Registration now open for 2025 Graduate Exhibition

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Degree-seeking graduate students from all colleges and campuses looking to share their research and scholarly achievements with a wide-ranging audience — and get constructive feedback — are invited to register for the 2025 Graduate Exhibition, taking place Friday, March 28, on the University Park campus.

Students can showcase research posters, video presentations, musical performances, art exhibitions, and design projects to the larger Penn State and local communities, all while competing for cash prizes. First place for each category will take home $1,000, second place will be awarded $500, and third place will be awarded $250.  
 
Registration for the event, celebrating its 40th year in 2025, must be completed by between March 7 and 17 depending on the exhibition category. Specific dates for each category, including a deadline for students to receive free poster printing, can be found on the Fox Graduate School website. Interested students can register at this link. 
 
"The Graduate Exhibition is an exciting time each year and a wonderful opportunity for students to not only share their contributions to research but also build their professional networking skills,” said Susan J. Loeb, director of the Ph.D. program in the Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing and chair of the Graduate Exhibition committee of Graduate Council. “The event proudly places special emphasis on communicating research and creative endeavors to a general audience, from students, to faculty, staff, alumni and community members, and in participating students will have the chance to grow their communication and presentation skills all while sharing their exciting accomplishments and competing for prizes and recognition."   

The exhibition is a chance for students from all areas of the University to come together, gain feedback and interact and learn from others not in their field.  

“The Graduate Exhibition event is amazing," said Ayat Tassanov, a doctoral student studying chemistry and a participant in the 2024 exhibition. “For me, the best experience was meeting people outside of my discipline. Next to me was a student studying psychology, and on the other side of me was someone studying biology. Usually, I would never have the chance to meet those people, but the exhibition gave me an opportunity to meet them, learn about their research and to make some friends.” 

While the event is a chance for students to share their accomplishments with those outside of their discipline, it can also potentially increase their own understanding of their topic.  

“I knew that most of the audience would not understand my topic which forced me to think of ways to conceptualize my findings in a way that made sense to the uninitiated,” said Richard Desinord, a 2014 participant in the Graduate Exhibition and 2016 Penn State graduate with a master of arts degree in music. “It forces you to really think of what matters and what is just fluff, and it enhances your own understanding of the topic in ways you'd never think. I carried the lessons learned from that experience through a Ph.D. program and now as a tenure-track professor at Michigan State University.” 
 
The event features five categories showcasing research and creative accomplishments:    

• The research poster presentation option has five subcategories — arts and humanities, engineering, health and life sciences, physical sciences and mathematics, and social and behavioral sciences — and allows students to share their work through a vertical poster.   

• The video option is a five-minute presentation that captures the excitement, importance and value of the student's scholarly work.   

• The performance option is open to all graduate students who are pursuing graduate degrees in the performing arts and will be held in the Penn State Music Building. 

• The visual arts option is open to graduate students for whom creating studio work is a required part of their graduate degree program. 

• The design option includes a variety of design products such as a three-dimensional object, a video game, a computer-aided design (CAD), simulations, musical composition or other design object. 

Research poster presentations, visual arts exhibits and the design option will be presented from 1 to 4 p.m. in the HUB-Robeson Center, and Performance Night will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. in Recital Hall of the Penn State Music Building, all on March 28. Exhibits in the visual arts category will also be on display from March 28 to April 27 in the HUB-Robeson Gallery, and exhibition video presentations will be viewable online from March 24 to 28.     
 
Awards will be given to those students whose presentations are judged best in each category, with students also having the option to also be considered for the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award and the Data Visualization Award. The visual arts and performance categories will also include a $100 People’s Choice Award recipient, voted on at the event and sponsored by the Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA).

Penn State alumni, faculty and the public are encouraged to register as a judge for the event. 
 
More information is available at the 2025 Graduate Exhibition website.