Dearest readers,

Over the past 17 years, the Chicago Area Undergraduate Research Symposium has cultivated a community of undergraduate students in the Chicagoland area from all academic disciplines who share the common goal of advancing academia through research. It has grown to become one of the largest annual undergraduate research conferences in the county, bringing together undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and representatives from industry and graduate and professional schools. Through poster presentations, oral presentations, and roundtable discussions, we are proud to share the impressive breadth and depth of research being conducted in our community.

While it has been two years since we last gathered together in-person for our annual symposium, our InterSchool Board worked tirelessly to present the 2021 virtual symposium with the help of the team at Jublia. Adhering to our mission–to accommodate the emphasis on interdisciplinary research, which our university partners across the city of Chicago espouse, and to provide and preserve avenues of communication among undergraduates, their peers, and their prospective graduate mentors– we are proud to continue our partnership with the Northwestern Undergraduate Research Journal to further provide our presenters with the opportunity to share their work.

We continue to celebrate not only the impressive breadth and depth of research performed by our talented undergraduate scholars, but also the hard work and resilience of the academic research community, which has continued to prevail. We are delighted to showcase work from all academic disciplines, and we’re so very grateful for the continued support from our community, which allows us to continue recognizing the contributions that undergraduates make in the pursuit of knowledge and fostering the sense of community within the Chicagoland area.

First, we would like to thank all the members of our community that have made this opportunity possible: our dedicated Inter-School board, Dr. Peter Civetta, and Bryce Mathis O’Tierney. Second, we would like to thank the NURJ for their help, dedication, and expertise in creating our second annual journal. Next, we would like to thank our institutional sponsors for their continued support: Roosevelt University, Loyola University Chicago, Illinois Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, DePaul University, the University of Chicago, and the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Sciences School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. Finally, we would like to thank Elijah Aldana, Zabdí Missael Cortés Saldaña, Biran Sarria, and Angus Gray for their help in designing, coordinating, and managing this year’s beautiful virtual platform on Jublia. On behalf of the Chicago Area Undergraduate Research Symposium, we congratulate all of you and wish you every success with your future endeavors.

Our deepest thanks,

Maya Fitzgerald and Sana Basheer

Co-directors | CAURS 2021

Dear readers,

In 2020, the inaugural collaborative publication between CAURS and NURJ was born out of a unifying vision for mutually amplifying our impact at an unforeseen time of social and scientific turbulence. While we now see emerging hope on the horizon, our shared spirit of pursuing academic excellence is here to stay for good.

As a past of Inter-School Board 2020 myself, I cannot appreciate more how the Chicago Area Undergraduate Research Symposium (CAURS) team is able to deliver the virtue symposium as it speaks for itself. We are reminded day and day again how the pursuit of research advances and the generation of new knowledge is increasingly fueled by seamless overcommunication and mutual support. 

Despite the physical and organizational barriers, The Northwestern Undergraduate Research Journal (NURJ) managed to develop and maintain numerous collaborative publications with student publications across the nation. The leverage and flexibility the team exhibits mirrors that we see in our contributors, from which our entire team is inspired. CAURS remains our most significant partner not only because of our physical proximity but more crucially, a shared sense of responsibility for undergraduate research advocacy.

As we see this group of student researchers represented by CAURS carries on tremendous grit and resilience in achieving scholarly excellency at the same, if not a greater, caliber in the time of isolation. The team at CAURS and NURJ and feel exceedingly excited and privileged to be able to share the works represented in this collection of collaborative proceedings. As much as we will and applaud the continued efforts in fostering a better scene for undergraduate researchers in Chicago and beyond, we hope you can draw renewed insights from this edition.

Enjoy,

Jonic Zhehao Zhu

CAURS Proceedings Managing Editor, 2020, 2021

NURJ STEM Managing Editor, 2020

CAURS ISB Member, 2020  

Chicago Area Undergraduate Research Symposium

Northwestern Undergraduate Research Journal