CCS Applauds Students at Fourth Annual Research and Creative Activities Conference (RACA-CON)

December 23, 2020

The virtual conference celebrated student success 

 

Photo of RACA-CON on gather.town
Photo of RACA-CON on gather.town

Even during an exceptionally challenging year globally, College of Creative Studies students strove forward to not only advance new knowledge and creative projects, but also to present their work to an audience of their peers and mentors at the fourth annual CCS Research and Creative Activities Conference (RACA-CON). This year, the event was held on November 21, 2020 in a virtual format.

The conference, which features both oral and poster presentations, was designed to promote interaction between all eight CCS disciplines and to provide an opportunity for students to practice communicating their work to those outside of their own field. This year, student talks followed the UC Santa Barbara URCA SLAM format, which features presentations of up to 3 minutes in length, and were presented via a YouTube Premiere. Following the talks, students presented their posters in a virtual conference space hosted on a platform called gather.town. 

Presenters at the conference included CCS Summer Undergraduate Fellowship recipient Pierre Thibodeaux (CCS Physics ‘22), a CCS Axline Fellow who worked with Dr. Crystal Martin, a professor in UCSB’s Department of Physics

I worked this summer with Dr. Crystal Martin (under the auspices of the generous Axline family) and I can definitely say that this has taught me so much about professional research, and made me more certain about both my place in that group and in my field of Astrophysics."

                                                                    - Pierre Thibodeaux (CCS Physics '22, CCS Axline Fellow)

I worked this summer with Dr. Crystal Martin (under the auspices of the generous Axline family) and I can definitely say that this has taught me so much about professional research, and made me more certain about both my place in that group and in my field of Astrophysics,” said Pierre. “My project pertained to applying an algorithm to images of galactic nebula to better detect their distribution of flux. I had to work on my time management and my presentation skills in order to efficiently communicate with my advisor and more effectively implement her suggestions.” 

While overcoming the social distancing restrictions that limited student access to lab and studio space, all 31 fellowship recipients completed projects and presented at the conference. The program, supported by The Create Fund, provides students in all eight majors the opportunity to conduct research, original creative work and/or entrepreneurial-focused projects under the guidance of exceptional UCSB faculty members.

About presenting at RACA-CON, Pierre said, “I really enjoyed the conference! I think gather.town is a cool new platform for participating in conferences, and I've even been to other conferences that used it for postering/socializing purposes. I think, relative to that conference, RACA-CON compared quite favorably! I have really missed seeing all of my classmates and inter-disciplinary friends, so it's great that I was able to see them there, and was able to see some of their work, too.” 

Pierre continued, “The postering was extremely fun and it was rewarding to have people come over and ask about my hard-won results and inquire about my pictures. Thanks to all the people who made RACA-CON possible, and here's to RACA-CON 2021!”

Congratulations to all of the student presenters and thank you to all who attended. Student presentations and posters are available to view at raca-con.ccs.ucsb.edu.