Annual Undergraduate Research Conference
The Annual Undergraduate Research Conference (AURC, formerly MESSA) is a GU-Q student-led conference which aims to provide a dynamic platform for students to present their work on global economic, social, and political issues. AURC conferences are organized around themes taken from global challenges, and invites students from around the globe to present their undergraduate research papers.
Past Conferences
- 2019 “Borders, Boundaries, and Identities: Tackling New Global Challenges”
- 2018 “Uncertainty, Stability, and Cohesion: A Transforming Middle East”
- 2017 “Power, Influence, and Authority in the Middle East”
- 2016 “Emerging Middle East: The Challenges of Integration and Social Fragmentation”
- 2015 “Narrowing the Gap: The Conversation between the Governing and the Governed in the Middle East”
- 2014 “Globalization and the Middle East: Youth, Media and Resources”
- 2013 “Globalization and the Middle East: Youth, Media and Resources”
- 2012 Inaugural Undergraduate Conference on the Middle East
Conference Paper Publications
Occasionally, the conference papers are published as a research journal. In May 2014 the Middle Eastern Studies Student Association founded a peer-reviewed undergraduate journal, The Journal of Georgetown University-Qatar Middle Eastern Studies Student Association. The journal issue included papers from the conference and independently solicited undergraduate essays and was published by QScience.com, an online publishing platform developed by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Journals.
Journal Aim
The Middle Eastern Studies Student Association academic journal serves to voice undergraduate research focusing on issues that are pivotal to Middle Eastern affairs. Striving to foster and enhance undergraduate research, this journal enables students to present their work and facilitates a breadth and depth of discussion about respective economic, political and social affairs in this pulsating region of the world.