Throughout my time at Longwood, I have had the opportunity to present at many Research Showcase presentations. One of my favorites was my BIOL 360, Developmental Biology, poster presentation. We worked for half of the semester on the results of this project and being able to present the work to the audience stopping by our poster was rewarding. For this showcase, we dressed professionally, and was the first poster presentation I presented in person at Longwood; I had “presented” others in the previous year however they were recorded and uploaded to an online database because of COVID. We presented in pairs, taking turns halfway through the allotted time slot for our presentations because we had 4 people in our group. While presenting we acted professionally and maintained proper etiquette while visiting other posters.

For my internship experience at Longwood, I did research in a behavioral neuroscience research lab for 2 years. Throughout my time in this research lab, I have been able to effectively perform competently in a professional setting. Professionalism in the research lab is important to ensure reliability between researchers and to produce a successful outcome. Being honest and accountable for actions performed came up a lot during the research especially when we actively collected data and required professional attitudes when performing such procedures since they were important to be performed correctly and accurately. Working with live animals, such as lab rats, requires professional performance which I think I have demonstrated well throughout the past 2 years.

This past March of 2023, my research lab had the opportunity to go to Winston-Salem, North Carolina to attend the Association of Southeastern Biologists conference to present our research on how enrichment can improve the negative effects of poor parenting. This was the first and only conference during my time at Longwood where it was not associated with Longwood and was not a part of an in-class laboratory project. We received a travel grant from OSR to attend and it was a great experience! We were able to attend our poster session time and professionally present to the audience as they stopped by. We encouraged guests to stop at our poster and learn more about our research. We also got to answer questions to the best of our ability about the research. This was an amazing opportunity to experience during my undergraduate career, especially to attend a professional research conference such as this one!