Concord University’s 9th Annual Undergraduate Research Day and Graduate & Professional School Fair will be held on Thursday, April 14 from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Ballroom of the Jerry L. and Jean Beasley Student Center on Concord’s Athens campus. The event is co-hosted by Concord’s McNair Scholars and Psychology programs.

This event provides a professional venue for Concord students and McNair Scholars from Bluefield State College and West Virginia State University to share their research and other academic work with the Concord community and guests.

Organizers anticipate nearly 100 posters will be presented and 10-15 oral presentations made. More than a dozen institutions are expected to participate in the Graduate & Professional School Fair.

The program begins with welcoming remarks at 9:30 a.m. Paper Session One will be held from 9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. in the Ballroom. Paper Session Two will be held in the Ballroom and AB Conference Room from 11 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

The Poster Session will be held from 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. in the Ballroom.

The keynote address will begin at 2 p.m.

This year’s keynote speaker will be Dr. Daniel Ehlinger who is a second year postdoctoral research fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.  He has a passion for both neuroscience research and the training/teaching of graduate and undergraduate students.

Ehlinger received his PhD in Psychology (concentration in Behavioral Neuroscience) from George Mason University in 2014, where he studied mechanisms of neural plasticity during adolescent nicotine exposure.  Currently, he studies the structure and function of the serotonin system in the expression/treatment of neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders using behavioral and genetic mouse models of depression, schizophrenia, addiction, and autism spectrum disorders.

Concord’s Undergraduate Research Day and Graduate & Professional School Fair is free and open to the public.  For more information, contact Lisa Karnes at lkarnes@concord.edu or 304-384-5153.