Graduate students at The University of Texas at Dallas recently presented their research at the PhD Student Poster Competition and Art Showcase, an annual event that highlights research and provides students with the opportunity to share their scholarly work with the campus community.
The event showcased projects from more than 70 students, and attendees voted for their favorite presenters. Six winners were determined from the nearly 500 votes cast, and cash prizes of $600, $400 and $200 were given to the first-, second- and third-place winners of the both poster competition and the art showcase.
Students from the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology, the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, and the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NSM) competed in the event.
This year also featured an inaugural art showcase, which was added to include more students from different disciplines. First place went to Niyati Arora, a chemistry doctoral student, for a painting in the style of Vincent van Gogh of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from the “Harry Potter” series.
“The research office recognizes that UTD is a school where students study a wide variety of subjects,” said DeMia Keppel, associate director of research events and marketing for the Office of Research and Innovation, which helps coordinate the competition. “Our campus thrives on interdisciplinary collaborations in research and the arts. Spotlighting the arts in a unique showcase provided this opportunity.”
Chris Gauthier and Brandon Coffey, both game development graduate students and second-place winners of the art showcase, created a video walk-through using a virtual reality (VR) interface of Clark Hulings’ painting “Woodbearers of Chimayo.”
“When you walk by a painting in a museum, you just see another painting,” Gauthier said. “You don’t necessarily process all the 3D information that’s in it. But once you see it in VR, everything takes on a whole other meaning.”
For Coffey, the immersive experience offers a unique integration of art and science.
“Our degree lets us explore how we can take our research and our artistic skills and put them together to create something that’s meaningful,” he said. “It’s a lot more powerful than if you looked at a pamphlet or a book.”
Geosciences doctoral student Gabriella Putri presented research on using artificial intelligence to enhance Earth science imaging.
Soham Raghavendra Jorapur, a chemistry doctoral student, took advantage of the art showcase to practice communicating his research through the power of imagery, earning him the showcase’s third-place prize.
“I wanted to expand my science communications portfolio into a visual medium,” he said. “So, I made an artistic representation of a recent scientific breakthrough that was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry.”
Jorapur pulled from his love of watercolor, a hobby of his since the age of 10, and his passion for chemistry to paint Top7, an entirely new protein designed by Nobel laureate Dr. David Baker.
“To make this artwork, I looked into the history of protein design and blended those insights with computational developments that have allowed scientists to venture into previously uncharted protein territory,” he said.
“Our degree lets us explore how we can take our research and our artistic skills and put them together to create something that’s meaningful,” he said. “It’s a lot more powerful than if you looked at a pamphlet or a book.”