Each week, a variety of seminars on science and math topics including psychology, chemistry, statistics, molecular biology and environmental science are held on campus.
These seminars are led by different experts including professors and researchers from Wright State, from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and from other universities such as the University of Cincinnati. Some of the seminars, like the Math and Statistics Colloquium, are more specialized and most beneficial to those with a higher competency in the field such as faculty, graduate students and upper0level undergraduates. Others are geared towards a more general audience.
One of the main benefits that both faculty and students attending the seminars can receive is the opportunity to make connections with experts outside of WSU. Professor of organic chemistry Kenneth Turnbull elaborated on the goals of the seminar and the kind of connections that can be made.
"There are multiple goals for these seminars, Turnbull said. "We want to expose our students to the 'state of the art' and allow them to meet with external speakers to find out about what they do and how they got there, allow speakers from Ph.D. programs to recruit our students, and to provide opportunities for faculty members to meet with scientists from industry, government, and other academic institutions. We also want to foster community engagement by providing an open forum for interested members of the public and showcase our department and WSU to external speakers."
Furthermore, faculty who are doing their own research will not only be able to meet other researches at the seminars, but can also learn about the most recent research developments in their fields. The chair of the Math and Statistics Department's Colloquium Committee Qingbo Huang talked more about this benefit.
"It is hoped with the colloquium series, the faculty members can track new developments related to their research and design their research projects," Huang said. "It is often [that] junior researchers find research opportunities through these talks."
Huang also emphasized that students can benefit from the presentations as well and they are important for both students and WSU academically.
"Not only faculty, but graduate students and upper-level undergraduates can benefit from attending these presentations," Huang said. "[They] can be exposed to the the latest research and outstanding open problems and benefit from interchanges of ideas among researchers, in addition to creating a superior academic atmosphere at WSU. Faculty members may learn the contents of talks more and deeper. But graduates and upper level undergraduates can learn knowledge, ideas and methods beyond textbooks and classes."
The seminars are planned to continue throughout the rest of the academic year.
