Geology Student Repeats National Win for Poster Presentation

Aaron Hiday receives his award from Sigma Gamma Epsilon President Erika Elswick and Secretary/Treasurer James C. Walters. Hiday's poster is in the background.

For the second consecutive year, Aaron Hiday, '13, won a Best Student Poster prize at the Geological Society of America (GSA) annual meeting, held last month in Charlotte, North Carolina. Sigma Gamma Epsilon, a national honor society and sponsor of the GSA's undergraduate poster session, presented Hiday with its 2012 National Council Best Poster Award.

Hiday, also a winner of the 2011 Austin A. Sartin Best Student Poster Award, saw his 2012 entry chosen from nearly 100 student presentations.

"Winning the award was awesome," said Hiday, a geology major from Burlington, Michigan. While noting that the competition was close, he considered some of the advantages he felt he had. "The judges said I had a poster that was easy to follow without being presented, although I also present it very well," he explained. "I also had created one of the lab experiments myself, and [geology professor and adviser] Tim Lincoln and I created a unique way of running a different in-lab experiment that was very complex."

"Two best poster awards are given at the student poster session, and it's quite an honor for Aaron to have won them both," said Department of Geological Sciences chair Thom Wilch, one of Hiday's poster co-authors. "Aaron was quizzed for a long time by several judges and did a great job explaining his research."

"This is the fourth time in the past 10 years that Albion students have won best poster awards at the GSA annual meeting," Wilch added.

Hiday's poster was based on research funded by Albion's Foundation for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity (FURSCA). The project recorded and analyzed variations in water flow through Rice Creek, a stream that runs near Albion's campus (see photos from his project).