Each year, FSU’s Office of the President and the Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement (CRE) host the President’s Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence. The event highlights students who received IDEA Grants for the previous summer and the results of their research and creative projects through poster and oral presentations.

This year, the event takes place on Tuesday, October 1 from 5:30-7:30 PM in the Augustus Turnbull II Florida State Conference Center. Four students in the College of Communication and Information are presenting information from their summer projects.

Ashley Taylor (Senior, Information, Communication, and Technology) will be presenting Leadership Styles Among Women Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs. Taylor spent the summer interning with Tampa Bay Wave, an accelerator for tech-based startups. While there, she surveyed how women business leaders and entrepreneurs defined leadership and described their own personal leadership styles.  Taylor plans to continue working with women leaders after graduation to share this information with her community.

Atalya Santos (Senior, Digital Media Production) has been researching the colonias in the Rio Grande Valley since her sophomore year. Historically, the colonias in this area have had a lack of standard government services like running water and sewage. Under the supervision of Dr. Turner De-Vera and Dr. Opel, Santos has put together a documentary about the successes of self-help and community organizing in Hidalgo County. Her documentary will be previewed at the event from 6:10-6:25 PM in the auditorium.

Ayanna Chukes (Senior, Information Technology) spent her summer in Tallahassee working with Domi Station, a business incubator for small businesses and entrepreneurial ventures. Her project, The Potential Impact of Establishing a Social Media Presence and Mobile Applications Upon Store Front SME Companies, researched the impact of incorporating mobile applications and social media presence on small to medium-sized businesses. Seven small-business owners were surveyed, linking these technologies to increased profit.

Lavonda Dean (Senior, Information, Communication, and Technology) will be presenting A Qualitative Look at the Impact of Orlando’s Immigrant Entrepreneurial Community. While working at StarterStudio, a business accelerator for tech-startups in Orlando, FL, Dean researched what potential impact Orlando’s entrepreneurial immigrant community could be having on its economy.

Zoe Lee Zirlin (Senior, Advertising) is presenting her honors thesis, a content analysis of Nazi propaganda posters produced in the years leading up to World War II. The Big Lie(s): A Quantitative Analysis of the Visual Imagery Employed to Propagandize Nazism focuses on 72 Nazi propaganda posters, some of which Zirlin was able to photograph while visiting the United States Holocaust Memorial Archive outside of Washington D.C. this summer.