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Research Days 2016

Research Days 2016 was held on Tuesday, March 29 and Wednesday, March 30.

Day 1 focused on arts, business, education, engineering, humanities, law, mathematics, sciences and other topics from undergraduate and graduate students.

Day 2 focused on health and medicine topics, including presenters from the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Milken Institute School of Public Health, the School of Nursing, the Biomedical Engineering Program and the Institute for Biomedical Science.

Call for Abstracts

Abstract Books

Agendas

2016 Poster and Abstract Collection

Day 1 Poster Winners

Undergraduate Presenters
Chemistry:
1st: Kristen Caine
“The Application of Non-Dispersive IR Sensors to Detect the Variability of Local Carbon Dioxide Concentrations in Urban Environments”
2nd: David Plotnick
“Multi-Step Small-Molecular Extraction For Enhancing The Detectable Coverage Of The Metabolome In Single Embryonic Cells Using CE-ESI-MS”

Ecological and Biological Sciences:
1st: Ced Block
“Ecological Determinants of Antipredator Defense Behaviors in the Silver-Spotted Skipper”
2nd: Jai Ponmali Photavath
“Investigating the genotypic-phenotypic relationship between the gene small optic lobes (sol) and sperm length”

Economics and Sustainability:
1st: Meggan Davis
“Food waste in three DC public schools: Scope, causes and consequences”
2nd: Rachel Roberts
“Education and Unemployment: Examining the Effect of Educational Attainment on the Labor Market in Post-Recession United States”

Humanities:
1st: Emma Perloff
“The Many Fates of Medieval German Palmesels During and After the Reformation”
2nd: Harry Rosenberg
“Cognitive Phenomenal Intentionality”

Health Sciences:
1st: Christina Darwish
“The role of calnexin in cholesterol transport impairment in HIV infection and Tangier disease”
2nd: Alexandra Gross
“Keratinocytes cultured from human chronic wound specimens demonstrate delayed wound closure and differences in apoptosis in an in vitro scratch assay”

International Affairs - Group A:
1st: Sawyer French
“Tunisia's Young Islamists: Religious or Revolutionary Zealots?”
2nd: Mason Fulling
“An Analysis on the Effectiveness of Multilateral Sanctions with a case study on Iran”

International Affairs - Group B:
1st: Evan DeFrancesco
“Atop the Aryan Akropolis: Nazi Appropriation of the Parthenon”

Mathematics and Physical Sciences:
1st: Katherine Stasaski and Elsbeth Turcan
“CAPITAL Words: Algorithmic Generation of Reading and Spelling Exercises for Low-Literacy Users”
2nd: Jacob Learned
“Quantum Rectified Linear Unit for Quantum Neural Networks”

Media, Business, and Consumer Studies:
1st: Rachel Basoco
“Sales Associate Personality and Consumer Purchasing Behavior in Fashion Retailers”
2nd: Katherine Yee
“Drivers of Consumer Emotional Attachment and its Effect on Brand Romance”

Molecular and Cellular Biology - Group A:
1st: Noor Zaghlula
“hA induces ASK1 mediated pancreatic stress”

Molecular and Cellular Biology - Group B:
1st: Samuel Johnson
“Annotation of Thd1-PB on the dot chromosome of Drosophila ficusphila”
2nd: Amanda Harbison
“Genome Structure via Crosslinking I: Method Development”

Physical Sciences:
1st: Brian Alden
“Searching the Universe for Radio Transients with LOFAR”

Psychology:
1st: Cassandra Moshfegh
“Effects of Essential Oil on Fear Memory and the Immune Response; A Potential Alternative Therapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD)”
2nd: Shreya Chaturvedi and Greg Wallace
“Continuous and extreme autistic trait ratings are associated with avoidance of alcoholic beverages”

Society, Media, and Education:
1st: Everly Jazi and Emily Leival
“Factors Associated with the Quantity and Quality of Distance Communication Between Deployed Parents and Their Children”
2nd: Jennifer Nichols and Nikki Blacksmith
“Exploring Predictors of Internship Satisfaction”

Socio-Cultural Studies:
1st: Chris Evans
“Is Mike More Electable Than Ray, Jen, and Anita: An Analysis of Race and Gender Heuristics in Low-Information Elections”
2nd: Lauren Hinkel
“An exploration of the developing factors of self-esteem in adolescent females”

Graduate Presenters
Biological, Health and Hearing Sciences:
1st: Sam Choi
“High-sensitivity Capillary Electrophoresis Nanoelectrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry: Toward Single-cell Proteomic”
2nd: João Filipe Riva Tonini
“Fully-sampled phylogenies of squamates reveal evolutionary patterns in threat status”

Creative Arts:
1st: Janet Hozier Connelly
“Ancient Alien Protectors”
2nd: Natalie Perez
“Beyond the Pupuseria: creating and inviting exhibition about Salvadoran immigrants and the pursuit of home in Mt. Pleasant, D.C.”

Engineering - Group A:
1st: Margaret Nowicki
“Three Dimensional Printing of Gradient Scaffolds to Bridge the Gap Between Bone and Cartilage for Osteochondral Defect Repair”
2nd: Krishna Kumar and Mitra Aliabouzar
“Effects of acoustic parameters on nanodroplet vaporization”

Engineering - Group B:
1st: Ian Carr
“Three-dimensional separation over a wall-mounted obstacle in pulsatile flow”
2nd: Shuai Sun
“Hybrid Photonic Plasmonic Interconnects (HyPPI): A low Latency, Energy and Area Efficient On-chip Interconnects”

Mathematics:
1st: Seung Yeop Yang
“Torsion in rack and quandle homology and its applications to higher dimensional Knot Theory”
2nd: Anudeep Kumar
“Singular vs global solutions in generalized Hartree equation”

Molecular Biology and Biochemistry:
1st: Camille Lombard-Banek
“Quantifying Translational Differences between Single Blastomeres in the 16-cell Xenopus Embryo by Mass Spectrometry”
2nd: Zhouhao Zeng
“Tcf1 and Lef1 establish CD8+ T cell identity via their intrinsic histone deacetylase activity”

Physical Sciences:
1st: D. Michelle Bailey
“An Open-Path Tunable Diode Laser Sensor for Measurement of Greenhouse Gases at the Bonanza Creek Site near Fairbanks, Alaska”
2nd: Mikaela Pyrch
“A Systematic Study of pH Driven Uranyl Hybrid Complexes with 4-Iodobenzoic Acid”

Social Sciences and Education:
1st: Taylor Elwood
“Patriots or Xenophobes? The Relationship Between Ethnic Composition and Support for the National Front in France”

Nashman Prize
1st: Shanna Helf
“Aging Through Change: Gentrification, Social Capital, and Senior Citizens of Washington DC’s Wards 1 and 6”
2nd: Katherine Stasaki and Elsbeth Turcan
“CAPITAL Words: Algorithmic Generation of Reading and Spelling Exercises for Low-Literacy Users”

Day 2 Poster Winners

Biomedical Engineering
Undergraduate Presenters
1st (Tie): Bogdan Balteanu (Poster 108)
“Amperometric Detection of Ultrasound-Induced Secretory Events in Potential Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes”
1st (Tie): Srineil Nizambad (Poster 110)
“Music-Based Emotion and Social Interaction Therapy for Children with Autism Using Interactive Robots”

Graduate Presenters
1st (Tie): Elizabeth Hubler (Poster 105)
“Self-Oscillating Vocal Fold Model Mechanics Associated with Aging”
1st (Tie): Ivan Suarez Castellanos (Poster 109)
“Ultrasound stimulation of insulin release from pancreatic beta cells”

Institute for Biomedical Sciences
1st: Adam Horn (Poster 10)
“Injury triggered mitochondrial ROS production facilitates repair of injured muscle cells”
2nd (Tie): Thomas Forbes (Poster 28)
“Environmental Enrichment Promotes Generation of Oligodendrocytes and Attenuates Hypoxia-Induced Perinatal White Matter Injury”
2nd (Tie): Shabnum Patel (Poster 23)
“HIV-specific T cells can be Expanded from Virus-naive Donors to Target a Range of Epitopes: Implications for a Cure Strategy”
Honorable Mention: Rachel Burga (Poster 25)
“Cellular backpacking as a method of enhanced tumor efficacy and modulating the immune environment”
Honorable Mention: Travis Kinder (Poster 14)
“Discovery of Novel Drugs to Alleviate Muscle Weakness in Myositis”

Milken Institute School for Public Health
Judges Choice Award – Masters: Nathan L. McCray (Poster 40)
“Associations between Body Mass Index and Semen Parameters among men from the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area”
Judges Choice Award – Doctoral: Vinu Ilakkuvan (Poster 86)
“A Test of the Anger Activism Model: truth® Campaign Advertising-Induced   Anger, Self-Efficacy, and Message-Related Cognitions”
Collaborative Science Award: Francesca M. Branch (Poster 41)
“Urinary Tin, Cadmium and Lead and Associations with Body Mass Index and Waist Circumference: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2011-2012”
Policy and Practice Impact Award: Erin Brantley (Poster 70)
“Improved Access and Coverage Under The ACA: Are Immigrants at the Table?”
People’s Choice Award: Nitasha Chaudhary Nagaraj (Poster 95)
“Childhood violence, adult relationship violence, & adult health outcomes among South Asian womens in the US”

School of Medicine and Health Sciences
1st: Morgan Heinzelmann (Poster 268)
“Military Personnel Who Sustain a TBI Have Elevated Concentrations of Aβ40 and Lower Ratios of Aβ42/40 in Peripheral Blood”
2nd: Ryan Bateman (Poster 162)
“Intranasal oxytocin administration in patients suffering from Obstructive Sleep Apnea”
3rd: Naissem Andemel (Poster 262)
“Identification of Plasmodium Proteins from Children’s Field Isolates Targeted by Immune Sera Using a Proteomics Approach”

School of Nursing
1st: Margaret Hadro Venzke (Poster 317)
“Evaluation of an Education Module that Addresses Patient Hesitancy and Refusal of Vaccines”