April 28, 2020 — The Graduate School at UTSA in partnership with the Office of the Vice President for Research, Economic Development, and Knowledge Enterprise will host the COVID-19 Transdisciplinary Team Grand Challenge, launching in May.
The challenge was designed to unite UTSA graduate students from a wide range of academic programs to work with community partners while problem-solving the many issues created by the pandemic. In light of the uncertain circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers around the globe now face the challenging task of solving myriad problems associated with its impact. Issues of this magnitude cannot be solved by researchers in an individual discipline alone. Instead, solutions will be best resolved by transdisciplinary scholars who bring a wider perspective and background to the table.
“Students will develop proposals for transdisciplinary concept projects to tackle issues stemming from the pandemic,” says Ambika Mathur, vice provost and dean of The Graduate School. “We are excited to see the innovation and academic excellence of our Roadrunner family come together.”
"We need to cultivate the next generation of researchers,” added Bernard Arulanandam, vice president for REDKE. “By partnering with The Graduate School on this opportunity, this is a great way for students to engage with the knowledge enterprise and address a real-world challenge. Innovation can often come from adversity.”
The transdisciplinary nature of this challenge makes it an exciting task, allowing UTSA students to work with other master’s and doctoral students at the university to address the very real problems facing society today. The top three winning teams will be granted individual scholarships and travel awards to attend a domestic conference in the next academic year.
Project proposals can cover a wide variety of topical areas, including economic or societal impacts, vaccine and treatment development, the preservation of civil and human rights, cybersecurity, communication strategies, scientific approaches toward understanding the biology of the infection, etc. Teams should include at least two discipline fields and have three to five student members per group.
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Covidence is a systematic & scoping review tool used to streamline the process of screening and reviewing articles. Using this software, research teams can easily import studies, perform automatic deduplication, and extract data using templates. This workshop will show attendees how to start a review in Covidence, add collaborators, and get started on screening.
Virtual (Zoom)In this workshop, attendees will be introduced to Pandas, a Python tool for working with data easily. It makes it simple to organize and analyze information when data is organized and categorized, like spreadsheets or tables.
Group Spot B, John Peace LibraryEach fall and spring semester, students convene at the Main Campus at UTSA with booths, ideas and prototypes. A crowd of judges, local organizations, students, faculty and sponsors walk around and talk to the students about their projects and ask questions. Students get the real-life experience of "pitching" their project with hopes of getting funding or support to move to the next level.
UTSA Convocation Center, Main CampusJoin the doctoral candidates for the Doctoral Conferreal Ceremony and celebrate their accomplishments.
Arts Building Recital Hall, Main CampusCelebrate the graduates from the Carlos Alvarez College of Business, College of Education and Human Development, Margie and Bill Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design and University College.
AlamodomeCelebrate the graduates from the College for Health, Community and Policy, College of Liberal and Fine Arts and College of Sciences.
AlamodomeThe University of Texas at San Antonio is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge through research and discovery, teaching and learning, community engagement and public service. As an institution of access and excellence, UTSA embraces multicultural traditions and serves as a center for intellectual and creative resources as well as a catalyst for socioeconomic development and the commercialization of intellectual property - for Texas, the nation and the world.
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