Previous Participants

SMART 2023

Ana Munoz Prelimbic contributions to individual differences in aversion-resistant alcohol drinking in rats  (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Joyce Besheer)

Daphnie Velasquez Garcia Impact of storage conditions on the extraction of accessible chromatin from archived tissues (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Samantha Pattenden)

Isabella Martinez Alvarez Investigating the effect of Wnt-3A on ​mutant β-catenin Endometrial Cancer cells in vitro  (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Russel Broaddus)

John Albright Targeted degradation of EZH2 leads to reduced tamoxifen resistance in ER-positive breast cancer  (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Greg Wang)

Joy Harrison Can ms-CBCT be used to improve image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT)?  (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Otto Zhou)

Justin Forbes Improving Resolution and Printability of Photo-Printable GelMA-based Resins with comonomers and Light Absorbers  (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Jillian Perry)

Kyle Park Investigating the role of DDX3X indriving early cardiac sex differences  (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Frank Conlon)

Lauren Burris Analysis of fixation conditions on the quantity and quality of accessible chromatin extracted from archived tissues  (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Samantha Pattenden)

Leandro Escandell The role of p53 pathway in nuclear proteasome localizationaculty Advisor- Dr. John Pacheco IV Morris)

Nabilah Zada The Extracellular Matrix of Benthic Cyanobacterial Mats  (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Sophie McCoy)

Omar Sohaib The Spontaneous Recovery Of Skilled Motor Functions Without A Primary Motor Cortex   (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Adam Hantman)

 

SMART 2022

Anabel Zaldivar-  Systemic inflammatory biomarkers and behaviors related to alcohol abuse  (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Charlotte Boettiger)

Karl-Julius MullerImmunocompetent mice with full hpv16 genome integration (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Natalia Isaeva)

Roxana Puig Vazquez–  Function of the parabrachial nucleus in regulating aversion to alcohol  (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Montserrat Navarro)

Tiffanie Lee- Determining the Histone Post-translational Modification Binding Specificities of ASH1L Histone Reader Domains (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Brian Strahl)

William Dennis–  PFAS toxicity and cancer cell proliferation (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Matthew Lockett)

Nicholas Toomer (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Samantha Pattenden )

Danielle Owens–  Alcohol Misuse: Motives and Consequences (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Charlotte Boettiger)

Jonathan WoodWood, Jonathan – PowerPoint[8] – Read-Only (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Kate Reissner)

Hamza Jahangir  (Faculty Advisor- Shannon Wallet)

Lindsay Watson- Stranger Things: Genetic Sensitivities to Alcohol (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Dr. Scott Parnell)

Hannah- Marie Santos–  Characterization of Human Immune Cell Development in a Next-Generation Humanized Mouse Model (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Dr. Angela Wahl)

Amaliya Brown Doyoyo- Construction and Characterization of Bordetella bronchiseptica Type III Secretion System Apparatus and Effector Mutants   (Faculty Advisor- Dr. Peggy Cotter)

SMART 2021

Adriana Gaona-  Evaluating the Association Between Prenatal Metal Exposure and DNA Methyaltion  (Faculty Advisor- Rebecca Fry)

Chavely Gonzalez-  TCF4 expression in the developing Macaque neocortex (Faculty Advisor- Ben Philpot)

Sarah Salvador- Expression of the Psychiatric Risk Gene TCF4 in the Developing Macaque Neocortex (Faculty Advisor- Ben Philpot)

David Parbel-   (Faculty Advisor- Hua Mei)

Oscar Lasserra- Amygdala activation during negative emotional experiences (Faculty Advisor- Kristen Lindquist)

Alexandra Fraiser- Testing the effects of Corin on chromatin accessibility in Ewing sarcoma (Faculty Advisor- Samantha Pattenden)

Indyya Harvey- Towards Early Detection of Diabetic Kidney Disease Using Contrast Enhanced Ultrasound Perfusion Parameters (Faculty Advisor- Paul Dayton)

Makuachukwu Okeke-   (Faculty Advisor- Charlotte Boettiger)

Wendy Showalter- Construction and Validation of Dimerization Dependent Fluorescent Probes to Visualize Lipid Droplet – Organelle Contacts (Faculty Advisor- Sarah Cohen)

Aisha Siddiqui- Sex Differences in CGRP Response in Lymphatic Endothelial Cells (LECs) (Faculty Advisor- Kathleen Caron)

Kelly Chong- Enhancing the efficacy of chimeric antigen receptor T cells in pancreatic cancer   (Faculty Advisor- Justin Milner)

Maryam Dheyaa- The Effect of Losing a Transcription Factor on Chromatin Remodeling Complexes  (Faculty Advisor- Jesse Raab)

Noah Dover- An Investigation of Nanocellulose/Chitosan-Based Injectable Hydrogels  (Faculty Advisor- Rahima Benhabbour)

Dan Tsuma- Variants that cause Hemophilia A and B- An Exploration through Hypothes.is​ (Faculty Advisor- Jonathan Berg)

Valentina Morales-  INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF MU OPIOID RECEPTOR IN CHX10-EXPRESSING NEURONS (Faculty Advisor- Greg Scherrer)

Ashley Aragon- EFFECT OF ADA2 SANT MUTATIONS ON H3 AND H4 HISTONE- TAIL BINDING (Faculty Advisor- Brian Strahl )

Eduardo de la Parra Polina- KYNURENINE METABOLISM INDUCES HIV LATENCY DISRUPTION AND ACSS2- ASSOCIATED HISTONE CROTONYLATION (Faculty Advisor- Guochun Jiang)

Dain Ruiz- A Proteomics Based Approach to Determine the Role of the Cardiac Neural Crest (Faculty Advisor- Frank Conlon)

 

SMART 2020

Clarisel Lozano- Effectiveness of different types of face masks: How it can potentially prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (Faculty Advisor- Laura Miller)

Colette Anikwue- Determining the Respiratory Activities Responsible for Disease Transmission (Faculty Advisor- Laura Miller)

Dominic Alba- Identifying Candidate Genes and Pathways Regulating Fibrinogen Expression (Faculty Advisor- Alisa Wolberg)

Yiru Zhou- Corin is a potential inhibitor of EWS-FLI1 activity in Ewing Sarcoma (Faculty Advisor- Samantha Pattenden)

Patrick Ma- Eye Tracking for People with ALS (Faculty Advisor- Gary Bishop)

Celena Case- A Comprehensive Investigation into the Pharmaceutical outcomes of Pharmacists Prescribed Hormonal Contraception (Faculty Advisor- Casey Tak)

Siddu Chowdary- (Faculty Advisor- Kimberley Robasky)

Jiayi Li-  Applying Machine Learning to Analyze Protein Distribution in Plant Cells (Faculty Advisor- Alan Jones)

Susan Pizzuti- Modeling Magnetic Field-Based Navigation in Sea Turtles (Faculty Advisor- Brian Taylor)

SMART 2019

Laurent Alfonso Azcona- Conditional deletion of Mcl-1 in GFAP+ cells leads to a Vanishing White Matter disease-like phenotype  (Faculty Advisor- Tim Gershon)

Maria Fonseca-SOX9 gain and loss of function models (Faculty Advisor- Adam Gracz)

Kate Giffin- No Food for Thought: Food insecurity, inflammation, and cognitive functioning (Faculty Advisor- Keely Muscatell)

Jon Harden- Allopregnanolone has the potential to alleviate the effects of cocaine sensitization and withdrawal  (Faculty Advisor- Donita Robinson)

Diego Martinez Castaneda- DETERMINING THE ROLE OF SOX9 IN THE BILE ACID-HIPPO SIGNALING PATHWAY IN THE LIVER (Faculty Advisor- Adam Gracz)

Kiyarash Saghaei- Homology needed for annealing (Faculty Advisor- Jeff Sekelsky)

Jorge Santana- Examining the incidence of Paternal Mitochondrial Inheritance in closely related populations of Tigriopus californicus  (Faculty Advisor- Chris Willet)

Alexis Voeller- Investigating Lung Peptide Libraries for Novel Regulators of Growth and Viability (Faculty Advisor- Robert Tarran)

 

SMART 2018

Leo Albertini- Characterization of differences in Aromatase expression and activity between 2D and 3D cultures of human mammary fibroblasts (Faculty Advisor- Matthew Lockett)

Ruby Abror- The effects of Nrf2 on combined smoke and inhalation injury (Faculty Advisor- Rob Maile)

Bolatito Babatunde- Enhancing chromatin extraction from FFPE tissue using nanodroplets (Faculty Advisor- Sam Pattenden)

Ange Barasebwa- Evaluating the effect of variable active site residues on autodephosphorylation kinetics (Faculty Advisor- Robert Bourret)

Selene Barbosa Cardenas- What genes are regulating cortical surface area overgrowth at an intelligence associated locus (Faculty Advisor- Jason Stein)

Nikita Billman-  Automatic recognition helps people with Rett syndrome (Faculty Advisor- Gary Bishop)

Tesia Bobrowski- Antibody responses to ZIKV invaginated challenge (Faculty Advisor- Helen Lazear)

Ryan Booth- Analysis of coiled-coil interaction strength on covalent bond formation in dynamic combination libraries (Faculty Advisor- Marcey Waters)

Celyn Bregio- Investigating the role of DNA methylation in HP1-mediated heterochromatin formation (Faculty Advisor-Nate Hathaway)

Izabella Castillo-Investigating RHS toxins from bacteria in the plant root microbiome (Faculty Advisor- Jeff Dangl))

Rob Chen- Generation of acoustic radiation forces via clinically relevant contrast enhanced ultrasound parameters (Faculty Advisor- Paul Dayton)

Guido Chiriboga- Identifying the individual effect of SETDB1 on H3K9m3 (Faculty Advisor-Nate Hathaway)

Tsion Coulter- Fake news: fact verification using the FEVER database (Faculty Advisor- Mohit Bansal)

Chad Covin- Predicting later cognitive development using early white matter structural bran connectome (Faculty Advisor- Martin Styner)

Miranda Diaz- Regulation of apoptotic mechanisms in SHH-type medulloblastoma precursor cells (Faculty Advisor- Tim Gershon)

Abigail Garcia-Baza- Effects of restraint stress and predator odor exposure on anziety and alcohol self-administration (Faculty Advisor- Joyce Besheer)

Edgar Gaspar-Ojeda- Small ankyrib 1.5 expression and correlation with metabolic parameters across the collaborative cross mouse collection (Faculty Advisor- Damaris Lorenzo)

Alexis Glaudin- Exploring the deep texture of G protein signaling (Faculty Advisor- Brian Roth)

Cadan Holden- A standard does of Influenza vaccine is sufficient to trigger influenza specific antibody production in patients with inflammatory bowel disease or rheumatic diseases (Faculty Advisor- Melinda Beck)

Precious Ojo- High throughput sonication of yeast (Faculty Advisor- Sam Pattenden)

Sofia Ouchou- Effect of adolescent binge ethanol exposure on cholinergic interneurons in the prefrontal cortex (Faculty Advisor- Donita Robinson)

Tamille Rhynes-  Investigating the time dynamcis of flg22 induced calcium signaling in Arabidopsis Thaliana (Faculty Advisor-Alan Jones)

Dennis Schimtzek- Testing the practicality of using MOF UiO-66 for CWA Decontamination (Faculty Advisor- Alfred Kleinhammes)

Angelina Sharak- Quality of RNA-seq in association with molecular subtype calling in pancreatic cancer (Faculty Advisor- Jen Jen Yeh)

Claire Thefaine- Assessment of V330L variant in Zika virus strains (Faculty Advisor- Helen Lazear)

Mark White- Validating the Cre/Lox in mouse models (Faculty Advisor- Todd THiele)

Amy Zhang-  Adolescent intermittent alcohol influences cognitive flexibility (Faculty Advisor- Donita Robinson)

 

SMART 2017

Nada Abu-Khalaf- EEG measures of word recognition during reading (Faculty Advisor- Peter Gordon)

Aidin Alejo- Understanding the effect of epigenetically relevant small molecules in iPSC generation (Faculty Advisor-Nate Hathaway)

Salam Alawadi- The effects of nicotine on alcohol seeking behavior (Faculty Advisor- Donita Robinson)

Liset Falcon- Biomechanical and functional characterization of ankyrin-B interaction with Ppp1r42  (Faculty Advisor- Damaris Lorenzo)

Ismael Gomez- Assessing biliary organoids along a hepatocyte lineage (Faculty Advisor- Adam Gracz)

Lauren Gullett- Fusionetics mobile devices application: a clinical device for detecting bio-mechanical errors may increase risk of lower extremity injury  (Faculty Advisor- Darin Padua)

Cassandra Kutay- Estimating abilities and intentionality in severely disabled children (Faculty Advisor- Gary Bishop)

Chelsey King- Use of nanodroplets to enhance sonication of yeast (Faculty Advisor- Sam Pattenden)

Sterlin Louis- Nicotine exposure increases dopamine release in teh Nucleus Accumbens (Faculty Advisor- Donita Robinson)

Victoria McDermott- Structure and viscoelastic properties of whole blood clots produced by RD1 kits (Faculty Advisor- Alisa Wolberg)

Madeleine Nieto- Controling protein activity with conformational switches  (Faculty Advisor- Nikolay Dokholyan)

Bryan Obika- Gene regulation modulated through chromatin acetylation (Faculty Advisor- Nate Hathaway)

Fechi Okeke- Realizing the power of wester blotting (Faculty Advisor- Brian Strahl)

Andres Santana- Compound discovery for chromatin accessibility as a therapeutic mean for Ewing sarcoma (Faculty Advisor- Sam Pattenden)

Dana Suleiman- D3 dopamine receptor anatgonist drug for targeting drug addiction and schizophrenia (Faculty Advisor- Kevin Frankowski)

Alex Tribo- Exploration of time-dependent arrestin2 recruitment to serotonin receptors (Faculty Advisor- Brian Roth)

Zhi-Wei Lin- 3 dimensional paper-based culture platform for screening endocrine disruptors in breast cancer model –  (Faculty Advisor- Matthew Lockett)

SMART 2016

Brittney Allyn- SNP at the G-protein signaling modulator-3 gene locus has a potential correlation abundance in immunce cells (Faculty Advisor – Teresa Tarrant)

John Atwater- Difference in head impact biomechanics of fundamental playing actions in high school football Faculty Advisor- Kevin Guskiewicz)

Changfeng Cheng- Chromodomain probe discovery (Faculty Advisor – Sam Pattenden)

Kyle Czarnecki- Investigating the potential nicotine use in adolescence as a gateway drug for alcohol abuse (Faculty Advisor – Donita Robinson)

Ashley Fromm- Using a suppressor screen to identify important residues of satS myobacteria (Faculty Advisor – Miriam Braunstein)

Corey Dearing- Construction of a gama ray pair spectrometer (Faculty Advisor – Christian Iliadis)

Manthi Dissanayake- Identification of tumors using chromatin signature (Faculty Advisor – Sam Pattenden)

Dylan Dutton- Outlier rejection with robust chauvenet rejection (Faculty Advisor – Dan Reichart)

Evan Gertis- IV Characteristics of P3MT Devices (Faculty Advisor – Frank Tsui)

Nicole Haragos- Identifying components affecting replication timing in Drosophila (Faculty Advisor – Sam Bob Duronio)

Savanna Ledford- Influenza caccine: time of day does not affect antibody response to influenza vaccination (Faculty Advisor – Melinda Beck)

Leeza Mason- The application of enhanced cavitation to enable chromatin extraction from archived tissues (Faculty Advisor – Sam Pattenden)

Victoria Miller- Switch access using the hierarchy pattern (Faculty Advisor – Gary Bishop)

Melodie Noel- The role of chromatin modifications in Xist silencing (Faculty Advisor – Sam Pattenden)

Calum O’Mara- Computer modeling systoles of flat tori (Faculty Advisor – Justin Sawon)

Jamie Rose- Bimetallic molecular photoelectrocatalysts for teh evolution of hydrogen from water (Faculty Advisor – Alexander Miller)

April Wang-  Activating gene expression through the use of bifunctional small molecules (Faculty Advisor – Nate Hathaway)

Ami Zou- Systolic geometry and 3d printing (Faculty Advisor – Justin Sawon)

 

SMART 2015

Michael Artov –Bar homeoboxgenes and their control in H-cell neural differentiation of Drosophila melanogaster (Faculty Advisor – Stephen Crews)

Suud Ashur – FFPE Sample Dissociation Using Nanodroplets (Faculty Advisor – Paul Dayton)

Alison Bonner – Abl Function in Dorsal Closure During Embryonic Development (Faculty Advisor – Mark Peifer)

Dana Elhertani – A Better Keyboard for People with Motor  Disabilities (Faculty Advisor – Gary Bishop)

Caroline Glezil – Developmental Timing Effect on Tumor Recurrence in Mouse Medulloblastoma Models (Faculty Advisor – Timothy Gershon)

Michael Harley – Humoral Response to Vaccination of Influenza Infected Subjects (Faculty Advisor – Melinda Beck)

Andrew Kennedy – Taste Receptor Expression and Calcium Signaling Optimization in Lung Cells (Faculty Advisor – Robert Tarran)

Stewart Kerr – Exploring Tunable Dynamic Catalysis using Alkali Metal Salts (Faculty Advisor – Alexander Miller)

Nicholas Larsen – Incorporating Time in Senatorial Cosponsorship Networks (Faculty Advisor – Peter Mucha)

Rachel Moon – Heterospecific Competition in Early Development Leads to Changes in Adult Morphology (Faculty Advisor – Karin Pfennig)

Hemali Oza – Identifying Presumptive Positive Colonies of Salmonella spp. In Raw Sewage, Reclaimed, and Surface Water Samples(Faculty Advisor – Mark Sobsey)

Austin Quimby – Optimization of DNA Fragmentation in an Ultrasonic Bath Using Nanodroplets (Faculty Advisor – Paul Dayton)

Charlie Ramsey-  Community Structure at Different Resolutions (Faculty Advisor- Peter Mucha)

Ashley Sapp – Dopamine Regulation of Mesolimbic Circuitry in Humans (Faculty Advisor- Charlotte Boettiger)

Natalie Schuster – Characterization and comparison of enteroid growth and differentiation in Matrigel and Collagen Type I. (Faculty Advisor – Scott Magness)

Parker Traugot – The Relationship Between Reaction Time and Head Impact Volume in High School Football Players (Faculty Advisor – Kevin Guskiewicz)

Aaron Zhong  Formation of Cyclopropane Ring from Biologically-sourced Sugar Derivatives under B(C6F5)3–R3SiH Catalysis (Faculty Advisor – Michael Gagne)

 

SMART 2014

Riyam Al Ghrary-  Determining which region of the 3’UTR of ADRA2A exhibits better binding to miR-34a and leads to severe pain (Faculty Advisor – Sarah Linnstaedt)

Winston Bell- Investigating btx expression in B. bronchiseptica mutant 224 (Faculty Advisor – Peggy Cotter)

Felicia Branch Felicia Branch Jim Faber Jennifer Luctiti Dce1 locus affects expression level of pathway genes linked to blood vessel formation in “C57BL/6-like” congenic mice

Cameron Congleton- Cassandra Hayne Optimizing the purification of Lmf1 (Faculty Advisor – Saskia Neher)

Aubrey Haboush- Reading the Histone Code: How colocalized domains on the reader protein BRPF3 affect binding (Faculty Advisor – Brian Strahl)

Dannie Hill- Only the hardened will survive: Heat stress resistance in Manduca sexta (Faculty Advisor – Joel Kingsolver)

Vishal Iyer- Identifying Regions of Open Chromatin Using ATAC-SEQ to Understand Gene Dysregulation in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (Faculty Advisor – Shehzad Sheikh)

Emily Lam-  Analyzing Effects of Increased Active Area on Organic Photovoltaic Devices (Faculty Advisor – Wie You)

Robert Lucci- Understanding the role of ADR1-L2 in mutagenized autoimmune Arabidopsis (Faculty Advisor – Jeff Dangl)

Hafsa Mohamud- Tumor Angiogenesis in High and Low-Collateral Congenic Mice (Faculty Advisor – Jim Faber)

Kimberly Nellenbach- Screening for Differential Gene Expression Levels Between High and Low Extent Collateral Formation at Causative Locus DCE1 (Faculty Advisor – Jim Faber)

Yaa Ofori-Marfoh- Evolutionary Conserved Traits of G-protein knockout plants (Faculty Advisor – Alan jones)

Sweta Petal- Development of Inhibition of Phospholipase C (Faculty Advisor – Qisheng Zhang)

Cameron Robinson- The Impact of Obesity and Vitamin D on Influenza Immune Response (Faculty Advisor – Melinda Beck)

Andy Ung- Jellyfish Group Formation Depending On Size (Faculty Advisor – Laura Miller)

Smrithi Valsaraj- Can Enteroids Be Used to Study Paneth Cells in a Way That Recapitulates the in Vivo System? (Faculty Advisor -Ajai Gulati)

Maria Williams- The Role of the Pericardium in the Circulatory System of the Juvenile Tunicate ­ A Computational Modeling Approach (Faculty Advisor – Laura Miller)

Brian Witherspoon- Assessing the Role of Prefrontal Dopamine through Catechol-O-Methyltransferase (COMT) Genotype and Substance Use Disorder History on Habit Learning and Behavioral Flexibility (Faculty Advisor -Charlotte Boettiger)

 

SMART 2013

Princess Avery- Effect of radiation therapy on neuron development in mice with mcl-1 deletion (Faculty Advisor- Tim Gershon)

Robert Barber- Characterizing diffuse large B-cell lymphomas by somatic hypermutation of the immunoglobulin heavy chain locus (Faculty Advisor- Kristy Richards)

Marlena Brokob- Detection of a Novel Host Specialist in Phi 6 Bacteriophage (Faculty Advisor- Christina Burch)

Thanh Bui- Constructing Drosophila strains to examine the relationship between TRPML1 and APMK/TORC1 (Faculty Advisor- Jay Brenman )

Andrew Cowan- Relationship Between Circular RNA and Short Interspersed Elements – SINEs (Faculty Advisor- Corbin Jones)

Brian Eglinger -GTPase correlation with the phosphorylation and hyperphosphorylation of Ent-5 (Faculty Advisor- Mara Duncan)

Mohammad Nassabzadeh- The Linear Analysis of the CBCT 3-D Images of Patients with Unilateral Cleft Lip and Palate (Faculty Advisor- Luiz Pimenta)

Virginia Perello- Food Allergy: Quantifying the IgE Decrease Using the ELISA Method During Oral Immunotherapy (OIT) (Faculty Advisor- Mike Kulis)

Lara Taylor- Pavlovian Conditioning with Ethanol: Effect of Naltrexone on Goal-Tracking and Sign-Tracking in Rats (Faculty Advisor- Donita Robinson)