#2 Landon Ossman, Carter Murphy, Logan Escalon, Isabella Redman, and Jamie Newman
College of Applied and Natural Sciences
“The Effects of Fructose and Sucralose on Adipogenesis and Self-Renewal in Human Adipose Derived Stem Cells”
Sugar is one of many established contributors to the progression of adipogenesis; therefore, we aim to determine the influence that sugar and sugar substitutes have on adipose-derived stem cell self-renewal and adipogenic differentiation.
#4 Annie Roche Hendrick, Emily Johnson, Tristen Roussell, and Jane Jacob
College of Education and Human Sciences
“The Relationship Between Imagery Ability and Goal-Oriented Motivation: An EEG Study”
Perhaps the first of its kind, this experiment uses EEG recording to examine how the imagery ability affects goal-oriented motivation and planning anxiety, through task reaction time and accuracy. Imagery ability is categorized using the VVIQ-2, which assesses the vividness at which participants can visualize people, objects, or settings in their “mind’s eye.
#6 Jacob Brown, Praveen Pasupathi, Jordan Blazo, and Andrew Parks
College of Education and Human Sciences
“Intraindividual Variability in Attention Associated with Acute Mindfulness Meditation in College Students”
Long-term meditative practices have been shown have benefits for daily life however short-term meditative practices does not have significant data so far. The purpose of the study is to investigate the influence a single bout of guided mindfulness meditation on intraindividual variability of attentional process for college aged students. No significant effect from a single bout of meditation however data suggested that there is a minimum threshold of exposure for significant benefits.
#8 Emily Johnson, Tristen Roussell, and Jane Jacob
College of Education and Human Sciences
“Exploration of the Dynamics of Information Transfer Across Stages of Visual Short-Term Memories Through Event-Related Potentials”
To explore visual information processing over the first few seconds of seeing, we showed participants displays of 1, 3, or 5 shapes at a time and asked them to compare a test stimulus to the previous memory display. The time between memory display and test display varied between 0 and 1.5 seconds, and EEG data was collected during participation. The EEG data will help us better understand what is happening in the brain when we look at and process low, medium, and high amounts of information within the first few seconds of vision.
#10 Jonathan Tairov, Yashodara Ekanayaka, Jared Melseth, Sandra Zivanovic, Lee Sawyer, and Shengnian Wang
College of Engineering & Science
“Carbon Quantum Dot Heavy Metal Sensor”
Pollution by heavy metals such as lead, copper, and arsenic pose a significant risk to our health and environment. In this project we created nanoscale particles known as carbon quantum dots to enable cheap and accurate measurement of heavy metal contaminants in the environment.
#12 William Sandel, Ran Sun, Dylan Ward, William Humphreys, John Sibley, Daniele Kropp, and Tom Bishop
College of Engineering & Science
“A modeling and simulation workflow for the comparative analysis of chromatin folding”
We conducted and compared implicit solvent all-atom molecular dynamics simulations of the following systems: DiNuc+LK, DiNuc-LK, NucA+LK, NucA-LK, NucB+Lk, NucB-LK.The analysis seeks to establish the efficiency of our workflow, the stability of the implicit solvent simulation methods, and comparative metrics for assessing the structure and dynamics of the nucleosomes as a function of DNA sequence, the presence of linker histones and topological constraints.
#14 Cassidy Husson, Matthew Franklin, Cameron Bradford, Rebecca Giorno-McConnell, and Gergana Nestorova
College of Applied and Natural Sciences/College of Engineering and Science
“Gene Sampling Technology for Rapid Microbial Genotyping in Microfluidic Device”
This study implements the design and characterization of lab-on-a-chip platform for lysis of bacteria for potential one-step RNA purification and PCR analysis. Various techniques are tested, analyzed, and used to capture RNA for sequencing.
#16 Shaylee Boudreaux, Navya Uppu, Kelly McHahen, Tasneem Khasru, and Mark DeCoster
College of Applied and Natural Sciences/College of Engineering and Science
“Green Synthesis of Metal-Organic Biohybrid (MOB) Nanomaterials”
Green synthesis of nanomaterials aims to reduce the use of high energy methods with those that may include lower temperatures and pressures, use of natural products, and bottom-up self-assembly. This generation of metal-organic biohybrids (MOBs) were synthesized using the naturally occurring amino acid dimer, cystine, as the biological component, and a series of metals, including copper, silver, and cobalt at physiological (37°C) and room temperature (25°C). The copper- and silver- based nanomaterials generated could be characterized by size and shape.
#18 Abigail Pierce and Patrick Scott
College of Business
“The Unexpected Factors Driving the Gender Wage Gap”
The main purpose of this project is to determine what factors aid in narrowing the gender wage gap compared to others. It explores social, political, and economic variables due to them normally being contributed to impacting the gender wage gap.
#20 Landace Abshire and Patrick Scott
College of Business
“More Money, Same Problems”
I am doing a study of the relationship between personal income per capita in real terms and happiness at the state level. I plan to control for variables such as religion, marriage rate, employment rate, tax rate, health standard, and gender rates. I have considered highlighting the relationship between age and using age squared.
#22 Saxton Canady and Patrick Scott
College of Business
“Remote Revolution: Analyzing the Impact of Work-from-Home on Real Estate Dynamics”
Will the rise of remote work transform our cities and neighborhoods? As remote work becomes increasingly prevalent, it’s not just about working from home—it could potentially reshape the entire landscape of both commercial real estate and residential properties. But what impact does this shift really have if any?
#24 Trilby Hill and Louis Reis
College of Engineering & Science
“Using Machine Learning to Geospatially Predict Submerged Paleo Forests in the Northern Gulf of Mexico”
Utilizing geospatial machine learning, we explore the relationship between drowned forest location and predictor data, geospatially depicting the probability of wood within sediments throughout the Northern Gulf of Mexico. Predictions generated by existing drowned forest data will advance drowned forest research and serve as a promising guide for locating additional paleo forest sites.
#26 Stuti Khatiwada, Sudhir Amritphale, Hussain Shaikh, and John Matthews
College of Engineering & Science
“Dynamic Sequestration of Flue Gases”
The prime objective of the proposed research project is to remove flue gases using advanced geopolymer materials dynamically. The advanced geopolymer material will be made using appropriate industrial waste for absorption of flue gases component (red mud waste from Aluminum industry and waste from steel industry) will be used for absorbing Sulphur dioxide present in the flue gas. The alkali content in geopolymer will help in absorbing other components of flue gases.
#28 Hojun Lee and Erica Murray
College of Engineering & Science
“Pit Morphology of Corroded Al6061 Fabricated by Additive Friction Stir Deposition”
Additive friction stir deposition (ASF-D) is promising for many industrial applications, due to its scalable capabilities and speed. Confocal imaging, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray were used to evaluate corrosion characteristics, such as pit depth, size, shape, and composition, which supported electrochemical corrosion measurements on Al6061 samples fabricated by ASF-D. This knowledge will be beneficial for improving AFS-D processing techniques to establish more uniformity to eliminate preferential corrosion behavior.
#30 Nathan Holley and Sven Eklund
College of Engineering & Science
“Degrading Organic Pollutants via the Generation of Radical Oxygen Species from Piezoelectric Materials”
Piezoelectricity offers the ability to incorporate a clean, inexpensive, and effective method to degrade organic pollutants in sources of water. The generation of radical oxygen species through an electric charge generated when mechanical pressure is applied to a piezocatalyst effectively degrades organic pollutants.
#32 A’Myra Whitby, William O’Brochta, and Jeremy Mhire
College of Liberal Arts
“Understanding Partisan Media Consumption and How It Facilitates Political Division”
I argue that partisan media consumption causes an increase in political division because the media pushes polarized opinions on their supporters. Using the 2020 Cooperative Election Study data I tested this hypothesis and found that the media plays a major role in the division of its consumers.