Student Scholarship Expo

About

The Student Scholarship Expo is an annual celebration of the research, scholarship, and creative production of Bradley undergraduate and graduate students from across the disciplinary spectrum of our academic programs. Students present poster displays of their projects, and share a short 5-10 minute presentation about their work to a panel of volunteer judges from the Bradley and surrounding community. Judges evaluate the students’ presentation skills, making note of how organized their poster is, how well they share their project to a generalized audience, and on their general public speaking and presentations skills. Awards are offered to the best poster presentations made at the Expo.

Student Registration

Student registration for the Scholarship Expo is currently closed. Stay tuned for the next application window to open!

Judge Registration

Judge registration for the Scholarship Expo is currently closed. Stay tuned for the next application window to open!

Expo Schedule

Join us next spring for the 2026 Expo!

Date
Time
Renaissance Coliseum

Date
Time
Renaissance Coliseum

Date
Time
Renaissance Coliseum

Date
Time
Renaissance Coliseum

Why Should Students Participate?

Students who have participated Expo in the past have shared that they value: (1) the chance to showcase their work to judges from outside of their familiar Bradley community; (2) the opportunity to practice and hone their presentation skills, particularly to a generalist audience; (3) the opportunity see what students are doing in other disciplines and from other colleges; (4) the recognition of their hard work in a university-wide Bradley event that consistently includes the involvement of our President, Provost, and College Deans, not to mention many senior ranking persons from local businesses and organizations; and (5) the chance to compete for monetary awards that celebrate the strongest presentations in each discipline.

Expo Organizers and Advisory Board

The Student Scholarship Expo Advisory Board, made up of faculty and professional staff representatives from across campus:

Advises and guides the Student Scholarship Expo Organizers in designing, organizing and implementing the event;
Actively encourages faculty and student participation in the event;
Recruits external judges to participate in the event; and
Participates as judges, faculty mentors, facilitators, or in some other meaningful capacity.

Caterpillar College of Engineering and Technology

Dr. Prasad Shastry, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Dr. Mohammad (Imran) Hossain, Civil Engineering and Construction
Dr. Jacqueline Henderson, Mechanical Engineering

College of Education and Health Sciences

Dr. Kristina Latva, Physical Therapy
Dr. Karin Smith, Nursing
Dr. Jeff Bakken, Special Education

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Dr. Danielle Glassmeyer, English
Dr. Daniel Getz, Asian Studies
Dr. Derek Montgomery, Psychology

Slane College of Communications and Fine Arts

Dr. Elena Gabor, Communication
Heather Brammeier, Art
Dr. Kyle Dzapo, Music

Foster College of Business

Dr. Rajesh Iyer, Marketing and Director of International Business
Dr. Amit Sinha, Finance and Quantitative Methods

Administrative Representatives

Alison Morrissey, Associate Vice President for Advancement
Dr. Rick Smith, Senior Director of Employer Services

APPLY Visit/TOUR request information Give

Additional Links

[email protected]

Information for Students

The Student Scholarship Expo is an annual, campus-wide celebration of your exemplary accomplishments in research, scholarship, and creative production. Please check back to this site often as we continually update information about this year’s event.

Here are some tips for getting started now so that your presentation at Expo is competitive and noteworthy:

Talk to your faculty mentor now about Expo and let him/her know you would like to present.
Talk to your fellow students who have presented at Expo in the past.
Click on the resources and links listed below to learn more about preparing and presenting a poster in your discipline area.
Ask us any questions you may have about Expo by e-mailing us [email protected].

Information for Judges

Thank you for expressing an interest in serving as a judge for the 2025 Student Scholarship Expo on Tuesday, April 15. A hallmark of the Student Scholarship Expo is the opportunity for Bradley graduate and undergraduate students to share their work with those from outside of the Bradley community. We hope that the information provided below will encourage you to agree to serve as a judge for this event.

We invite anyone interested in witnessing the exemplary research, scholarship, and creative work of our students to serve as a judge for the Student Scholarship Expo. Judges evaluate students’ ability to present their work through a short (5-10 minute) poster presentation to an informed generalist audience. We leave expert evaluation of the projects themselves to the students’ faculty mentors and advisors.

We ask for just 2.5 hours of your time between 10 am and 5 pm on Tuesday, April 15. You may provide us with your preferred times in the judging registration form. Your time judging will consist of 30 minutes for viewing the posters on your own, separate from the student’s presentation, 1.5 hours for student presentations and questions, and then another 30 minutes to meet with your judging group to determine group scores.

We organize judges into teams; each team reviews their assigned student poster presentations and determines scores for each as a group. You may request to serve on a team with colleagues when you register.

Register online to complete a short registration form or contact us at [email protected] to let us know that you would like to register.

Please email the Expo organizers, Kristen Woods and Melinda Faulkner, at [email protected] with any questions.

There are several ways that judges can participate in the Expo. While events outside of the assigned 2.5 hour judging time are optional, we hope that you can participate in these other aspects of the Expo.

Information for Faculty

Understanding that our judges volunteer to serve at the Expo, often as informed generalists who may appreciate the work done in a disciplinary area but with no real expertise in that area, we use evaluation rubrics that focus on the basic poster organization and student presentation skills demonstrated by the students. We explain to our judges that we leave evaluation of the work itself to the faculty mentors who do have the disciplinary expertise to understand and critique the actual research, scholarship or creative work being presented.

Students who have participated Expo in the past have shared that they value: (1) the chance to showcase their work to judges from outside of their familiar Bradley community; (2) the opportunity to practice and hone their presentation skills, particularly to a generalist audience; (3) the opportunity to see what students are doing in other disciplines and from other colleges; and (4) the recognition of their hard work in a university-wide Bradley event that consistently includes the involvement of our President, Provost, and College Deans, not to mention many senior ranking persons from local businesses and organizations.

The Expo Advisory Board, comprised of representatives from the disciplinary areas of Bradley’s five colleges, as well as representatives from important administrative offices such as the Office of Advancement, the Career Center, and the Cullom-Davis Library, guide and advise the Expo Organizers on the organization and structure of the Expo program. A list of our Expo Advisory Board representatives is available on the Expo homepage. If you have any ideas or feedback about the Expo, please share them with a member of the Board or the Expo organizers so we can continue to improve on the event.

There are many ways to be involved in the Student Scholarship Expo.

Register to serve as a judge. We hope to have at least ONE Bradley Faculty Member serving on each judging team. This ensures that guest judges have an informed Bradley representative who can share more about the academic culture at Bradley University, and perhaps remind the team that expert evaluation of projects is left to the faculty mentors, and that students’ poster organization and presentation skills are the focus of evaluation at Expo. You can register to serve as a judge.
Help recruit judges. Finding qualified judges with a working generalist knowledge of disciplinary areas in which students present is always a challenge. Please reach out to your collaborators, colleagues, and community connections to let them know about this opportunity to see the work of our students while giving the students a chance to practice their presentation skills.
Encourage your students to start thinking now about Expo. This year’s Expo will be taking place online using the RocketJudge virtual event interface. Specific details regarding the online interface will be sent to students after registration.