Poster Day on Undergraduate Research
10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Student Center West
As an academic research center focused on increasing worldwide understanding of Africa and the African diaspora, the Center for Studies on Africa and Its Diaspora (CSAD) is excited to sponsor a Poster Day event for GSU undergraduate students to display their research on projects that address topics related to African studies and Africana studies. Students from all disciplines across the campus are encouraged to consider how their academic interests can be connected to the work CSAD does in examining the historical and cultural contributions of people from Africa and its diaspora; analyzing the social, economic, health, and political systems of those regions; and championing issues of diversity and equity in global studies.
We are especially soliciting poster presentations which speak to these themes, and in that way, Poster Day will serve as a prelude to the Read-a-Thon. However, poster presentations which do not specifically speak to this focus (but to other topics related to African and its diaspora) are also very welcome.
The primary intentions of this event are to promote undergraduate research and enable students to form explicit connections to CSAD. The poster day also promises to demonstrate the wide interest in Africa and its diaspora across the university.
A poster presentation is a concise description of a study or another project. Components of a poster often include an introduction to the work; a research question; a thesis or statement of the problem to be solved; a description of the method used; the results or finished product; and a discussion of the importance of the work to the field and/or society or a conclusion.
This event presents an excellent opportunity to take a research question that you may have developed in an essay or a report in a class or an idea you came up with outside of class that you would like to investigate. The poster should contain your introduction and research question, some description of your methodology for doing research, and a description of your findings. The product (your findings) could take a variety of forms: analytical writing, a lab report, even a piece of creative work. These components would be posted on a tri-fold poster board that is 36” by 48”. The poster board will be supplied to you by CSAD after you have registered your project. You can decide how you want to arrange the components. You can also use visuals beyond the poster board (on a laptop, for example) that could be displayed in front of the poster. (Note: you would need to bring your own technology and you would be responsible for attending to any technology during the three-hour event.)
This event gives you an opportunity to bring your research to an audience outside the classroom. We encourage students to use the CSAD Poster Day as a first step in developing your project for other research venues, including the GSU Undergraduate Research Conference (where you could present it as a revised poster presentation or transform it into another mode), other conferences, or even publication venues.
We are not awarding prizes at this event. Rather, we are guaranteeing that you will receive written feedback on your poster by a pair of judges. This feedback from established scholars will likely be of great value to you as you work on revising your project for other audiences. In this way, the event is meant to provide mentorship on your work and give you the chance to interact with faculty affiliated with CSAD.
- Literature from the African Diaspora
- Creative work (examples: memoir writing or photography display) related to the African Diaspora
- Art and Design based in the African Diaspora
- Global movement, migration, and Diaspora
- Architecture and Anthropology topics
- Bioinformatics related to the African Diaspora
- Epigenetics and links to health disparities and trauma (and wellness practices)
- African Centered/Culturally relevant Pedagogy in STEM Education
- Development of an African language database using Artificial Intelligence
- Media-enhanced story telling in the African Diaspora
POSTER DAY SUBMISSION FORM
Contact Us
Center for Studies on Africa and Its Diaspora
Mailing address:
College of Arts & Sciences
P.O. Box 4038
Atlanta, GA 30302-4038