Southern Miss hosted a research day on Nov. 7 for research staff and faculty. The event included faculty from different disciplines and provided them with an opportunity to learn about research in a discipline different from their own.
The event took place in the Thad Cochran Center and consisted of poster presentations from 22 different faculty members and creative presentations. Faculty members also got to network with one another.
USM has been classified as R1 by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Learning. This means that Southern Miss has a high level of research activity and is a hub for groundbreaking research. The research day was hosted to provide an opportunity for all research faculty involved in making that classification possible to share their research.
“Usually, faculty members attend research events for their own disciplines and rarely get the opportunity to interact with researchers from other disciplines,” Kimberly Wagner, the Director of Research Planning & Support, said. “We held this event to provide a fresh perspective to research faculty by exposing them to research from other fields.”
The research presented ranged from the heat environment in the Gulf Coast to social media usage. The presenters also ranged from professors to instrumentation specialists to data scientists.
“Usually when people think of an R1 institution, they think of the colleges on the East Coast,” Dr. Kelly Lucas, the Vice President of Research, said. “But we also have a high level of research in Southern Miss, and we wanted to present that.”
The research showcase had creative works in addition to poster presentations. Some of the creative work included sculpture presentation, silk dye, and dance movements.
The winner of the research day was James Thompson from Ocean Enterprise, who presented “Evolution in Uncrewed Hypoxia Data Collection.” The first runner-up was Brent Hale from Media & Communication, who presented “Examining Social Media Usage and Adverse Outcomes Among Emerging Adults: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Young Adults’ Social Media Behaviors, Addiction, and Emotional Affect.” The second runner-up was Jeffery Parr from Health Professionals, who presented “Brains Don’t Lie: Baseline Clues to Football Injury Risk.”
Research Day is held alternately between Hattiesburg and the Gulf Coast every year.