UNC Asheville to Host 20th Annual National Conference on Undergraduate Research; Three Renowned Speakers to Give Plenary Addresses

Some 2,000 of the brightest undergraduates in the nation will gather at UNC Asheville April 6-8 for the 20th annual National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR). These outstanding students will present their original research on topics ranging from hurricanes and Holocaust literature, to ovarian cancer and television violence.

NCUR’s 20th anniversary is a homecoming. UNC Asheville, a pioneer in engaging students in research, organized the first conference in 1986 and hosted 400 students on campus. Twenty years later, undergraduate research has become more prevalent nationwide. As the discipline of undergraduate research has grown, NCUR has expanded as well, rotating to different universities around the country and hosting thousands of student researchers each year.

In addition to the student presentations, plenary addresses will be given by three nationally recognized guest speakers: respected conceptual artist Mel Chin, noted chemist Geraldine Richmond and acclaimed author Ilan Stavans. Student presentations and plenary addresses are free and open to the public.

Chin will speak at 4:45 p.m. Thursday, April 6, at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium in downtown Asheville. Chin’s art evades easy classification but he is best known for works that conjoin cross-cultural aesthetics with political and social concerns. Examples include an ongoing work in Germany which features plants to remove heavy metals from the soil; a video game incorporating rug patterns of nomadic peoples; and jewelry designs based on war wounds. Chin exhibits extensively in the U.S. and Europe and has had public commissions installed in sites as diverse as New York City’s Central Park and the Pig’s Eye Landfill in St. Paul, Minn. He has taught art at the University of Georgia, Stanford University and the University of Michigan. Born in Houston, Texas to Chinese immigrants, Chin now resides in North Carolina.

Richmond will speak at 11 a.m. Friday, April 7, in UNC Asheville’s Lipinsky Auditorium. Richmond is the Richard M. and Patricia H. Noyes Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oregon. She is recognized for her fundamental studies of molecular processes at semiconductor, metal and liquid surfaces using state-of-the-art laser techniques. However, she is best known for developing creative methods for teaching science literacy to female students. In 1998 Richmond founded an innovative organization to foster the careers of women scientists in academia; more than 700 women have participated in its programs. Her extensive international efforts to recruit and mentor women in the sciences have been recognized with many prestigious awards, including the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Engineering Mentoring.

Stavans will give two public talks: “Oy, Are We a Pluribus? Multiculturalism and American Jews” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 6, at UNC Asheville’s Reuter Center and “The Sounds of Spanglish” at 4 p.m. Friday, April 7, at UNC Asheville’s Lipinsky Auditorium. Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Latin American and Latino Culture and Five-College 40th Anniversary Distinguished Professor at Amherst College. He is also a professor of creative writing at Columbia University. Stavans is the author of a number of notable books, including the best-selling “The Hispanic Condition,” “On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language” and “Dictionary Days: A Defining Passion.” The recipient of numerous honors, including an Emmy nomination, a Guggenheim Fellowship and Chile’s Presidential Medal, Stavans is the host of the PBS program “La Plaza: Conversations with Ilan Stavans.” A descendant of Eastern European Jews who settled in Mexico, Stavans has been called “the czar of Latino culture in the United States” by the New York Times.

For more information about the conference, call UNC Asheville’s NCUR 20 Office at 828/251-6963 or e-mail ncur20@unca.edu. A full schedule of events is available online at http://ncur.unca.edu.

Media Contacts:

• Merianne Epstein, UNC Asheville Public Information Director, 828/251-6676
• Jill Yarnall, UNC Asheville Public Information Assistant Director, 828/251-6526