Celebrating Research Week—Student Presenters and Past Winners
Photos from 2026 Celebrating Research Week
Links to Symposium videos:
2026 Poster Expo winners
Congratulations to the Professors' Choice award winners for best posters presented at the 2026 Poster Expo.
Natural Sciences
- 1st place: Christina Wang '26 | Cell & Developmental Biology, Statistics | Netrin-1 Promotes Metastasis of Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors
- 2nd place: Annapurna Chakraborty'27 | Chemistry | Lighting the Way: Blue-Light-Mediated Nickel Catalysis for Drug-Relevant Carbon–Sulfur Bond Formation
Engineering & Mathematics
- 1st place: Hayden Groeschel '26 | Mechanical Engineering | Suppression of Auxetic Behavior in Black Phosphorus with Sulfur Substitution
- 2nd place: Zihan Zheng '27 | Optical Engineering | Optomechanical Design & Performance Improvement for a Low Cost Single Snapshot Imaging of Optical Properties (SSOP) System
Humanities
- 1st place: Guy Emrich '26 | Political Science, African & African-American Studies | Indians, Ghosts, and Maps: Making Borders and Performing Disappearance
- 2nd place: Ella French '26 | ASL, Public Health | Transitioning With Purpose: Designing Transition Programs for DeafPlus Students
Social Sciences
- 1st place: Chelsea Pham '27 | Microbiology, Epidemiology | Capturing Care: Examining Digital Tool Efficiency Through a Photovoice Study of CHWs
- 2nd place: Marwaan Maxamuud '26 | BCS, Psychology | Effects of Lifetime Trauma on Cognitive Functioning via PTSD and Depression
2026 Symposium
Links to Symposium videos:
Congratulations to the award winners for best presentations at the 2026 Symposium. President's Award goes to the first place winner and Deans' Award goes to the second place winner.
Natural Sciences
- President's Award: Christina Wang
- Deans' Award: Krish Patel
Engineering and Mathematics
- President's Award: Euan Seow
- Deans' Award: Ulizes Atlixqueno
Humanities
- President's Award (tie): Guy Emrich
- President's Award (tie): Tristan Gamard
- Deans' Award: Alex Reyda
Social Sciences
- President's Award: Ruth du Plessis
- Deans' Award: Kaidence Pacheco
- 10-11:30: Natural Sciences
- Christina Wang (President's Award winner), "Netrin-1 Promotes Liver Metastasis of Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors"
- Amy Go, "Ketamine as an antidepressant : mechanism at a neuronal level"
- Miriam Herron, "The Fate of Carbon at Impact: an Astrobiological Perspective"
- Caleb Lee, "A Data-Driven Approach to Biosynthesis of Immunomodulatory Metabolites within the Mouse Gut Microbiota"
- Alex Novak, "Putting Tests to the Test: Evaluating Time Series Imputation Benchmarking Processes Using ECG Data"
- Krish Patel (Deans' Award winner), "Neural Representations of Speech: Phonemes"
- Noon-1:30: Engineering and Math
- Ulizes Atlixqueno (Deans' Award winner), "Introducing XRDReader for Automated Extraction of X-Ray Diffraction Data from Scientific Literature"
- Ouriya Boshi Levine, "Mechanics of Acoustic Invariance for Environmental Sounds in the Human Brain"
- Rajneet Saini, "Beyond the Shortcut: Establishing Data-Driven Methodologies for Collaborative AI in Computer Science"
- Euan Seow (President's Award winner), "Automating Coherent Probabilities in LLMs"
- Yu Ying Yu, "Chondrocyte Death In Osteoarthritis"
- 2-3:30: Humanities
- Guy Emrich (President's Award winner), "Indians, Ghosts, and Maps: Making Borders and Performing Disappearance"
- Tristan Gamard (President's Award winner), "Seizing Control: Gender, Power, and Erotic Binding Spells in Ancient Greece"
- Jhanaj Quispe, "Tinku in the Bolivian Diaspora: An Act of Cultural Resilience and Transformation"
- Alex Reyda (Deans' Award winner), "Christian Adaptation of the Myth and Symbol of Orpheus in the Roman Catacombs"
- 4-5:30: Social Sciences
- Lizmairi Vargas Santa, "Do Vocational Programs Keep Students in School? Evidence from the Dominican Republic"
- Sreejato Chatterjee, "Measuring Global Structural Oppression in Free-Text Identity Data via Rule-Guided Large Language Models"
- Ruth du Plessis (President's Award winner), "Childhood Maltreatment & Lifetime Incarceration"
- Ben Goldstein & Henry Cramer, "Collecting Data Relevant to Race, Party Competition, and Quality of Life"
- Marwaan Maxamuud, "Cumulative Trauma and Cognitive Functioning: Mediating Role of Depression and PTSD"
- Kaidence Pacheco (Deans' Award winner), "Investigation of the Impact of Latin Dance on Adolescent Loneliness and Social Connectedness"
2026 Lightning Talks
Congratulations to the award winners for best presentations at the 2026 Lightning Talks!
- First place: Julia Sides
- Second place: Euan Seow
- Third place: Sreejato Chatterjee
- People's Choice: Nyaradzo Valery Mararanje
- Elena Barr, "Building a Better Model for Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer"
- Sammy Bauer, "What Happens After We Die?: Religion's Role in Parent-Child Conversations about Death"
- Juliet Bou Mansour, "Closing the Loop: Intraoperative Brain Mapping Meets Preoperative fMRI"
- Zoë Burroughs, "Acculturative Stress, Psychosomatic Symptoms, and Psychological Well-Being in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Adults"
- Sreejato Chatterjee (Third Place winner), "Epigenetic Regulation of Brain Aging GWAS Variants within Transposable Element (TE) Sequences"
- Gloria Gan, "Role of Gluathione as Cystine Source for Growth and Survival of Tumors"
- Tyler Handler, "Mapping a Genetic Element that Counteracts Selfish DNA Transmission"
- Max Harkins, "Micromachining Vascular Networks via Two-Photon Microscopy"
- Miriam Herron, "The Fate of Carbon at Impact: An Astrobiological Perspective of the Sudbury Impact Crater"
- Nyaradzo Valery Mararanje (People's Choice winner), "Infrastructure as Innovation: Data Management and Sharing"
- Courtney Palmeri, "Effect of Defects on the Electronic Structure and Optical Properties of MgO Under High Pressure"
- Alexandra Pflanz, "mHealth Interventions Applied to Cancer Prevention Among Young Adults of Color" A Systematic Review"
- Chelsea Pham, "Capturing Care: A Photovoice Study of Community Health Workers"
- Jaden Reinicke, "Peptide Priming a Novel Approach to Vaccines Against Influenza"
- Alex Reyda, "Orpheus in Roman and Christian Art"
- Euan Seow (Second Place winner), "Automating Coherent Probabilities in LLMs"
- Julia Sides (First Place winner), "Structural Changes in Sports Bras Induced by Simulated Application and Removal"
- Christina Wang, "Caught in the Net: Can we stop the spread of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (PNET) by blocking Netrin-1?"
- McKenna Young, "Inspired by Biology: Refolding Proteins with Light!"
- Clay Zinner, "Sedimentary Grains in Microscopic Shells"
2025 Celebrating Research Week
Symposium Schedule and Winners
The Speakers Symposium sessions was held on Friday, April 4, 2025 and consisted of four sessions, as below. Each speaker gave a 10-minute presentation with 5 minutes of Q&A immediately following.
Natural Science 10-11:30 a.m.
- Alexander Cikanek
- Kelechi Ejiofor
- Jackson Gerew
- Miriam Herron (President's Award winner)
- Anna Roy
- Grace Widjaja (Deans' Award winner)
Engineering and Math Noon-1:30 p.m.
- Faizah Ahmmed (Deans' Award winner)
- Rachele Bachmann
- Nicole Cassara
- John Nguyen
- Kelvin Nguyen and Nathaniel Shaffer
- Stephanie Wang (President's Award winner)
Humanities 2-3:30 p.m.
- Leanna Birsner
- Guy Emrich
- Alayna Leestma
- Carmen Marshall (President's Award winner)
- George Mechalke (Deans' Award winner)
Social Science 4-5:30 p.m.
- Jacky Chen
- Albenys Diaz Hernandez
- Kendal Jordan
- Giselle Nestepny
- Isabella Rocha (Deans' Award winner)
- Navya Soogoor (President's Award winner)
2025 Lightning Talks
Wednesday, April 9, 2025, 5-7 p.m., Feldman Ballroom
FIRST PLACE WINNER: Hana Zhang
Health, Behavior, and Society
SECOND PLACE WINNER: Grace Widjaja
Biochemistry and Music
THIRD PLACE WINNER: Helene Miao
Psychology and Biology
PEOPLE'S CHOICE WINNER: Doreen Prempeh
Dance Studies and American Sign Language
Lightning Talk 2025 Presenters:
- Leah Tang - Molecular Genetics
- Giselle Nestepny - Psychology
- John Nguyen and Sree Chatterjee - Financial Economics and Mathematics; Computational Biology and Data Science
- Cadence Chan - Anthropology
- Miriam Herron - Geological Sciences
- Maveline Nguyen - Molecular Genetics
- Alexander Cikanek - Chemistry
- Carmen Marshall - Environmental Studies
- Claire Wilcox-Black - Classics
- Navya Koganti - Computational Biology
- Zhi (Monica) Qu - Computational Biology and Business
- Aidan Craner - Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
- Diana Sullivan - Chemical Engineering
- Claire Syverson - International Relations
Students may apply to present a Lightning Talk on their research. Presentations should be geared toward a lay audience. This competition will help hone research communication skills.
Rules:
- Presentations may be no longer than 3:00 minutes. A timer will be used, and presenters will get 1:00 minute, :30 second, and :15 second warnings.
- Only a single, static slide is permitted. No slide transitions or animations of any kind are allowed.
- No additional props are allowed.
- Presentations begin once the presenter starts talking.
A maximum of twenty students will be selected to give lightning talks. Judges will award a first prize, and audience members will select a “Viewers’ Choice” award. Awards will be presented immediately after the presentations. Each award will be a $100 Amazon gift card. While our competition is not a formal 3MT competition, students may find it helpful to view some of the resources that the University of Queensland provides:
- Tips on developing your slide
- Tips on putting together your presentation
- Videos of past finalists from 3MT competitions
2025 Poster Expo
The Poster Expo took place in the Feldman Ballroom in Douglass Commons from 1–3 p.m. on Friday, April 11, 2025.
The Poster Presentation Expo serves as a place for all undergraduate students who have conducted research in the last year to present their findings to the University community and beyond. See Printing Resources below for details and poster specifications.
2025 Awards Ceremony
The following Celebrating Research Awards were presented after the Poster Fair:
- President's Award: Awarded to the top oral presentation from each of the four disciplinary areas of the Speakers Symposium
- Natural Sciences: Miriam Herron '27 | Geological Sciences
- Engineering and Math: Stephanie Wang '25 | Honors Mathematics
- Humanities: Carmen Marshall '25 | Environmental Studies
- Social Sciences: Navya Soogoor '25 | Neuroscience, Psychology
- Deans' Award: Awarded to the second-place oral presentation from each of the four disciplinary areas of the Speakers Symposium
- Natural Sciences: Grace Widjaja '26 | Biochemistry, Music
- Engineering and Math: Faizah Ahmmed '25 | Engineering Science
- Humanities: George Mechalke '25 | Dance Studies
- Social Sciences: Isabella Rocha '25 | Political Science, Economics
- Professors' Choice Award: Awarded to ten students participating in the Poster Fair, two from each of the disciplinary areas
- Life Sciences
- 1st Place: Abby Eckert '25 | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies
- 2nd Place: Laura Houle '26 | Neuroscience and Jasmine Cousin '26 | Neuroscience
- Physical Sciences
- 1st Place: Matthew Gleason '26 | Chemistry
- 2nd Place: Zechen Liu '26 | Physics and Astronomy
- Engineering and Math
- 1st Place: Hannah Rickert '25 | Biomedical Engineering
- 2nd Place: Allie Tay '25 | Biomedical Engineering
- Humanities
- 1st Place: Dina Garber '26 | Computational Biology
- 2nd Place: Leanna Birsner '25 | Neuroscience, Dance Studies
- Social Sciences
- 1st Place tie: Quinn Kubistek '25 | Creative Writing, Linguistics
- 1st Place tie: Abigail Pearlman '25 | Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Psychology
- Life Sciences
In addition, the Students' Association presented their Professor of the Year Awards.