Hosting as many as 20,000 attendees from industry, academia, and government from 90 countries worldwide, Pittcon supports and funds science education and outreach to students from kindergarten through adult programs. As many as 1000 vendors set up booths at Pittcon, offering an ideal chance for attendees to establish business and academic relationships.
Despite the enormity of the event, Lassiter concentrated on goals that he wanted his students to achieve: “I want to introduce our students to the effective use of instrumentation in order to provide a contemporary training and supplement” to the work they do back on campus. Lassiter and his students were able to develop many instrument applications which will benefit work being done on the Montreat campus, but he seemed more pleased with the character of the students and how they represented the college.
“Our students made quite an impact; the wonderful reflection of our Lord in the caring nature and personalities of our students led them to be recognized by many companies that attended the conference.”
Joining Lassiter in Orlando were senior biology majors Holly Duckworth and Elyse Gildernew and junior biology majors Kimberly Ott and Benjamin Hall; all the students other than Hall received funds from the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Scholars program to assist in their efforts to attend Pittcon. Each student was impressed by the size of the event and the seriousness of the work, and they enjoyed the chance to meet and minister to people from all over the country and world.
Lassiter and the students did have a little free time to visit the Disney World and Universal Studios theme parks, but their memories are more about what Pittcon had to offer. Duckworth commented that meeting scientists from Germany, China and Japan made her realize that the possibilities – and challenges - in her field are endless. Maybe it’s not such a small world, after all.