The Graduate and Professional Student Senate will host its third annual Graduate and Professional Students’ Research Conference on Tuesday in the Memorial Union. Graduate students and undergraduate students are welcome to attend the conference to hear presentations from fellow graduate and professional students and keynote speakers.

Thelma Harding, McNair Director for the graduate college, will speak about “choosing and applying to graduate schools” which GPSS Conference Chair Vivek Lawana said is aimed directly at undergraduate students.

“She is basically going to talk about if you are looking for graduate schools, how to start preparing for it,” Lawana said. “It’s specifically and only for undergraduate students who are looking for graduate schools.”

Lawana said although the conference is hosted by graduate students, and only graduate students may present their research, it is beneficial for undergraduate students to attend.

“Even if they are not planning on graduate school, they should learn what happens at Iowa State University because when they end up in the market they would appreciate that ‘oh, you know what, I would appreciate what happens at this university,’” Lawana said. “At one point in time they will have to deal with researchers … so if they know exactly what research means and how it exactly goes on — it would give them a background knowledge.”

The conference is also bringing in Jorge Cham, creator of PHD Comics and “The PHD Movie” and “The PHD Movie 2”, to speak about “the power of procrastination” for a satirical closing of the conference.

Catherine Kling, distinguished professor of economics, will be the keynote speaker on “from Iowa Kid to NAS member: where the study of economics has taken me.”

“After getting elected as a National Academy of Science member, which is a big honor, she is speaking for the first time publicly,” Lawana said.

Apart from the speakers, the conference will host six workshops for graduate students and their presentations on research. The conference will include 64 oral presentations, 75 poster presentations, 12 three-minute thesis presentations and five impactful innovations. Winners of the three-minute thesis presentations will go on to compete at a national conference.

Lawana said the conference is beneficial for graduate students to not only present their research and receive feedback, but to also build relationships outside of their regular communities.

“It has helped foster the collaboration at the student level,” Lawana said. “When you’re presenting — I usually do not know anyone outside of my department and there is unfortunately no opportunity to present your work outside of your field. This is the only opportunity for students to present their work to other students and for other students to see the different fields. When [graduate students] are in the university, they are not at all socializing — that’s my way of looking at it. This is just a day off for them to go ahead and see what is happening at the university.”

Lawana has been planning the conference for about a year. He helped create the conference three years ago and said “people were not very optimistic” about the idea of a conference, but said it has now become a bigger deal.

“It’s a year of work — if not more — of organizing workshops, to inviting keynote speakers … so it’s a long process as far as planning is concerned,” Lawana said.

This is the first year for Lawana’s position on the GPSS executive board, but he said devoting one position to the conference instead of creating a committee has made the process much easier and more organized. Lawana was recently elected as the 2016-17 GPSS president and wants to continue the legacy he has created for the annual event.

“It’s definitely going to continue to grow,” Lawana said.

He plans on growing the conference by adding the graduate and professional career fair and working with the Alumni Association to invite alumni to be a part of the conference as well, making it a two-day event.

“I do not see the conference stopping here or anything like that,” Lawana said. “It has a huge potential within the university.”

The conference will last from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, with an awards ceremony from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Great Hall. GPSS will also host a social Friday at Perfect Games for all graduate and professional students to attend.