Vanessa Skildum, Staff Writer
On Thursday, April 18, classes were canceled at Beloit College to allow for Student Symposiums. This provided opportunities for students to showcase their research and creative work with students, professors, staff, and faculty. Symposiums started as early as 9:10 a.m. and went on until 3:50 p.m. and ranged from numerous different focuses including English, Computer Science, International Relations, Philosophy, and more. The Political Science section was moderated by Greg Koutnik, a visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science, and included talks from Vu Anh Le, Isabella Acosta, and Farah Tolu-Honary.
Le’s presentation was focused on the Supreme Court and navigating constitutional interpretations and federal-state relations. Acosta’s symposium had the room full with their talk about The United States Prison System. She recounted her time at the Public Defender office and discussed how the United States prison system isn’t set up to help rehabilitate inmates. A statistic she showcased was that there are more than 400,000 people in the U.S. prison system who are awaiting a trial. Tolu-Honary investigated Diaspora Politics. They describe diaspora as, “a community of immigrants and their descendants who live outside the borders of a state of origin,” and how the people that fit this category are both immigrants and emigrants.
The Mathematics and Computer Science section was moderated by Dr. Tom Stojsavljevic, Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, and showcased research from Madeline Champeny-Johns, Maya Betzier, Lalitheswaran Viswanathan, and Vanshith Bhandari.
Champeny-Johns presented her research into enhancing the actuarial models for disability risk. She took a look into variables that were overlooked and included them in her enhanced versions. Due to regulations, she was unable to use these models with real data but will be able to in July. Maya Betzier combined her two favorite things: calculus and soccer to investigate penalty kicks. Her results showed that shooters tend to kick to the bottom corners of the goal. Additionally, the research found that goalies should pay attention to which foot the shooter kicks with as it will give them an advantage in knowing where the ball is likely to end up to stop it from going in.
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