9,000 Alumni Strong!

The Eastern Michigan University Undergraduate Symposium was first held in 1981 and was represented for its first ten years with this logo. In its 45-year history over 9,000 EMU students have presented their research and creative initiatives under the direction of faculty mentors. These snapshots provide a glimpse of the event’s alumni and their professional career paths since presenting in their academic discipline.

Are you an Undergraduate Symposium alumni that would like to be featured? Email a headshot and bio to [email protected]. 

We are proud to highlight ...

Tytiana Steele (she/her/hers)

Tytiana “Ty” Steele graduated from EMU in 2018 with a BFA in Graphic Design. Ty presented her project, “Procedural Design of Identity” at the 2017 Symposium. In 2018, Ty served as one of two student designers creating the brand and identity for the year. Ty also served as a guest alumni speaker for the virtual 2020 event. “The symposium gave me the creative ability, freedom and resources to find where I fit within my industry. I'm super grateful that I was able to create, present, and give back to such an amazing EMU traditional event given to the students of Art and Design." Ty is the Founder, Owner, and Creative Director of Versara Creatives creative agency established in February 2020. In addition to her Versara success, Ty published her first short story titled “Relief” in the Cellar Roots 2017 -2018 Magazine; Eastern Michigan University’s Award winning Literary and Arts magazine.

Ty keeps busy as a Production Designer, Art Director, Set Decorator, Graphic Designer, and Acrylic Painter within the advertising/marketing and film industries. In these roles, Ty has decorated and designed for productions such as Pepsi, Essence, Lifetime TV, Queen of the South and more recently decorated and designed her first red carpet premiere for the upcoming short film “Consequences” directed, written and produced by Eric Griggs Hugan. Ty’s ultimate goal is to produce more Black wealth within the advertising/marketing and film industries in Detroit, MI. where she was raised.

Oluwaseun Adetayo (she/her/hers)

Oluwaseun (Seun) Adetayo, MD, FAAP is a board certified plastic surgeon with expertise in pediatric plastic and craniofacial surgery. She is the Section Chief of Pediatric Plastic Surgery, and is the Founder and Director of the Cleft-Craniofacial Center at Albany Medical Center in Albany, NY. She earned a Bachelors of Science from EMU in 2002 with honors in Computer Science and added minors in Biochemistry and Mathematics. During her undergraduate education, she presented three years at the Undergraduate Symposium and served as its student emcee in 2002. She came back to her alma mater to serve as the 2016 Dennis M. Beagen Undergraduate Symposium Keynote Speaker.

Dave Coverly (he/him/his)

Dave Coverly is an internationally syndicated cartoonist best known for his comic series “Speed Bump” that appears in more than 400 newspapers. His newest venture is a chapter book series for kids, the first entitled, Night of the Living Worms. Coverly earned his BS with a double major in Imaginative Writing and Philosophy at Eastern Michigan University, and received his MA in Creative Writing from Indiana University. Coverly presented at the Undergraduate Symposium in 1987 and 1985 and while at Eastern he penned a comic panel called "Freen" for the Eastern Echo. In 2011, he was asked to give the commencement address at EMU, and was presented with an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts. 

Ian Pendleton (he/him/his)

Ian Pendleton (he/him/his) attended the University of Michigan for his graduate degree in organic chemistry. At the University of Michigan he served as a Rackham Graduate Research Fellow and was awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Ian was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society as a co-author of “Experimental and Computational Assessment of Reactivity and Mechanism in C(sp3)–N Bond-Forming Reductive Elimination from Palladium(IV).” Graduating from EMU in 2012, Ian was a 4-time Symposium Undergraduate Research Fellow under the faculty mentorship of Dr. Harriet Lindsay. Ian also served as student emcee at the celebratory Undergraduate Symposium luncheon during his final presentation year. While he continues his academic endeavors, Ian is advocating the importance of connection and mentorship in the field of chemistry. Recently penning an article titled “The Greater Chemistry Community,” in the publication Graduate and Postdoctoral Chemist, Ian reflected on his connection with Dr. Lindsay, “I am still very early in my career and have yet to see the long-term effects of my volunteer work, but I was the recipient of such contributions. I was extremely fortunate and will be eternally grateful for having what I consider to be the greatest type of mentor an incoming college freshman could ever want.”