St. Joseph's University Chapter of Sigma Xi 24th Annual Call for Abstracts

The 24th Annual Sigma Xi Student Research Symposium will be held on Friday, April 19, 2013, at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Undergraduate and graduate students working in the areas of Mathematics, Computer Science, Engineering, the Natural, and the Social Sciences are invited and encouraged to present the results of their work in the poster sessions.  We expect, as in previous years, over 100 students from the region's colleges and universities to attend.

The Symposium will commence at 5:00 PM on the Saint Joseph's University Campus in Philadelphia, PA.  It will open with the keynote address in the Wolfington Teletorium in Mandeville Hall. The poster sessions will start at 6:45 in the Campion Student Center.

This year's keynote speaker is Dr. Irene Pepperberg, Research Associate and Lecturer, Dept. of Psychology, Harvard University, and Adjunct Associate Professor, Dept. of Psychology, Brandeis University.  Her talk is entitled "Numerical Competence Studies on a Grey Parrot."  This talk is free and open to the public.  Dr. Pepperberg will also be this year's recipient of the Christopher Clavius, S.J. award.  This award recognizes the work of inspirational scientists, researchers and policy makers.  Clavius, a Jesuit mathematician and astronomer is best known as an architect of the modern Gregorian calendar and as an inspiration to such thinkers as Kepler, Descartes and Leibniz.  As one of the world's foremost authorities on animal cognitive capabilities, Dr. Pepperberg is particularly deserving of this award.  Indeed, over the course of her impressive career she has been the recipient of many fellowships, grants, and awards.  Her book, The Alex Studies, describing over 20 years of peer-reviewed experiments on Grey parrots, received favorable mention from publications as diverse as the New York Times and Science. Her memoir, Alex & Me, was a New York Times bestseller and won a Christopher Award. She has presented her findings nationally and internationally at universities and scientific congresses, often as a keynote or plenary speaker, and has published numerous journal articles, reviews, and book chapters. She is a fellow of the Animal Behavior Society, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the American Ornithologists' Union, AAAS, the Midwestern Psychological Society, the Eastern Psychological Association (where she is now also a board member), and presently serves as consulting editor for three journals and as associate editor for The Journal of Comparative Psychology.

The registration fee for the symposium is $25 for students and $40 for faculty members. The optional dinner at Saint Joseph's is an additional $15 for both students and faculty.  Registration and abstracts are due by Tuesday March 19th, 2013.  For more information including online registration for the symposium, please visit http://www.sju.edu/srs.  Please share this announcement with any potentially interested students or faculty. We look forward to seeing you and your students this April.