The 5th Annual Undergraduate Conference held on March 19-20, 2010 was a huge success. According to conference coordinator Mairi MacKay, 45 students presented posters and visual displays on Friday and 41 students gave oral presentations on Saturday. In addition, the Conference Banquet on Friday evening featured the work of the Level 3 Culinary Arts class, followed by an excerpt of the play “Unity (1918)” performed by TRU Theatre students. Before the meal, Culinary student Dan Girard gave a presentation on “Chefs and the 100 Mile Diet” and Natural Resource Science students Stephanie Lauer and Adam Hockin spoke about “Sustainable Seafood Choices”.

The organizing committee included:  Mairi MacKay (Biology), Mohammad Mahbobi (Economics), Heidi Verwey (Performing Arts), Rob Hood (Tourism) and Havovie Suraliwalla (Tourism student).

Several awards were given to the top student presenters, sponsored by the AVP Research and Graduate Studies:

Best Posters- for research showing Creativity, Innovation and Application:

• Marisa Azad (Biology Honours)- “Design and bioactivity of antimicrobial peptides” (Heidi Huttunen-Hennelly- supervisor)
• Aubrey Shannon (Biology)- “Investigation of antibiotic resistance in bacteria from RIH” (Naowarat Cheeptham- supervisor)
• Laura Teshima (Mathematics)- “A survey of particle swarm optimization”(Richard Brewster- supervisor)

Best Oral Presentations:

• Hazel Cameron-Inglis (Biology Honours)- “Pollen limitation and reproductive mode in an early flowering buttercup” (Lyn Balwin- supervisor)
• Brittany Dever (Chemical Biology Honours)- “Signal enhancement of lantibiotics using capillary electrophoresis” (Kingsley Donkor- supervisor)
• Maria Bezymyannaya (Economics)– “Forecasting of new car sales in Canada” (Mohammad Mahbobi-supervisor)
• John McGregor (English)– “MyStory” (Will Garrett-Petts- supervisor)

Best Posters by 3rd year Science students in the following categories:

• Analytical: Natasha Hayden (Chemical Biology Honours)- “Binding characteristics between lantibiotics and transition metals” (Kingsley Donkor- supervisor)
• Ecological: Amy Bos (Biology)- “Distribution and abundance of snails in Barkley Sound” (Louis Gosselin- supervisor)
• Molecular/Microbial: Alexa Daneluk (Biology)- “New antimicrobial agents from Wells Gray cave soils” (Naowarat Cheeptham- supervisor)
• Biochemistry: Trevor Hedges (Biology)- “Conjugated linoleic acid from beef samples” (Ron Smith- supervisor)
• Physics: Scott Foubister (Physics)- “Inverted pedulum for control theory research and education” (Normand Fortier- supervisor)