10th Annual RSCA at CPP

CPP held its 10th Annual Student Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities (RSCA) poster session on Friday, March 4th and Saturday, March 5th. The event took place in the University quad, and there were over fifty different students presenting on various topics. From evaluating footwear brands to the potential of novel molecules as therapeutic agents, there was something for everyone. Along with several other students and faculty, I had the pleasure of attending the event on the 4th and got the opportunity to speak with a few of the students who were presenting.

Despite the wide variety of topics being presented at the event, I did feel a bit out of place as many of the students were presenting research that they had spent a lot of time on. At first, it was hard to step out of my comfort zone and ask to learn about things that I had little to no knowledge about, but the presenters were kind and enthusiastic about sharing their hard work with new people.

I first spoke with Barbara “Barbie” Flores whose poster was titled “Investigating the Mechanisms of Immunity to Trichomoniasis”. Barbie is a third year at Cal Poly and a biotech major whose research focused on parasites and gene editing. She shared with me that the goal of her research is to “remove the CRI gene to see if white blood cells, specifically neutrophils, are as effective in killing the parasite trichomoniasis without the CRI gene.” It was a pleasure being able to talk with Barbie and learn about a project she poured a lot of effort into, as well as learn about a topic I would have otherwise never known about.

Barbara "Barabie" Flores

Our very own harvest international team was able to present at the 10th Annual RSCA as well. Amy Pabon (editorial leadership team) and Sergio Santamaria (web and submissions management team) represented Harvest International as a whole and presented a poster with a little bit of information about what we do. It also contained some of the work that was submitted to the team by students at Cal Poly and published in our previous zines. Sergio shared that the main goal of Harvest International “is to present the voice of the student body as a whole” which is why it was important to share some of those voices at the RSCA and include their work on our poster.

Amy Pabon and Sergio Santamaria

Overall, the experience was something that taught me a lot about the diverse student body at Cal Poly Pomona and there are many great ideas to be shared across campus. It is important for students to have opportunities such as the RSCA to share those ideas and have the hard work they do recognized.