Student researchers rewarded at ceremony
The 2013 Student Research and Creative Works Expo award winners were announced at an awards ceremony held Monday, April 22, in the 糖心Vlog传媒LR Engineering and Information Technology Auditorium.
More than 160 entries vied for recognition from judges during the competition, including a record 93 graduate students who presented their works following the undergraduate session April 15.
Calling the event a “big success,” Dr. Patrick Pelicane, dean of 糖心Vlog传媒LR鈥檚 Graduate School and vice provost for research, thanked the students and more than 125 faculty mentors who assisted in the projects.
鈥淵ou are enhancing the reputation of 糖心Vlog传媒LR by the extraordinary work that you do,鈥� he said.
Research efforts pay dividends, enhance understanding
糖心Vlog传媒LR senior Carli Steelman, a first place winner in the undergraduate humanities category, worked with Political Science Professor Rebecca Glazier to develop her research on how a person鈥檚 religious beliefs intersect with trust in the government.
鈥淪he is a great student, and her award was very well deserved,鈥� Glazier said, following the ceremony.
Glazier assisted Steelman for over a year to help develop and administer a survey to coincide with the 2012 presidential election. Steelman used the survey in five Little Rock congregations to better understand the complex relationship between religion and institutional trust.
鈥淪he also participated in over a dozen interviews of local congregation leaders–and even stepped in to conduct an interview on her own when I went into labor the morning of our scheduled meeting!鈥� joked Glazier.
Glazier praised Steelman saying she was recently given a 鈥渧ery generous offer鈥� from the Political Science Ph.D. program at the University of New Mexico for being a reliable student and creative thinker.
Steelman and the other students were judged in several categories including how clear and novel their approach, how well they created perspective, and how apt they were at briefly 鈥減itching鈥� their work to convey what they are doing.
Top undergraduate winners will be nominated for Posters on the Hill, hosted by the Council on Undergraduate Research in Washington D.C.
The university has had student representatives chosen to compete in the national competition for the past two years.
Complete list of winning entries and student presenters:
Undergraduate Arts
First place: 鈥淪traight Documentary Photography and Surrealism: A Dialectical Resolution,鈥� Alexandro Leme
Second place: 鈥淐oncept to Embodiment: The Costume Design Process for THE BACCHAE OF EURPIDES,鈥� Mikita Thompson
Undergraduate Engineering and Technology
First place: 鈥淪hape Memory Alloy Thin Films,鈥� Anthony Keener and Steven Bray and Mehmet Ozturk (PhD candidate)
Second place: 鈥淢icrocontroller Based Complex Waveform Generation for Inverter,鈥� Ramanan Sivasubramanian and Tavleen Bedi
Third place: 鈥淚mproved Micro inverter for Photovoltaic applications,鈥� Manas Pratim Mahanta
Honorable mentions: 鈥淐haracterization of Shape Memory Alloy Thin Films,鈥� Steven Bray
鈥淪olar Air Condition,鈥� Geoffrey Lueken
鈥淣atural Gas: Driving to A Cleaner Tomorrow,鈥� John Suit and Michael Nauman
Undergraduate Humanities
First place: 鈥淭rust in God, Trust in Government: How Religious Belief, Belonging, & Behavior Affect Political Trust,鈥� Carli Steelman
Second place: 鈥淔rom the Academy to the Nursery: Charles Perrault and the Tales of Mother Goose,鈥� Sarah Snell
Third place: 鈥淢en Speaking to Men: The INfluence of Wordsworth鈥檚 The Preface on Melville鈥檚 Moby-Dick,鈥� Stephenaie Mantell
Undergraduate Life Sciences
First place: 鈥淢icrogravity Produces Morphological and Biochemical Changes in Mammalian Cells,鈥� Bukola Odeniyi and Zartashia Javid
Second place: 鈥淒Nase Activity in Kidney Cell Pyknosis Induced by Serum Deprivation,鈥� Kanika Topiwala
Third place: “Characterization of the Tomato Ubiquitin-Conjugating Enzyme SIUbc19 in Plant Immunity,” Dolapo Odeniyi
Honorable mentions: 鈥淭he Effect of Cleat Placement on Muscle Recruitment and Fatigue During Cycling,鈥� Cheyenne Wilson
鈥淪elected Osh Proteins Are Required for Caloric Restriction-mediated Lifespan Extension,鈥� Xeniya Rudolf
鈥淒evelopment of a Digital Trail Guide for Coleman Creek,鈥� Megan Matthew
Undergraduate Physical Sciences
First place: 鈥淐haracterization of Aspergillus niger cellulase for biomass conversion,鈥� Jennifer Hill
Second place (tie): 鈥淣ovel Fabrication of Carbon Nanotube Arrays,鈥� Asad Akhter
鈥淢uscle Recruitment During Various Soccer Tasks,鈥� Megan Zollinger and Nathan Carr
Undergraduate Social Sciences
First place: 鈥淭he Relationship Between Spontaneous and Contagious Yawning, Personality, and Gender,鈥� Andersen Lafont, Christopher Campbell, Priyamvada Goyal, Zade Holloway, Nikki Knight and Nicholas Carter
Second place: 鈥淓ffects of Develpmental Methylphenidate (MPH) Treatment on Play Behavior of Male and Female Sprague-Dawley Rats,鈥� Alton Withers
Third place: 鈥淐auses of the Academic Achievement Gap in African American Students in Central Arkansas,鈥� Kanesha Barnes
Graduate Engineering and Technology
First place: 鈥淗uman Movement Intent Identification Using the Myoelectric Process and the AR-GARCH Model,鈥� Ghulam Rasool
Second place: 鈥淟ow-profile Wake-up Rado Mechanism for Resource-constrained Wireless Devices,鈥� Ali Al-Uraiby
Third place: 鈥淔lexible Yagi-Uda Antenna for Wearable Electronic Devices,鈥� Ayman Abbosh and Said Abushamleh
Honorable mentions: 鈥淪olution Processed Cu (In,Ga) S2 for Nanowire Solar Cells,鈥� Johnathan Armstrong
鈥淎 Sequential Approach to Spectrum Sensing and Channel Estimation for Wireless Cognitive Radio Systems,鈥� Raied Caromi
鈥淚mpact of Data Quality on Entity Resolution in Student Enrollment Data,鈥� Daniel Pullen and Pei Wang
“A Study of Cell Charge Equalization Techniques,” Neeru Saini
Graduate Health Sciences
First place: 鈥淪tructure-based engineering to generate high affinity immunotherapy for the drug of abuse,鈥� Shraddha Thakkar
Second place: 鈥淒ifferent Exercise Programs Effects on Body Composition and Physical Performance,鈥� Tanya Phillips
Graduate Life and Physical Sciences
First place: 鈥淒NA-Encased Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes for Probing Hydrogen Peroxide in Serum,鈥� Azhar Kamel
Second place: 鈥淕round-Penetrating Radar is a Tool to Prevent Levee Failure,鈥� Hussein Chlaib
Third place: 鈥淭he Use of Polymer-Tethered Fullerenes in Bulk Hetereojunctions,鈥� Joshua Moore
Honorable mentions: 鈥淎ssembly of Fullerene C60 Nanostructures Utilizing Polymer-Tethered Fullerene Additives as a Surfactant,鈥� Steven Baker
鈥淓lectrochemical Applications of Nonmetal Doped Mesoporous Carbon,鈥� Udaya Nasini, Venugopal Bairi and Sunilkumar Ramasahayam
Graduate Social Sciences and Humanities
First place: 鈥淓nduring Hot Spots of Repeat Residential Burglaries,鈥� Grant Drawve
Second place: 鈥淪ticks and Stones May Break My Bones, but Tweets and Posts Might #Kill @Me: Speech Act Theory and Homophobic Cyber-bullying,鈥� Clint Brockway
Third place: 鈥淟ooking at Life in Ghana in 1912 Through the Gold Coast Leader,鈥� Hattie Felton
Honorable mention: 鈥淐ollaborative Learning: An Integrated Use of Social Media,鈥� Faysal Ahmed
Graduate Professional Studies
First place: 鈥淚FRS Adoption in Africa: How Colonial Ties and Other Factors Have Shaped the Process,鈥� Ruth Chelagat
Second place: 鈥淥utside the Band of Brothers: Female Military Personnel and Sexual Assault,鈥� Lori Goldman
Third place: 鈥淛apanese Culture and Fraud: What the Olympus Scandal Means,鈥� Saaya Imai
Honorable mention: 鈥淭he Death Penalty: A Multi-Level Analysis of Public Opinion,鈥� Kyle Burgason and Lynn Pazzani