Montezuma Hall was abuzz with the nervous energy and excited punctuation of more than 120 College of Sciences students sharing their research projects with curious community members. In nearby Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union meeting rooms, audiences intently attended the data-informed insights and colorful images of five dozen students’ oral presentations.
Just under half of the presenters at the 2023 SDSU Student Symposium (S3) were undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students in College of Sciences programs. Their topics ranged from healing pneumonia with phage therapy to cultivating drought-tolerant native plants, from calculating exoplanet characteristics to further elucidating the effects of alcohol on fetal development. One student even streamed her presentation live on Twitch.
Special sessions of talks and posters were dedicated in memory of the late Diane Smith, a beloved professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry. Smith’s former students shared their favorite memories of her and how she pushed them to be more excellent chemists than they ever thought they could be.
After the two-day event, twenty-two College of Sciences student projects received accolades and prize money based on faculty, staff and community judges’ evaluations of their expertise, originality and presentation skills.
The winners are as follows:
Hispanic Serving Institution Award
Student: Brinley Stringer
Mentor: Mary Pilgrim, Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Project Title: Near-Peer Mentors: The Assets of Relationships in Mathematics Classrooms
Sustainability Award
Student: Jenielle Domaoal
Mentor: Karilyn Sant, School of Public Health
Project Title: Embryonic development is affected by chemical leachate resulting from tire wear particles (TWP) in the zebrafish, Danio rerio
Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) Award
Student: Paul Kauvaka
Mentor: George Youssef, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Project Title: Shock Response of Polyurea Foams
Research Award for Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice
Student: Isabela Cruz-Vespa
Mentor: Tristen Inagaki, Department of Psychology
Project Title: Vicarious Racism and Substance-Use: Assessing the moderating roles of social-connection and ethnic-identity
Project Summary
Research Award for Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice
Student: Judy Mahmalji
Mentor: Inna Fishman, Department of Psychology
Project Title: Early brain connectivity patterns predict later language skills in preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder
Library Award
Student: Valentina Rodriguez
Mentor: Ricardo Zayas, Department of Biology
Project Title: HCC organoid model in the Latino population
Library Award
Student: Rohan Rahatgaonkar
Mentor: Kate Rubin, Department of Astronomy
Project Title: Kinematics of high resolution VLT/MUSE spectroscopic sample of nearby galaxies through 3-D tilted ring modeling
Library Award
Student: Kendal Ruffin
Mentor: Vanessa Malcarne, Department of Psychology
Project Title: Impact of Health Disparities and Prostate Cancer Among African American Men
Undergraduate Research Excellence Award
Student: Sama Mikhail
Mentor: Mark Sussman, Department of Biology
Project Title: Aerobic Activity is Impaired by Vaping
Undergraduate Research Excellence Award
Student: Viktoria Voragen
Mentor: Dwayne Roach, Department of Biology
Project Title: Improving Shelf Life of Bacteriophage Pharmaceutics
Undergraduate Research Excellence Award
Student: Liam Seitz
Mentor: Dylan Karr, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Project Title: Investigation of PCET-Based Redox-Responsive H-bonding in Simple 2 H-bonding Systems
Undergraduate Research Excellence Award
Student: Rania Atto
Mentor: Ricardo Zayas, Department of Biology
Project Title: Role of ABC Transporters in the Planarian species Schmidtea mediterranea
Dean’s Award: Sciences
Student: Shayla Shahar
Mentor: Scott Kelley, Department of Biology
Project Title: Characterization of Metagenomes and Pathogen Identification of the Tijuana River
Dean’s Award: Sciences
Student: Tiffany Luong
Mentor: Dwayne Roach, Department of Biology
Project Title: Bench to Bedside Phage Therapy for Severe Pneumonia in Cystic Fibrosis
Provost’s Award: Sciences
Student: Renee Owens, Claire Way
Mentor: Lisandra Dobson, Department of Psychology
Project Title: Examining County-Level Right-Wing Authoritarianism as a Mediating and Moderating Variable in the Relationship Between Minority Representation and the Implicit White = American Effect
Provost’s Award: Sciences
Student: Morgan Farrell
Mentor: Nicholas Shikuma, Department of Biology
Project Title: Utilizing CRISPRi interrogation of host-microbe interactions to identify stimulants of animal development
Provost’s Award: Imperial Valley Campus
Students: Katerine Ekonomo, Andrea van Bebber, Nancy Chaidez & Isabel Beltran
Mentor: Linda Abarbanell, Imperial Valley, Psychology
Project Title: COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in the Imperial Valley
Provost’s Award: Imperial Valley Campus
Student: Felix Santillanes
Mentor: Huan Qin, Imperial Valley, Mathematics & Statistics
Project Title: Visualization and Analysis Using R for Imperial Valley Traffic Incidents Data
President’s Award
Student: Scott Monahan
Mentor: Arun Sethuraman, Department of Biology
Project Title: Population Genomics of the Invasive Pink Rice Borer Moth, Sesemia inferens
President’s Award
Student: Ila Peeler
Mentor: Cristal Zuniga, Department of Biology
Project Title: Understanding the Metabolism of Recently Isolated Infectious Bacterium, Bordatella atropi
President’s Award
Student: Kristin Tenney
Mentor: Alexander Chizhik, School of Teacher Education
Project Title: The Psychological Needs of an Undergraduate Computer Scientist: Three Case Studies
President’s Award
Student: Tina Marcroft
Mentor: Regis Komperda, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Project Title: Exploring Expert and Novice Understanding of Organismal Relatedness
Students who received the President’s Award will go on to represent SDSU at the CSU-wide Student Research Competition, hosted at SDSU April 28 and 29.