the authors underneath. The student submitting the paper for the award must be clearly indicated. This can be done by bolding and underlining that author.
Introduction: Keep in mind that the judges for the paper come from a wide variety of chemical backgrounds and will probably not be familiar with your research or your area of specialization. You need to clearly outline what you are doing and why it is being done. Remember, your audience is not familiar with your research, although they will be professional chemists, so you need to explain it to them in terms they can understand.
Experimental: Just a brief review of your experimental design and data is needed.
Results and Discussion: This along with the introduction and conclusion are the most important parts of the paper. This is your chance to wow the judges with your fabulous work. Remember the judges will not be familiar with your work so you must educate them. Now after years of learning and studying, is your chance to educate us. Make sure you include all chemical structures, equations and reactions. Remember, although you have spent many hours intimately involved in this research and thus all the reactions and chemicals are as familiar to you as your best buddies, they will be new to the judges. The better the judges understand exactly what you are doing and what you have accomplished the better your chances at winning the award. Do not be shy about drawing chemical structures and writing out the reactions as these are some of the best ways to help other chemists understand exactly what your research is about.
Conclusion: This needs to be consistent with the introduction and should obviously quickly summarize what your research has accomplished and if applicable where it will be going in the near future.
Acknowledgments and References: This part of the paper may exceed the two-page limit and should be as extensive and comprehensive as needed.
In Summary: Again, it is important to remember the judges are not experts in your area of research so your job is to educate them on your research and WOW them with the work you have been doing. This does not mean you have to be overly technical in your writing. You should include all the relevant chemistry being careful to include all important chemical structures and reactions but make sure the paper is readable and flows well. The judges, who are chemists, volunteer their time to judge this competition and will not spend excessive amounts of time trying to decipher cryptic or non-coherent writing. As a parting note, remember the judges must be able to understand exactly what you have accomplished so a poorly organized and poorly worded paper will not impress the judges. Good luck on your submission and the judges are looking forward to learning about your research.
Submission procedure: Applications should be sent by e-mail as an attached Word Document to Dr. Timothy MacMahon, email to: timothy.macmahon@sunyorange.edu by Friday April 17, 2019. Please indicate in the subject line of the e-mail that you are submitting an application for the URS Student Research Award. Confirmation that the submission has been received will be sent via e-mail.
2018 Undergraduate Student Research Awards Paper Submissions
The Mid-Hudson Section of the American Chemical Society presented four 2018 Mid-Hudson valley ACS Undergraduate Research Awards to local student researchers who presented their work at the 2018 undergraduate poster symposium. The Mid-Hudson Section rewarded undergraduate students who wrote a short summary about their research and scholarship activities. The following students received a monetary award and were recognized at the symposium for their outstanding submissions:
Aakriti Ramayani "Efficient Synthesis of Iodo-Alcohols"
Aron Sulovari "Synthesis, Characterization and Computational Analysis of Ruthenium-p-cymene Metal Complexes with Hispolon Derivatives"
Kelly Wen "Structural Characterization and Investigation of Antioxidant Properties of Emodin and Osthole, Constituents found in Goji Berries and C. Monnieri and used in Traditional Chinese Medicine"
Madeleine D. Breshears "Synthesis of carbon nanotube-DNA hybrid molecules and characterization of DNA-drug interactions using Raman spectroscopy"
