On Thursday, November 17, 2022 the physics department held its annual undergraduate research fair, which is held as a way to connect physics faculty with potential researchers for their labs.
This year, the event was held in the SPL 3rd Floor lounge, where over 40 undergraduate students and other members of the department filled the space.
Sarah Demers, director of undergraduate studies, hosted the event. She commented, “We had over forty students attend - the room was packed - and we had a robust set of opportunities to present to them. About a dozen of the students came up to me to thank me for the event. They let me know that they found something interesting, or that they were less intimidated by the idea of research than they used to be, or that they were simply happy to learn more about research done at Yale.”
The undergraduate research fair was started in 2013 as a response to the students requesting a way to find labs to work in. Initially, a page was created on the Yale Society of Physics Students website to introduce faculty who were open to mentoring and advising undergraduate students. This proved to not be enough, so the fair was born as a casual way for faculty and prospective student researchers to meet. This year was the largest one so far.
Slides from the event are available under the Undergraduate Research Opportunities 2022-2023 under the Undergraduate Studies section on the Physics Department web page. In addition, some other resources are listed below.