- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

Student researchers rewarded at ceremony

��Vlog��ý Little Rock — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 21:53:32 +0000

The 2013 Student Research and Creative Works Expo award winners were announced at an awards ceremony held Monday, April 22, in the ��Vlog��ýLR 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 ��Vlog��ýLR’s Graduate School and vice provost for research, thanked the students and more than 125 faculty mentors who assisted in the projects.

“You are enhancing the reputation of ��Vlog��ýLR by the extraordinary work that you do,” he said.

Research efforts pay dividends, enhance understanding

��Vlog��ýLR 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’s religious beliefs intersect with trust in the government.

“She is a great student, and her award was very well deserved,” 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.

“She 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!” joked Glazier.

Glazier praised Steelman saying she was recently given a “very generous offer” 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 “pitching” 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: “Straight Documentary Photography and Surrealism: A Dialectical Resolution,” Alexandro Leme

Second place: “Concept to Embodiment: The Costume Design Process for THE BACCHAE OF EURPIDES,” Mikita Thompson

Undergraduate Engineering and Technology

First place: “Shape Memory Alloy Thin Films,” Anthony Keener and Steven Bray and Mehmet Ozturk (PhD candidate)

Second place: “Microcontroller Based Complex Waveform Generation for Inverter,” Ramanan Sivasubramanian and Tavleen Bedi

Third place: “Improved Micro inverter for Photovoltaic applications,” Manas Pratim Mahanta

Honorable mentions: “Characterization of Shape Memory Alloy Thin Films,” Steven Bray

“Solar Air Condition,” Geoffrey Lueken

“Natural Gas: Driving to A Cleaner Tomorrow,” John Suit and Michael Nauman

Undergraduate Humanities

First place: “Trust in God, Trust in Government: How Religious Belief, Belonging, & Behavior Affect Political Trust,” Carli Steelman

Second place: “From the Academy to the Nursery: Charles Perrault and the Tales of Mother Goose,” Sarah Snell

Third place: “Men Speaking to Men: The INfluence of Wordsworth’s The Preface on Melville’s Moby-Dick,” Stephenaie Mantell

Undergraduate Life Sciences

First place: “Microgravity Produces Morphological and Biochemical Changes in Mammalian Cells,” Bukola Odeniyi and Zartashia Javid

Second place: “DNase Activity in Kidney Cell Pyknosis Induced by Serum Deprivation,” Kanika Topiwala

Third place: “Characterization of the Tomato Ubiquitin-Conjugating Enzyme SIUbc19 in Plant Immunity,” Dolapo Odeniyi

Honorable mentions: “The Effect of Cleat Placement on Muscle Recruitment and Fatigue During Cycling,” Cheyenne Wilson

“Selected Osh Proteins Are Required for Caloric Restriction-mediated Lifespan Extension,” Xeniya Rudolf

“Development of a Digital Trail Guide for Coleman Creek,” Megan Matthew

Undergraduate Physical Sciences

First place: “Characterization of Aspergillus niger cellulase for biomass conversion,” Jennifer Hill

Second place (tie): “Novel Fabrication of Carbon Nanotube Arrays,” Asad Akhter

“Muscle Recruitment During Various Soccer Tasks,” Megan Zollinger and Nathan Carr

Undergraduate Social Sciences

First place: “The Relationship Between Spontaneous and Contagious Yawning, Personality, and Gender,” Andersen Lafont, Christopher Campbell, Priyamvada Goyal, Zade Holloway, Nikki Knight and Nicholas Carter

Second place: “Effects of Develpmental Methylphenidate (MPH) Treatment on Play Behavior of Male and Female Sprague-Dawley Rats,” Alton Withers

Third place: “Causes of the Academic Achievement Gap in African American Students in Central Arkansas,” Kanesha Barnes

Graduate Engineering and Technology

First place: “Human Movement Intent Identification Using the Myoelectric Process and the AR-GARCH Model,” Ghulam Rasool

Second place: “Low-profile Wake-up Rado Mechanism for Resource-constrained Wireless Devices,” Ali Al-Uraiby

Third place: “Flexible Yagi-Uda Antenna for Wearable Electronic Devices,” Ayman Abbosh and Said Abushamleh

Honorable mentions: “Solution Processed Cu (In,Ga) S2 for Nanowire Solar Cells,” Johnathan Armstrong

“A Sequential Approach to Spectrum Sensing and Channel Estimation for Wireless Cognitive Radio Systems,” Raied Caromi

“Impact of Data Quality on Entity Resolution in Student Enrollment Data,” Daniel Pullen and Pei Wang

“A Study of Cell Charge Equalization Techniques,” Neeru Saini

Graduate Health Sciences

First place: “Structure-based engineering to generate high affinity immunotherapy for the drug of abuse,” Shraddha Thakkar

Second place: “Different Exercise Programs Effects on Body Composition and Physical Performance,” Tanya Phillips

Graduate Life and Physical Sciences

First place: “DNA-Encased Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes for Probing Hydrogen Peroxide in Serum,” Azhar Kamel

Second place: “Ground-Penetrating Radar is a Tool to Prevent Levee Failure,” Hussein Chlaib

Third place: “The Use of Polymer-Tethered Fullerenes in Bulk Hetereojunctions,” Joshua Moore

Honorable mentions: “Assembly of Fullerene C60 Nanostructures Utilizing Polymer-Tethered Fullerene Additives as a Surfactant,” Steven Baker

“Electrochemical Applications of Nonmetal Doped Mesoporous Carbon,” Udaya Nasini, Venugopal Bairi and Sunilkumar Ramasahayam

Graduate Social Sciences and Humanities

First place: “Enduring Hot Spots of Repeat Residential Burglaries,” Grant Drawve

Second place: “Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, but Tweets and Posts Might #Kill @Me: Speech Act Theory and Homophobic Cyber-bullying,” Clint Brockway

Third place: “Looking at Life in Ghana in 1912 Through the Gold Coast Leader,” Hattie Felton

Honorable mention: “Collaborative Learning: An Integrated Use of Social Media,” Faysal Ahmed

Graduate Professional Studies

First place: “IFRS Adoption in Africa: How Colonial Ties and Other Factors Have Shaped the Process,” Ruth Chelagat

Second place: “Outside the Band of Brothers: Female Military Personnel and Sexual Assault,” Lori Goldman

Third place: “Japanese Culture and Fraud: What the Olympus Scandal Means,” Saaya Imai

Honorable mention: “The Death Penalty: A Multi-Level Analysis of Public Opinion,” Kyle Burgason and Lynn Pazzani

Expo to Feature Research from 160 Students

��Vlog��ý Little Rock — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:05:43 +0000

A near-record number of students is expected to participate in the Student Research and Creative Works Expo, set to begin at 9 a.m., Monday, April 15, in the Donaghey Student Center, Ledbetter meeting rooms A, B, and C. The expo offers both undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to showcase their research – scholarly and creative endeavors across all disciplines. The undergraduate expo will take place in the morning, with judging to begin at 9, and the graduate expo beginning at 1 p.m. A total of 160 students submitted works for judging, according to Dr. Andrew Drummond, chair of the expo. “That is just a remarkable amount,” he said. “The expo has grown every year as the committee works to make it even more inclusive. I think it has been a real success story on campus.” Drummond said the event operates with the philosophy that research, especially on the undergraduate side, “is a transformative thing.” Applicable activities will include, but are not limited to, senior theses, honors, independent study, course-related, and thesis and dissertation projects. They may be recently completed or ongoing, collaborative or individual. “We will have truly original research and creative works, ranging from black holes to nanostructures, from literature and poetry to technology and Twitter,” said Drummond. “It is always a great day of discovery.”

Students will receive awards in each of the categories at a separate event to be held at noon on Monday, April 22. Winners in appropriate categories of the undergraduate event will be nominated for Posters on the Hill, held April 23-24 and hosted by the Council on Undergraduate Research in Washington D.C.

The expo will also feature keynote speakers including Dr. D. Micah Hester, division chief of Biomedical Ethics and Philosophy at ��Vlog��ýMS, who will speak at 9 a.m. to kick off the undergraduate event.

Dr. Misty Stevens, operations director for InterveXion of Little Rock, will speak at 1 p.m. to kick off the graduate event.

The students will present their work using posters and are judged in several categories including how clear and novel their approach, how well they create perspective, and how apt they are at briefly “pitching” their work to convey what they are doing. “It’s a great day where everybody comes out to celebrate the work that’s being done on campus,” Drummond said. “We’ve become the premier event for showcasing research and creative works.”

Student to Present Research on Capitol Hill

��Vlog��ý Little Rock — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 20:35:40 +0000

Samuel Brown, a ��Vlog��ýLR student from Benton, has been selected as an award winner at this year’s “” competition for his innovative comparative interpretation of William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury.” This is the second consecutive year that a ��Vlog��ýLR student has been chosen for the competition. The 16th annual “Posters on the Hill” session on April 23 and 24 is sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research on Capitol Hill. The event is designed to help members of Congress understand the importance of undergraduate research by talking directly with students. There will be two student presentation sessions, a luncheon panel and poster session for arts and humanities students, and an evening poster session and reception for science and social sciences students. Brown, a graduate of Benton High School, will attend a luncheon with the Arkansas congressional delegation and will meet with key representatives of committees related to undergraduate research. Brown is majoring in English with a minor in secondary education and is in the final semester of his senior year. He became interested in William Faulkner while taking a “Faulkner and Hemingway” seminar offered through the William G. Cooper Jr. Honors Program in English. “After reading ‘The Sound and the Fury,’ I knew I wanted to work on that novel for my Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program project,” Brown said. “I like how this novel in particular keeps unfolding with each successive read, offering new insights into our American mythologies.” He will be accompanied to Washington by his faculty sponsor and mentor, Dr. James Levernier, professor of English. “Last year, an undergraduate in the history department was the first ��Vlog��ýLR student to receive this recognition and now an English major has won,” said Dr. Pat Pellicane, vice provost for research and dean of the graduate school. “I hope that this could become an annual occurrence.” ��Vlog��ýLR students conducting an undergraduate research project are eligible to apply for the annual competition. Applications and more information can be found at the .

��Vlog��ýLR’s Undergrad Research: Not Your Father’s Term Paper

��Vlog��ý Little Rock — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:12:57 +0000

Morgan Whitlow is still a year away from her a bachelor’s degree in biology, but she’s already working with fellow researchers at Arkansas’s medical school working on a method to attack deadly staph infections with atomic-size silver nanospheres. “My project is on silver nanoparticle synthesis. What I have done is modify silver nanospheres and by modifying one of the chemicals in the formula – a polymer –and increasing the amount of that chemical, I’ve gone from nanospheres to nanowires,” she said. So what can those particles do? “My silver nanoparticles are going to be used in collaboration with ��Vlog��ýMS and will be used with antibodies targeting staph bacteria,” she said. “The antibody will then dock with the bacteria, which will take in the silver nanoparticle which you can target with a laser, heating up the particles until they tear the bacteria apart, leaving the surrounding flesh unharmed. Dead bacteria; living flesh.” She explained her extraordinary project this week at ��Vlog��ýLR’s Undergraduate Research Expo that displayed to astounded passers by the intellectual depth these students are exploring. She and a ballroom full of undergrads stood by their displays explaining their research on Monday, April 26, Undergraduate Research Expo, an annual event where students from freshman to seniors show off their intellectual endeavors. Whitlow, a junior from Hot Springs majoring in biology, won third place in the category of Interdisciplinary Research. Second place went to speech communication student Amada Wells of Benton for her case study exploring the ups and downs of friendship between friends and how it changed over a period of time. Nursing students Jennifer Bowe and Joyce Diemer, both from Little Rock, won First Place in the category with their quantitative and qualitative research presenting the difference between late-preterm and term infants with respect to cost, risk factors, and common mordidities with the purpose of developing a standard set of care guidelines for these infants. “It is truly amazing the quality of intellectual ability these students are displaying,” said Dr. Patrick Pelicane, dean of ��Vlog��ýLR’s Graduate School and vice provost for research, said at the awards ceremony. “We’ve got some freshmen in the mix here.” The Expo showcases and encourages research by ��Vlog��ýLR undergraduates in all disciplines. Applicable research includes senior theses, honor projects, independent study projects, course projects, and more. The Expo provides a venue for students to exchange ideas in a professional setting. First, second, and third-place awards were awarded in each category: Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, Technology, Mathematics, Engineering, Physical Science, Life Sciences, and Interdisciplinary/Other. Top projects will be nominated for presentation in Washington, D.C., at the annual “Posters on the Hill” event organized by the Council on Undergraduate Research. For more information about the Expo, contact Dr. Dale Zacher, assistant professor in the School of Mass Communication at 501-569-3250 or dezacher@ualr.edu. Here is a full list of this year’s winners: Engineering: 1. “A Portable Solar Powered Beverage Cooler” by Eric Jackson of Conway, Engineering Technology. 2. “Development of Pediatric Nasal Airway Models for Evaluation of Inhalation Toxicology and Therapeutic Aerosol Delivery” by Robert Newcomb of Benton, Systems Engineering. 3. “A Photolitography technique for a Miro-Cantilever Beam” by Heather Keathley of North Little Rock, Systems Engineering. 4. Quickest Opportunity Detection in Cognitive Radio Systems by Sharonda Harmon of Little Rock, Computer Systems Engineering. Arts: 1. “A Historical and Iconographical Analysis of the Stele of Sheditef” by Rachel Golden of Little Rock, Art History and French. Humanities:

“Why Did the Trains Stop? The Suspension of Jewish Deportations from Slovakia During the Holocaust” by Anitra Van Prooyen of Jacksonville, History and Secondary Education.
“In Bluebird” by Sarita Perez of Little Rock, English.
“The Nootka Sound Crisis: British Motivation for Pursuing War with Spain” by Jessica Jent of Bismark, History.

Interdisciplinary:

“Little Babies with Big Needs” by Jennifer Bowe and Joyce Diemer, both of Little Rock, Nursing.
“The Ups and Downs of Friendships: A Case Study on Expectancy Violations Theory” by Amanda Wells of Benton, Speech Communication
“Controlled Morphology of Silver Nanostructures” by Morgan Whitlow of Hot Springs, Biology.
“Hip Surgery and the Effects on Recovery” by Donna Cook and Christian Fotso, both of North Little Rock, Nursing BSN.

Life Sciences:

“Nitric Oxide and Cytokines Relationship During Glycoconjugate-Treatment and Killing of Bacillus Spores” by Mohamed Lahiani of Little Rock, Life Sciences.
“Osh6p Transport Sterols to the Vacuolar Membrane for Longevity” by Richard Connor of Jacksonville, Biology.
“Detection of Inositol Polyphosphates by Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis: by Maroof Zafar of Little Rock, Biology and Molecular Biotechnology, and Rizan Mohsin, undeclared major.

Physical Sciences:

“Spectroscopic Characterization and Catalytic Oxidation Studies of a Fe Complex of Tetraamidomacrocyclic Ligand” by Anna M. Brezden of Little Rock, Chemistry.
“Characterization of Al-doped ZnO Thin-Films and Nanowires” by Shuja Rayaz of Little Rock, Physics.
“Computational Modeling of Materials for Use in Hydrogen Storage” by Jessica Bomer of Conway, Chemistry.

Social Sciences:

“The Link Between Video Games and Behavior Problems” by Andrew Moropoulos of Bryant, Psychology.
“The Effect of Hyperactivity on Math Scores” by Taylor Howard of Little Rock, Psychology.
Resiliency Training for the Workplace” by Melissa Amerman of Sherwood, Psychology.
“Mimetic Isomorphisms in Resource Procurement in Local AIDS Service Organizations” by Robbie Lester of Little Rock, Political Science.

Technology:

“Large Scale Graphene Systhesis by Radio Frequency Chemical Vapor Deposition” by Jimmy Shyaka of Little Rock, Systems Engineering.
Jean Luc Umwungeri of Little Rock, Systems Engineering.

Competition Showcases Undergrad Research

��Vlog��ý Little Rock — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:20:29 +0000

Applications are being accepted for the 2010 ��Vlog��ýLR Undergraduate Research Expo scheduled for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday, April 26, in the Donaghey Student Center’s Ledbetter Hall. Top projects will be nominated for presentation in Washington, D.C., at the annual “Posters on the Hill” event organized by the The expo showcases and encourages research and creative endeavors by ��Vlog��ýLR undergraduates in all disciplines. Applicable research includes senior theses, honors projects, independent study projects, and course projects. The research may be ongoing or recently completed and may be individual or collaborative. The expo is open to current ��Vlog��ýLR students and 2009 summer and fall bachelor degree graduates. Applications and regularly updated information about the expo can be found at the Undergraduate Research Expo website. Abstract submission deadline is Monday, March 29.

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