Student Research Wows Crowds at VIU

Dr. Ralph Nilson, VIU’s President and Vice-Chancellor, spent time at the CREATE Conference to hear presentations and talk to student researchers about the work they are doing. Tourism Management student Marina Zaldumbide explained her presentation called "Accessible" Tourism: People with Disabilities and Tourism and chatted with Dr. Nilson about her research findings.

April 21, 2016 - 4:15pm

More than 100 student researchers put their work on display for CREATE


The crowds moved through the aisles at the 2016 CREATE Conference. Onlookers jostled for position as Vancouver Island University (VIU) students led them through the posters they created to explain the dynamic research projects they are engaged in during the academic year. By the end of the day many of the undergraduates had enthusiastically explained their projects dozens of times to everyone from high school students to Dr. Ralph Nilson, VIU’s President and Vice-Chancellor.


This year’s CREATE Conference will go down as one of the most successful yet as more than 100 of VIU’s best and brightest from a wide range of disciplines came forward to publically share the incredible research they are engaged in.


“VIU stands out from almost all other universities in Canada when it comes to the depth and breadth of undergraduate research opportunities offered here,” said VIU Provost and Vice-President Academic, Dr. David Witty.


“We recognize that the work VIU undergraduates are doing and the conclusions they draw from their research contribute significantly to their areas of study. We want to share that with the public through the CREATE conference, but we also want to create a space for them to present their findings and challenge them to explain their projects to a wide variety of people.”


Student researchers are recognized with a variety of awards during the conference. This year’s People’s Choice Best Poster was awarded to Daniel Godard, Gage Nordstrom, JP Deland, Andres Cristancho Saldana, Toby Orrick and Scott Gates. The team of VIU students from the Geochemistry 308 class created a complex and colourful poster entitled A Geochemical Study of the Volcanic Rocks from Nanoose Bay, Vancouver Island. Other winning research posters had titles like Bioerosion Due to Decreasing PH of the Ocean and a Business Studies poster simply entitled Mexico.


The student researchers came from a variety of disciplines. Biology 491 student Marnie Hustins, like many of us, enjoys a glass of red wine once in a while but it wasn’t the wine itself that inspired her to research plant phenolic compounds – it was a study that found red wine, which contains these compounds, acts like an antibiotic in the body.


She wanted to explore this idea in more depth, so she took on a research project where she examined the effects of three plant phenolic compounds found in red wine – gallic acid, ellagic acid and catechin – on bacteria. Surrounded by individuals interested in her research, Hustins walked them through her CREATE poster that explained what she spent a year working on.


“We have quite an antibiotics-resistance problem and I wanted to see if phenolic compounds could be a suitable way to reduce their use,” said Hustins.


Her research discovered that antibiotics were much more effective at combatting bacteria than the phenolic compounds, but she speculated that the effectiveness of the compounds might be increased by higher concentrations than she was able to achieve. She says more research is required to prove the theory but Hustins, who will be starting her master’s program in medical microbiology at the University of Manitoba next fall, got a lot more out of her project than her discoveries about the phenolic compounds.


She learned how to design her own research project and tried out a number of different skills and lab techniques that will be useful as she continues on her career path – which includes getting her PhD and going on to teach at the university level. Hustins was also happy to take home second place in the Meritorius Best Presentation category for her effort.


The Scholarship Slam portion of the conference is always one of the most popular events. Presenters are challenged to present the most important aspects of their research in under three minutes to a packed room of onlookers. Awards are offered to the winners who are chosen by the level of applause they get from the audience.


Although it was close, it was Sport, Health and Physical Education student Matthew Murray’s Slam called Exercising Change that took the $500 first prize. He used the three minutes to masterfully explain his research, which was a study of how people successfully made dramatic changes to their lives.


“I interviewed people who made amazing changes in their lives to find out how they did it,” said Murray.


“The people I interviewed were at different stages of life and their stories were all so different. But the more I got to know them, the more I became aware of patterns and key similarities in their journeys and it’s those patterns that I focused on.”


He said what he discovered was that dramatic life changes were usually precipitated by a major life event, such as the loss of a loved one, which creates physical or emotional distress that in turn leads to a strong desire to change. One of his research participants, who had never done physical exercise before, reached middle-age and was almost incapacitated. She had had enough.


“She put the people in place to help her succeed, set her mind to doing it and over time experienced significant weight loss. The key for her was that she stayed positive throughout, set up long-term social supports and perhaps most importantly – was a strong person,” said Murray.


The annual CREATE Conference is put on by VIU’s Research and Scholarly Activity Office which supports student and faculty research at VIU.


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MEDIA CONTACT: 


Dane Gibson, Communications Officer, Vancouver Island University


P: 250.740.6288 | E: Communications@viu.ca T: #viunews



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