Three IIST Students Win Prestigious GW Research Day Awards


April 6, 2017

IIST students at GW Research Day

From left to right: IIST Students Roberto Solorzano and Daniel Alvarez Castegnaro

Three CPS Integrated Information, Science, and Technology (IIST) students have been named winners of the prestigious GW Research Day awards for their undergraduate work in domestic and international technology-based service learning projects. Dr. Olivia M. Blackmon, the Assistant Program Director of the IIST program and an international STEM and reading literacy scholar, oversaw the students’ year-long projects as part of their capstone course.

GW Research Day is an annual competition where students showcase their research and compete for awards and prizes. The annual event highlights the breadth of research and discovery being conducted by undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students at GW. This year’s event had one of the highest numbers of participants and is considered one of the most prestigious GW awards to receive as an undergraduate student.

Elyaa Hammad, won first place in the Social Justice and Economic Empowerment category for her work on “Empowering Muslim Women Through Computer Literacy.” Her study focused on evaluating computer literacy needs for low-income Muslim women in Northern Virginia.

Elyaa Hammad

Elyaa Hammad, IIST student, at the GW Research Days competition.

The research examined the following factors that relate to low-computer literacy skills:

  • General computer usage;
  • Access and knowledge;
  • Lack of employment due to computer literacy;
  • Level of education;
  • Socio-economic factors; and
  • Marital support.

Findings suggest that cultural and social implications regarding computer access and usage in low-income Muslim communities present challenges for job opportunities. Based on these findings, Elyaa created a successful business model and developed a sustainable computer center that will offer basic and intermediate computer courses to support the needs of the community.  

Daniel Alvarez Castegnaro and Roberto Solorzano, placed second in the Education, Business and Organizational Studies category with their project “Optimizing IT Usage at West African Research Center (WARC) in Senegal and World Vision in Guatemala.” The team developed and implemented a new survey assessment tool to evaluate the technology readiness of two academic research centers in Senegal and Guatemala.

Findings revealed:

  • Infrastructure issues;
  • A lack of financial resources to improve technology capacity through an updated website and interactive library database system; and
  • The need for an up-to-date information technology curriculum and computers for K-12 classrooms.

Based on the findings, the students provided a best-practices guideline and recommendations for each center. In addition, the students formed partnerships with U.S. based non-profits to provide computers and technology equipment to the centers. 

For more information on the GW Research Day awards please visit: http://researchdays.gwu.edu