34 Honors College students were selected to present original research at the 2021 National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR), April 12-14.

Students presented virtually in front of nearly 4,300 attendees, including faculty mentors and fellow undergraduates from various schools – both nationally and internationally. Sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate of Research (CUR), the annual event has been held on different campuses every year since 1987. Last year’s conference, scheduled for March 26-28 at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Honors students who applied and submitted abstracts to NCUR received an Enrichment Award from the Honors College that covered registration fees. Student’s research ranged in various topics including COVID-19 research, mental health, alcoholism, childhood obesity – among others.

Four students received awards for their research presentations, recognizing their outstanding scholarly work: Brian Nguyen & Destyni Cravens

Brian Nguyen (Mentor: Dr. Elizabeth Sztul)

Identifying the Role of the ARF Activators BIG1 and BIG2 in Regulating Endocytosis and Recycling – Sought to uncover the processes regulated by the BIG1 and BIG2 proteins and to describe the molecular events that are supported by BIG1 versus BIG2.

Destyni Cravens (Mentor: Dr. Sylvie Mrug)

Perceived Parental Support: Does Maternal Depression and Motherhood Roles Matter? – Examined the prospective relationships between maternal depression symptoms, perceptions of parenting roles, and later perceived parental support during adolescence using data from Waves 1–3 of the Birmingham Youth Violence Study (n = 387).

Seth Hubbard & Charlene Monsour
Seth Hubbard (Mentor: Dr. Alecia Gross Gutierrez)

Determination of the Role of Cofilin1 in Rod Photoreceptors – Demonstrated a role for nuclear distribution protein C [NUDC] in the development and maintenance of rod photoreceptors through transgenic shRNA knockdown of NudC in X. laevis tadpoles.

Charlene Mansour (Mentor: Dr. Denise Monti)

Probing the Genetic Diversity of Phages Infecting Arthrobacter globiformis – Sequenced and annotated the genomes of newly discovered A. globiformis phages and compares these genomes to those of other A. globiformis phages.

“For many years, taking our students to NCUR to celebrate their success and to see them interact with other students as future colleagues has been one of the great joys for us in the Honors College,” said Dr. Kristine Hurst-Wajszczuk, associate dean of the Honors College. “Indeed, it is one of Dean Blanton’s favorite professional development events for our students. Last year would have been the first time I would have joined our students, and of course, it was a great disappointment for all of us when it was canceled entirely. This year, though, it existed in an online form for the first time, as did many professional conferences. I applaud our students for the tenacity they showed when they applied during a pandemic, their ability to pivot by creating online poster presentations, and for developing new online presentation skills that will surely continue to serve them in a post-pandemic world. We are proud of you all!”

Additional students who presented research at NCUR include:

• Raegan Adams

Characterization of a Novel Model for Rotational Acceleration-induced Traumatic Brain Injury

• Rose Albert

Structural Changes during Desmosome Assembly and Maturation

• Emma Andraka

Assessment of Autophagic Flux in HIV-associated Neurocognitive Decline with Respect to Antiretroviral Therapy

• Shreya Dhutia

Effects of a Discussion-based, Extracurricular Diversity Program on Explicit and Implicit Biases in Pre-Health Undergraduate Students

• Ryleigh Fleming

Breaking the Barriers of Traditional Service Learning in a Pandemic with E Service-Learning: Impacts of a COVID-19 Module in a Non-Majors Biology Course

• Dhruval Gadhia

PET/CT Image Analysis of an Animal Model of Induced Lung Fibrosis

• Emily Gaines

Use of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing for generation of mutant yeast for PTC readthrough

• Michael Ho

Chronic Pain and Hazardous Alcohol Consumption Are Associated with Mitochondrial DNA Damage in People Living with HIV

• Tharon Holdsworth

Reversing the Direction of Heat Through a Pair of Quantum Entangled Qubits

• Bethaney Jackson

Depressive Symptoms Help Explain the Relationship Between Experiences of Discrimination and Insomnia Symptoms

• Luke Jaskowski

Synthesis of Cubical and Star-shaped Calcium Carbonate Microparticles and Their Effect on Nile Blue Dye Loading

• Sindhu Komaragiri

Characterization of the In Vivo Effects of Alpha-Synuclein Preformed Fibrils on Mouse Brain Mitochondria

• Eleanor Lee

Decreased White Matter Tract Integrity, Functional Connectivity, and Executive Functioning in a Long-Term Survivor of Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

• Vaishnavi Mantraratnam

The Effect of X-Rays on Drosophila Melanogaster Behavior

• Anveetha Matta

Effects of Decreased PFKP Levels in Schizophrenia Subjects

• Megan McGraw

Assessment of Autophagic Flux in HIV-associated Neurocognitive Decline with Respect to Antiretroviral Therapy

• Jacob Mesina

Tau-SH3 Interactions Are Critical for Amyloid-β Toxicity in Primary Neurons

• Raina Modi

Effect of Sleep and Impulsivity on Teen Driver Errors and Violations

• Alexis Murawski

Characterization of a “Mild” Neurofibromatosis Type 1 Patient Mutation p.M992del in Knock-In Mouse Model

• Anish Myneni

Role of Novel Human Antigen R inhibitor in neuroinflammation

• Cindy Nguyen

Epigenetic Effects of Exercise in a Rodent Model of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

• Olivia Oh

Inflammation as a Mediator of Pediatric Obesity and Language and Memory

• Dipal Patel

How Does the Size and Sector of a Firm Affect the Female and Minority Representation in the C-Suite?

• Raksha Ramdas

Pharmacologic inhibition of LIMK1 provides dendritic spine resilience against β-amyloid

• Amlitha Ramesh

The effects of ITGAM genetic variation on double negative cells

• Karthik Reddy

(1) Differences in Subjective and Objective Assessment of Working Memory in Pediatric Survivors of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

(2) Meta-analysis of sgRNA Efficiency in Mouse and Rat Gene Manipulation Studies

• Natalie Saliba

Social and Motor Deficits Associated with Deletion of Type-1 Dopamine Receptors in Cerebellar Bergmann Glial Cells

• Samarth Sharma

Focus on Silver Lining during Pandemic

• Saikrishna Sriraman

Identifying the most efficient and accurate eye tracking method to model saccades

• Sydney Whitt

Attentional Processing and Visual Scanning During Distracted Driving Among Newly Licensed Adolescents

For more information about NCUR, visit https://www.cur.org/what/events/students/ncur/.