PORTLAND — Dozens of University of Southern Maine students will unveil a wide variety of research projects on Friday, April 18 during a day-long Portland Campus symposium titled “Thinking Matters.”
The event — held at USM’s Abromson Center at 88 Bedford St. — gives students meaningful opportunities to apply their learning in real-world contexts and share what they’ve learned.
“Thinking Matters” began 25 years ago as a chance for undergraduates to perform in-depth research and present their findings. It has grown into an annual student research symposium, promoting high quality student-faculty research collaborations and opportunities to share their work with both the USM community and the general public. Student and faculty researchers will introduce their works in spoken or poster presentations that run the gamut of topics: from an analysis of COVID vaccines to the mapping of coastal estuaries to the role of video games in shaping perspectives on nuclear weapons.
In all, the symposium will feature more than 50 poster presentations and more than 30 oral presentations.
A complete listing of the presentations is available online.
A highlight of the day will be a keynote interview featuring USM President Jacqueline Edmondson talking with David Evans Shaw ’76G, ’15H about his book, “Wave Making.”
Their conversation is scheduled for 9-9:45 a.m., followed by a 30-minute availability to meet Shaw and buy a signed copy of his book.
Shaw, the CEO of Black Point Group is a prominent American business and social entrepreneur. His business creation, leadership, investment and board experience includes IDEXX Laboratories (founder, CEO), Ikaria Pharmaceuticals (founding CEO, chair), Covetrus (co-founder, chair), Cyteir, Modern Meadow, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Itaconix, Ovation, Cyteir, Venrock Associates, New Mountain Capital, Leerink Partners, Polaris Venture Partners and others. He has served on the faculty of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the advisory board of the Center for Public Leadership. He is treasurer emeritus of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, chair-emeritus of The Jackson Laboratory, a founding director of the US Olympic and Paralympic Museum, a trustee of the National Park Foundation, a founding chair of the Sargasso Sea Alliance and Aspen High Seas Initiative, as a Patron of Nature to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, as a member of Ocean Elders, and as founder of Shaw Innovation Fellows and Second Century Stewardship for America’s national parks. A father of three and grandfather of 12, he resides in Maine and Florida.
