SF State’s gym building was transformed into a gallery of creativity and scholarship on Wednesday as graduate students’ research and thesis projects filled the room.

The projects were part of the second annual Graduate Student Showcase. The exhibition was followed by a reception and awards to graduate and undergraduate students that won research competitions earlier this year.

The event’s main purpose, according to Dean of graduate studies Ann Hallum, is to recognize and bring attention to the work of graduate students.

“What we’re trying to do is to get graduate students more visible on campus,” said Hallum, who initiated the project last year when she was the acting dean of graduate studies.

Hallum said she was motivated by a lack of attention to graduate students and their work.

“There was absolutely nothing on campus that recognized the extraordinary work graduate students do,” Hallum said.

Work displayed covered a variety of topics including Asian-American male participation in African-American hip-hop, neuroscience of meditation and the psychology of parent-child interaction.

Students chose to participate for different reasons, but many said encouragement from professors played a big part.

Public health grad student Katherine Hawksworth came to show her and three other students’ research on the Medicare Modernization Act passed in 2003 and its impact on dual beneficiaries for Medicare and Medical.

“We’re always highly encouraged by our department and our advisors to promote the work that we do,” said Hawksworth.

Winners from two research competitions also participated in the exhibition. Each year, SF State undergraduate and graduate students can participate in the university’s research competition by submitting research papers, thesis studies or creative work. The Alumni Association selects and awards 10 of these works, which also participate in the annual California State University Student Research Competition. The winners of these competitions are the only undergraduates participating in the showcase.

This year’s first-prize winners at the CSU competition included social work major Shelley Volz, English master student Scott Lehman, and biochemistry master student Vinita Marathe.

Volz won for a project on collaborative learning where she studied classes at SF State that incorporated these techniques. Lehman’s project looked at how the structure of maps in the 18th century “Gentleman’s Magazine” displayed patterns of colonialism and imperialism. Marathe’s project focused on the development of methodology to identify cell-surface glycoprotein, a process than can be used to find alternative methods to treat cancer.

Marathe said the award was significant to her because she wants to conduct research on cancer therapy in the future.

“It was a nice stepping stone for me,” Marathe said.