Summer Science Symposium

Each year our summer research program culminates with a day long event in which we celebrate the accomplishments of our students. 

Summer 2026

The 2026 Summer Science Symposium will be held Friday, July 24, 2026. The tentative schedule is below. 

  • Oral Presentations 9:00am-11:30am, Exley 150
  • Prize Presentations and Keynote Lecture 12:00pm, Exley 150 
    • Barry Chernoff, Director, Bailey College of the Environment
      • title to be announced
  • Poster Session 1:30pm-2:15pm and 2:30pm-3:15pm, Exley Lobby 
    • Students will be assigned to present during the first or second session, so all may view their peers' posters. Remarks at 2:15pm.

Resources for Students 

Symposium Deadlines

  • Monday, July 20
    • 9:00am: Poster Printing (submitted to the print shop)
    • 9:00am: Prize Entries (submitted through Moodle)
  • Tuesday, July 21
    • 9:00am: Abstract
    • 9:00am: Biography
  • Fellows unable to participate in the poster session must contact Anika (adane@wesleyan.edu) by July 13 to discuss options.

Poster Printing

  • Posters paid for with Wesleyan funds must be printed by the Wesleyan Print Shop. If your poster is printed off site the cost cannot be reimbursed.
  • Students are responsible for submitting their design to the print shop, and for picking the completed poster up from the print shop.
  • The deadline to submit your poster is Monday, July 20, 2026 at 9:00am. Email your poster to printing@wesleyan.edu.

Symposium Prizes

All participants in the Summer Science Symposium poster session are eligible to enter the following prizes. 

Captivate (Best Title)

The Captivate title prize is awarded to the student who best balances the intellectual weight of their work with the creativity required to hook an audience.

Insight (Image Prizes)

The Insight image prizes are awarded for the best visualization of summer student research work. The entries will be judged by a committee of faculty across disciplines. There are two categories: PICTURE and DATA VISUALIZATION. Pictures may include photographs, illustrations, pictorial diagrams, or similar. Data visualization may include plots, charts, network diagrams or similar. All entries must be original work produced by the student.

Entries are submitted through Moodle as a one page PDF that includes: 

  1. an image 
  2. a short description of the image which includes how you captured or created it and its relevance to your research project

Entries to the image prizes are due 9:00am Monday, July 20.

The Insight image prizes come with a cash prize for each category.

The Maureen Snow Summer Poster Prize

The posters are evaluated based on their effectiveness of communicating their work to a broad audience. Interdisciplinarity is a central theme for CIS, and the RIS summer program. The division-wide poster session at the end of the summer is an excellent example where scientists from across all fields are interacting and talking about their work. A vital skill for our research students is to be able to communicate their work to such a broad audience, from aficionados to students in the field, to individuals far from their area of work. To show appreciation for Maureen Snow's tireless work on the summer program and poster session, the selection committee will be exclusively made up of Administrative Assistants in the NSM departments.

Entries to the poster prize are due 9:00am Monday, July 20.

The Maureen Snow prize comes with a cash prize for first, second, and third place.

The Summer Spark Prize

Our summer researchers operate at an incredible pace, often packing a year's worth of discovery into just eight weeks. The Spark prize was established to honor the student who best captures that momentum in a flash talk presented to their peers and mentors. All participants in the Symposium's Oral Presentations are eligble for the award.

Oral presentations will be judged during the run through the day before the Symposium, Thursday, July 23, at 1:20pm in Exley 150. 

The winners of the Spark prize will participate in an on-campus lecture series during the following academic year.

We thank the following groups and individuals for their financial support: Academic Affairs, College of the Environment, College of Integrative Sciences,  the Quantitative Analysis Center, the McNair program, WesMaSS, RISE Fellowships, the Gordon Career Center, individual departments, individual mentors, and alumni donors: Joshua Boger, Shonni Silverberg, the Hume, Lacrosse, Leukens, Lynch, Siegal, and Sonnenblick families.