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John Wesley Powell Research Conference

John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference

The John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference was established as an annual event in 1990. Held in April each year, the conference provides an opportunity for students who are pursuing individual research projects to present those projects in a public forum. Research projects pursued by students at any level - freshman through senior - and in any academic program throughout the university, are eligible to participate. Research can be presented either in a poster session format, or in a (15-min) oral presentation.

The 2025 John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference will be held on April 12, 2025
The 2025 John Wesley Powell Keynote Speaker 
Emily J.M. Knox, Ph.D
2024 JWP Keynote speaker J. Aaron Simmons
Biography

Emily is a professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include access and intellectual freedom and censorship. She is a member of the Mapping Information Access research team.

Her most recent book Foundations of Intellectual Freedom (ALA Neal-Schuman) won the 2023 Eli M. Oboler Prize for best published work in the area of intellectual freedom. Her previous book, Book Banning in 21st Century America (Rowman & Littlefield) is the first monograph in the Beta Phi Mu Scholars' Series. She has been interviewed by media outlets such as NPR and the New York Times and also testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on book banning.

Emily is chair of the board of the National Coalition Against Censorship and the editor of the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy. 

She received her PhD from the doctoral program at the Rutgers University School of Communication & Information.

 

The John Wesley Powell 2025 Student Research Conference Schedule and Conference handout (coming soon)

The conference typically attracts more than 100 undergraduates, who showcase research projects from a variety of University departments and programs, including: psychology, economics, political science, biology, mathematics, chemistry, English, theatre, and history.