News & Events

Student Ideas to Help Local Businesses Highlight UNC Asheville’s Undergraduate Research Symposium

November 20, 2012

UNC Asheville students will present more than 150 research projects – including one to help Highland Brewery comply with federal workplace noise standards, and another to develop a smartphone app small restaurants can use to manage inventory – at the university's Fall Undergraduate Research Symposium, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 28.

Presentations of the students' research, which represents many topics and disciplines, including the sciences and technology, social sciences and humanities, business, language and the arts, will be offered simultaneously in many campus locations. The full program and schedule is available online. The symposium is free and open to the public.

UNC Asheville has long been a leader in undergraduate research, and was host for the first two National Conferences on Undergraduate Research, which began in 1987.

This fall, research presentations will include:

• "A Systematic Methodology to Ensure OSHA Noise Compliance when Production Processes are Changed" – research into employee health and wellness, and regulation compliance at Highland Brewery as company growth caused process changes.
• "Inventory Management Goes Mobile: An Android Application" – building a smartphone solution for inventory management challenges for small restaurants with little or no computer infrastructure.
• 'Friends of Western North Carolina Markets Membership and Farming Class Programs" – asking the question, "Is it possible to apply a social business model to reduce economic barriers to access to healthy foods, specifically at local tailgate markets?" and seeking a method for generating resources to allow for EBT purchases at tailgate and farmers markets.
• "Gendered Divisions of Labor: Feather-Dusters versus Financial Analysts" – studying the ideal versus actual behaviors and division of labor within households

For more information about the symposium, call UNC Asheville's Undergraduate Research Program at 828.251.6122.