The Buzz: A Scholarly Day of Discovery

In this April tradition, student scholars from all class years and academic disciplines present their work to the campus community and guests. The 2024 edition kicked off with a cup of coffee and light breakfast, a warm welcome, and an expert alumni speaker in Newcom Student Union. Ayman Husain ’95, a seasoned technology professional now working in artificial intelligence (AI) at Google, gladly followed the invitation to return to his alma mater and took the audience on an exploration of generative artificial intelligence in the working world.

Speaker Ayman Husain ’95 delivers a powerful presentation in the Newcom Great Room.

With his passion for all things AI, its business applications, and broader implications, Husain vividly illustrated how it can act as a catalyst for innovation, transformation, and success. Like any superpower, he emphasized, AI needs to be used with due diligence, competence—and for the good of technological advancement, social progress, and human development.

Tying into Husain’s keynote, a student-led panel took up the topic of AI. In an insightful discussion round, the students zoomed in on personal experiences with AI and examined the individual’s responsibilities when it comes to implementing the tools it provides in daily life, study and work.

Following those sessions, students spread out across campus. The program schedule was an impressive portfolio covering every interest area: business from sports to agriculture, economics, health, science and technology, sociology, psychology, history, education, arts and media production. Just as at every professional conference, the crowd experienced the agony of choosing which display, presentation, or demonstration to attend at what time slot in which building.

Harrison Sellars ’25 participates in the student-led panel following Husain’s keynote.

In the gymnasium, halls, and classrooms, student scholars proudly shared how they took a closer look, dug deeper, researched and developed, created and concluded. Their creative, scholarly and artistic work, community activities and case studies were inspired by coursework with their professors and mentors, their own biographies, social issues calling for attention and awareness, scientific or technical problems waiting to be solved.

Altogether, the 2024 Scholars’ Showcase presented itself with 60 presentations, demonstrations, posters, readings/monologues and table displays.

Here are some examples:

Yasmin Yusman ’24 gives an overview of her project on display in Morden Center.

Yasmin Mohammad Yusman ’24 presented her research [with Prof. Nancy King, PhD, Social Sciences] on financial literacy, “an essential life skill that should be taught at school,” she says. Yasmin surveyed the effect of financial literacy on the economic status of working adults from different socioeconomic backgrounds, appealing for financial education on the curricula to equip young generations with the valuable asset of knowledge they need now to thrive financially later.

The global efforts in the development of sustainable alternatives to conventional plastics was a call to scientific action for Ybrahim Quevedo Eslem ’24. Detailing his lab setup and methodology [with Prof. Jeffrey Draves, PhD, Chemistry], he shared his findings on the incorporation of carvacrol essential oil into starch-based film packaging, demonstrating a real-life use case for carvacrol-enriched material as an eco-friendly packaging solution that can prolong food shelf life.

Dieter Horten ’24 delivered a legal case study [with Prof. Sehwan Kim, PhD, Sport Management] from his home country Argentina, in which a prominent player sued his club for failure to meet contractual obligations. In a suspenseful match of arbitration, litigation, and business ethics, Dieter examined the various positions from the sports law perspective and chronicled how this local case turned high-profile with the involvement of the international soccer association FIFA.

Clara Cleland-Leighton ’24 took the audience behind the theatre stage to experience the costume design process [with Prof. Karen Gergely, MFA, Art]. She stripped down the complexities of costuming, laying out her approach that is as multi-layered as the fabrics and material she uses: from the first inspirational collages and sketches over pattern studies to the sourcing, crafting and alteration of costumes that don’t simply dress the actors but help them tell their characters’ stories.