During the 2018 Purdue Undergraduate Research Conference, Gaotian Zhu’s research poster was selected by Purdue Libraries as the top abstract in life sciences.
Zhu ’18 recently graduated from the College of Agriculture at Purdue. His research focuses on discovering the benefits of applying biostimulants to plants that are growing in low nutritious conditions. He chose to look at the effects of biostimulants on lettuce and tomato, two common vegetable varieties.”
“To me, the most interesting part of the research process was figuring out the design,” Zhu said. “I had to arrange the variables in such a way that made the whole experiment both logical and accurate.”
The Purdue Undergraduate Research Conference allowed Zhu to share his interest and passion for research with other students. It also provided him with the opportunity to learn about the research interests of his peers, as well as to make friends with other undergraduate researchers.
Participating in undergraduate research has provided Natalie with the opportunity to learn different skills and how to apply them to real-life questions.
“When students participate in research, they are able to gain skills that they can’t get from only books,” said Zhu. “Research helped me discover my interest in horticulture and gave me the idea to attend graduate school.”
Undergraduate Research Blog 