Sponsored and administered by the SEDAAG Education Committee:

Guidelines for the Undergraduate Student Honors Poster Submission and Presentation Criteria

All undergraduate posters are eligible for this competition as long as they are single-authored (only one student can present the poster, and it should be the work of that one student, not a group of students) and these directions are followed exactly.

Eligibility

To be eligible to participate in the Undergraduate Student Poster Competition, the undergraduate student must have been enrolled in a geography program and be in residence at the sponsoring department at the time his or her research was conducted. The sponsoring department must be located within the SEDAAG region. Masters-level students who have graduated since completing their research may present their posters at the first SEDAAG meeting following their undergraduate graduation.

Posters should represent original research. Maps, illustrations, and other audiovisual materials should be designed and constructed by the student author. Posters should consist of one undergraduate student along with a supervisor as the author. No other students should be listed as authors. (Other students involved in the research can be mentioned on the poster; however, only one student can author and present each poster).

All topics broadly related to geography may be entered and will be ensured of a critical and impartial evaluation.

Evaluation and Selection Procedures

Each poster submitted to the undergraduate student poster competition will be evaluated by the Education Committee for the quality of original research undertaken by the author and for its oral presentation and defense. Education Committee members will anonymously review and judge the posters during the undergraduate student poster competition.

The posters must be prepared with care and treated as one prepares a manuscript for possible publication. The primary criterion will be background outlining related literature, research objective(s)/question(s), research design/methods, results, conclusions, and bibliography. Failure to provide any of these criteria will result in receiving low marks in the judging competition.

The oral examination will focus on the professional quality of the presentation and the adequacy with which questions are answered. It is important that the oral presentations be lively and well-illustrated. In order to leave time for questions, each oral presentation should aim for a 3–5-minute presentation.

The visual evaluation of the poster will include quality, appropriateness, and visual appeal of maps, figures and illustrations. Materials should be legible from a distance of three feet with text confined to brief statements. All visual aids should be intelligible and have subtitles. Maximum poster dimensions are 36’ by 48″.

The weight for each category is as follows: 30 percent for the written component, 30 percent for the oral presentation and questions, and 40 percent for the visual presentation.

Submission Instructions for Undergraduate Honors’ Poster

Step 1

Join or renew your SEDAAG membership. https://sedaag.org/membership.

Step 2 – due September 19, 2025

Register your poster through the online submission form on the SEDAAG website (https://forms.gle/9SiXCz3Wm6VrWQWdA). Students must register for the Undergraduate Poster Competition by September 13, 2024 but they can submit their final abstracts by October 18, 2024. Fill out all the information required on this form (including poster title) and then, instead of submitting an abstract, you must submit this statement in the abstract section:

“I (your name) understand that I am submitting only partial application materials for the undergraduate poster competition. I understand that I also need to submit my actual abstract to Dr. Jennifer Rahn jlrahn@samford.edu by September 19, 2024 to be officially registered for the undergraduate poster competition.”

Questions about the Undergraduate Poster Competition should be directed to Dr. Jennifer Rahn at jlrahn@samford.edu, be sure to put “SEDAAG 2024 Undergraduate Poster Competition” as the subject of the email. 

The following distinguished Geography undergraduate students have been awarded the Best Undergraduate Poster Award since 2010.

Year	Recipient	Institution
2025
2024	Ryan Poulsen	University of Richmond
2024	Shaoting Wen	University of Richmond
2023	Elisa Luckabaugh	University of Mary Washington
	A.J. Heichelbech	University of Louisville
	Miles Baker	Furman University
	Oriana Ballotta	University of Richmond
2022	Cooper Corey	Univ. of Alabama
	Caleb Dale	Samford Univ.
	Jack Buehner	Furman Univ.
2021	Sanica Manglorkar	Georgia State Univ.
	Lilian Hutchens	Univ. of South Carolina
2020	Sierra Moore	Virginia Tech
2019	Sarah Grumulaitis	Samford University
2018	Timothy K. Kinlaw	Appalachian State Univ.
	Sarah Marie Van Schoick	Santa Fe College & University of Florida
	Cody Perkins	Concord University
2016	Patrick Thomason	Samford University
	Katie Testerman	Concord University
2017	Linnea Ryan	Armstrong State University
	Alistair Andrulis	University of Mary Washington
2015	Elisa Sperandio	Concord University
2014	Nate Lawrence	Concord University
	Ethan Bottone	Univ. of Mary Washington
2013	Paul Lemiuex	Univ. of Tennessee
2012	Taylor D. Holden	Univ. of Richmond
	Vincent D. Walker	Univ. of South Alabama
2010	Zachary Wehrmann	Univ. of Mary Washington