ATLANTA— The 14th annual Georgia State Undergraduate Research Conference drew more than 180 student presentations despite moving to a virtual format in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The conference, known as GSURC, allows undergraduates of all majors and from all Georgia State and Perimeter campuses to showcase their work as scientific posters, oral presentations, artistic and film displays, and musical performances. Faculty judges evaluate and score each project to determine award winners based on presentation type and category. This year, because the event could not take place live, students were allowed to record and upload their performances to a special website.
"The GSURC Faculty Advisory Board would like to thank everyone involved in the virtual conference from the student presenters who rose to the challenge of creating high quality presentations under difficult circumstances to the faculty judges who took time out of their busy schedules to evaluate presentations," said Amy Reber, Honors College Faculty Associate for GSURC and a senior lecturer in the College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Biology. "The virtual conference was a success because of the strong support of undergraduate research by the entire Georgia State community."
The winners of GSURC 2020 are:
Artistic Displays:
- First place: “Tender Rage”
Adela Lopez
Art Education
Faculty sponsor: Kevin Hsieh - Second place: “Embrace no. 2”
Miranda Creagan
Sculpture
Faculty sponsor: Christina West - Third place (tie): “The Faces of Beauty”
Amanda Whitaker
Textile
Faculty sponsor: Jess Jones
“Self Portrait Series”
Eniola Fakile
Photography
Faculty sponsor: Jill Frank
Film Displays:
- First place: “Black Mirror”
Kia Pooler
Faculty sponsor: Alessandra Raengo - Second place: “City Harvest: A Growing Community”
Petra Goettel
Faculty sponsor: Aggie Bazaz
Musical Performances:
- First place (tie): “Evolution of Cello Playing in the 20th Century”
Charlotte Dennison
Music Education
Faculty sponsor: Tania Maxwell Clements
“La Guitarra: Flamenco Composition and Performance Techniques”
Brandon Smith
Music Composition
Faculty sponsor: Hanna Lisa Stefansson
Oral Presentations
- First place in Fine Arts & Humanities: “Impact Earth: The Tragedy of Earth in John Milton’s Paradise Lost”
Jami Johnson
English
Faculty sponsor: Stephen Dobranski - Second place in Fine Arts & Humanities: “Art and Assumptions for Global Eyes: The Development & Legacy of Political Propaganda Art in Latin America during WWII”
Paige Hedges
Art History
Faculty sponsor: Jennifer Siegler
- First place in Natural & Computational Sciences: “TRPA1 mediates cold nociception in Drosophila melanogaster larvae”
Mariana Holguin-Lopez, Jamin Letcher, Nathaniel J. Himmel, Akira Sakurai, Daniel Cox
Neuroscience
Faculty sponsor: Daniel Cox - Second place in Natural & Computational Sciences: “Increased White Matter in Children with Developmental Dyslexia After 70-Hour Reading Intervention”
Adriene Davis, C. Nikki Arrington, Ryan Slaby, Robin Morris
Neuroscience
Faculty sponsor: Robin Morris
- First place in Social & Behavioral Sciences AND Provost Award: “I Wear Makeup for Me: Interpreting and Internalizing Feminist Makeup Narratives”
Savannah Setter
Anthropology
Faculty sponsor: Faidra Papavasiliou - Second place in Social & Behavioral Sciences: “Double Standards? Approval Ratings of Male and Female Prime Ministers During National Security Crises”
Kelsi Quick
Political Science
Faculty sponsor: Ryan Carlin
Poster Presentations
- First place in Fine Arts & Humanities: “Is there a relationship between the repertoire selection criteria of high school band directors and the demographics of their students?”
Rachel Odendahl
Music Education
Faculty sponsor: Martin Norgaard - Second place in Fine Arts & Humanities: “Mathematical Patterns in Nzakara Harp Music”
Ian Hardemon, Music Composition
Max Calderon, Mathematics
Faculty sponsor: Mariana Montiel
- First place in Natural & Computational Sciences AND Provost Award: “Culturing Coral’s Symbiotic Algae”
Kennex Lam, Chiara Brust, Asma Khimani, Taylor Ramos
Biology
Faculty sponsor: Matthew Brewer - Second place in Natural & Computational Sciences: “Neonatal Knock-Down of Tet Enzymes Prevents Masculinization of the Mouse Hypothalamus”
Ilona Goylnker
Neuroscience
Faculty sponsor: Nancy Forger
- First place in Social & Behavioral Sciences: “Speech intelligibility and acceptability of dysarthric speech in African-American English and Mainstream American English dialects”
Caitlin Ray
Human Learning Development
Faculty sponsor: Jacqueline Laures Gore - Second place in Social & Behavioral Sciences: “Confronting Campus Conflict: A Campus Survey Project on Interpersonal Conflict”
Payton Prokes, Political Science
Julia Jaramillo, Public Health
Faculty sponsor: Birthe Reimers
Outstanding Climate Project Award
This is a new award, sponsored by the Georgia Climate Project, that recognizes an outstanding presentation related to the study of past, present or future climate, related phenomena of the natural world and all aspects of humanity’s relationship to climate at a personal, local or global scale.
- Winner: “Synbiodinium: A Synthetic Biology Approach to Coral Bleaching”
Rehmat Babar, Zexi “Alun” Guo, Zeshi “Curry” Wang, Taylor Sperry, Yilin “Louis” Lu, Jiayi “Jayee” Lan and Jiansong “Jayce” Huang
Biology
Faculty sponsor: Matthew Brewer - Honorable Mention: “Stormwater Runoff Quality from Green Roofs in Atlanta, Georgia”
Scout Morgan
Geosciences
Faculty sponsor: Sarah Ledford
Global Engagement Award
This is a new award, sponsored by the Office of International Initiatives, that recognizes outstanding presentations on research or creative work addressing global or international issues.
- First place: “Double Standards? Approval Ratings of Male and Female Prime Ministers During National Security Crises”
Kelsi Quick
Political Science
Faculty sponsor: Ryan Carlin - Second place: “Art and Assumptions for Global Eyes: The Development & Legacy of Political Propaganda Art in Latin America during WWII”
Paige Hedges
Art History
Faculty sponsor: Jennifer Siegler - Third place: “Tender Rage”
Adela Lopez
Art Education
Faculty sponsor: Kevin Hsieh
Several undergraduate presenters also won the Sustainability Award, presented by the university’s Office of Sustainability for research focused on environmental protection and ecological problem-solving.
- Rehmat Babar, Zexi “Alun” Guo, Zeshi “Curry” Wang, Taylor Sperry, Yilin “Louis” Lu, Jiayi “Jayee” Lan and Jiansong “Jayce” Huang, Biology, Poster Presentation, “Synbiodinium: A Synthetic Biology Approach to Coral Bleaching”
- Sarah Chin, Textiles, Artistic Display, “View Finder”
- Danielle Davis, Biology, Poster Presentation, “How desiccation tolerance affects fitness of Amborella trichopoda seeds for storage in liquid nitrogen using microCT scans”
- Petra Goettel, Film & Media, Film Display, “City Harvest: A Growing Community”
- Andrea Green, Engineering, and Erica Brown, Chemistry, Poster Presentation, “Comparing the Efficacy of Commercial Water Filters with Homemade Filters using Atomic Emission Spectroscopy”
- Chazz Jordan, Biology, Oral Presentation, “Uncovering Phylogenetic Relationships within the Euglossine Bee Pollinated Orchid Genus, Stanhopea”
- Scout Morgan, Geosciences, Poster Presentation, “Stormwater Runoff Quality from Green Roofs in Atlanta, Georgia”
GSURC 2020 was hosted by the Honors College at Georgia State and co-sponsored by the university’s Center for the Advancement of Students and Alumni and its Initiative for Maximizing Student Development.