Templeton Institute Special Session: The Powers of Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research

Templeton Institute Special Session: The Powers of Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research

Time: 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM, Friday, May 9
Location: Olin Auditorium
Panel Chair and Moderator: Dr. D. Fox Harrell (MIT)

The aim of this session is to showcase the values and benefits of cross-disciplinary research in undergraduate education. We will explore this topic in the context of Union’s liberal arts model of education, which emphasizes the technical aspects and humanist aspects of interdisciplinarity in equal measure. We will hear student perspectives on issues such as disability studies and archival research, the interface of environmental science and environmental engineering, and the historical reconstruction of mathematical techniques through computational methods. The participants have been selected by the Co-Directors of the Templeton Institute in partnership with Schaffer Library to showcase diverse views on interdisciplinary student research at the College. This event brings together short (ten-minute) lightning talks on these topics, with roughly a half-hour discussion among panelists and with the audience. This special session will be introduced and moderated by our Steinmetz Day guest, Dr. D. Fox Harrell, Professor of Digital Media and Artificial Intelligence in the Comparative Media Studies Program and Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). All are welcome to attend and join the conversation.

Panelists

  Gabriella Baratier, “Creating Accessible Pasts and Futures: Archival Representations and Public Memory of Disability at Union College”
  Emmett Parkerson, “Geospatial Analysis of Wastewater Release Events in New York State: Developing Environmental Justice Indices”
  Ziayan Omer, “In the Shadows of Samarkand: Persia’s Lost Mathematicians”