Princeton Research Symposium

sponsors

Graduate School
APGA
Alumni Association (GAR)
McGraw Center
GSG Events Board
Pace Center

actions

You've reached the Princeton Research Symposium's abstract submission system. To present a poster at the PRS this fall, fill in all fields below and click the "Submit" button. Presenters must be graduate students, post-docs or research staff. Posters may be up to 36" by 48", horizontally oriented; talks should be timed at about 15 minutes. If you're unsure how to begin immortalizing your ideas in a poster, please consult our guidelines for some handy advice. For examples of abstracts from previous years, click here.

Submitting an abstract automatically registers you for PRS 2009 -- you do not need to register separately. Judges may present posters if they desire, but they are ineligible to win the competition. THE DEADLINE TO SUBMIT ABSTRACTS IS NOVEMBER 15, 2009, FOR BOTH TALKS AND POSTERS.

You should receive an email confirming receipt of your abstract within 24 hours of sending it. If you submitted an abstract and have not received a confirmation email by that time, please let us know.

Name:
Email address:
Department:
Status:
Year, if applicable:
Campus address:
Title of research:
Type of presentation:	Talk Poster
If you can't give a talk, would you be willing to present a poster?	Yes

Enter your abstract below. In deference to an audience new to your field, please be clear and concise: Minimize use of specialized vocabulary, and limit your abstract to 250 words.

Please submit a brief bio of about 3 sentences for publication in our abstract booklet. Your bio should be written in the third person include your current program of study (if you're a graduate student), your department (if you're staff), your faculty or lab affiliation (if you have one), and any financial support other than AR or AI appointments (e.g. honorific fellowships, external fellowships). Other salient information might include home town and/or country, degrees held, awards, etc. We may edit bios minimally for length and style.

Example abstracts:

A Mother's Social Status Persistently Influences the Quality of Her Son's Life
Patrick O. Onyango, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Using the baboon as a model, I tested whether characteristics of the mother as well as a male's own age and social status predicted quality of life in sub-adults. A mother's characteristics such as her social status and reproductive experience have been shown to influence offspring phenotypes sometimes in the absence of direct genetic effects. I inferred quality of life from concentrations of glucocorticoid, a stress hormone, in fecal samples collected from wild baboons in Amboseli, Southern Kenya. High levels of the stress hormone suggest poor health. Baboons are non-human primates that live in groups characterized by a dominant hierarchy, which favors a dominant individual's access to resources. In this study I specifically asked whether maternal social status at her son's conception and her reproductive experience in addition to her son's current age and social status predicted concentrations of the stress hormone. A mother's social status but not her reproductive experience significantly predicted concentrations of the stress hormone such that sons of dominant mothers had higher levels of the hormone than did those of subordinate mothers. Neither a male's age nor social status predicted concentrations of the stress hormone. The results reported here suggest that a mother's social status predicts the quality of life and may have serious consequences on her independent sons health. These results have important implications on human health and lifestyles especially during important periods of life such as pregnancy and early childhood.

Playing for Keeps: A History and Analysis of Children's Competitive Activities
Hilary Levey, Department of Sociology
Over the past three decades dismay has mounted over the excessive hours children devote to competitive activities, including after-school classes and sports. Even parents of children active in these tournaments and contests worry about the competitive pressures their children experience at young ages. The pressure to perform was once limited to high school-age children, but there is growing evidence that performance pressure now extends to younger ages. This dissertation focuses on the history and development of children's extra-curricular activities in the United States during the twentieth century. I place a special emphasis on the contemporary period, characterized by economic inequality and crowding at the top. The direct avenues to the top have children competing to achieve special distinction to enhance elite school admissions; indirect pathways involve learning to be a self-assured competitor and acquiring skills to navigate complex social landscapes. I closely examine parents' own interpretations about why their children participate in such activities, and what the children themselves think about their participation, by studying families with elementary school-age children who participate in soccer, dance, and chess competitively (based on in-depth interviews and months of observations). This dissertation represents a contribution to a cultural sociology of inequality, and also gender construction, by studying the daily lives of middle class American families as they work to develop valuable "kid capital" to help guarantee their children's future success.