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Research Day

Research Day

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Undergraduate Research Day 2026 | Friday, April 24 | Noon to 5 p.m. | Braniff Hall

An exciting interdisciplinary showcase of the work of UD undergraduates, the annual Research Day event features presentations by students of their research, scholarly investigation, theses and projects. Awards will be given for best presentations. 

Provisional Schedule


12:00 - 2:00 | Oral Presentation Session #1

12:00  Patrick Ignatius Deavel, “From Armalite to Ballot Box: The 1980-1981 IRA and INLA Hunger Strikes, the International Republican Propaganda War and the Road to Political Legitimacy” 
12:10 Isabella Epperson, “This Means You! : How Art Addresses the Viewer in Gadamer’s Hermeneutics” 
12:20  Mark Taylor, “The Great Purpose(s) of the Greco-Persian Wars: Taking a Deeper Look into the Early Achaemenid Regime” 
12:30   Albert Parmenter, “Direct Measurement of Zirconium-88Neutron Capture at CERN n_TOF” 
12:40   Juan Diaz (co-authors Peter Warner, Keira Devlin, and Abdallah Elnwasany), “Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Deficiency Disorder: Therapeutic Potential Through Metabolic  Intervention” 
12:50  Allison Peterman, "'The Real is Never Beautiful': The Aesthetic of Freedom and the Unreality of Purposive Beauty in Sartre
1:00 Josephine Haeuser, "The Republic or the Eternal Kingdom:  Religion and Civic Identity among the Litchfield Female Academy Students in the Early Republic"
1:10 Jude Frank, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Wilbur” 
1:20  Isabel Prieto, “Investigating Bathypathes in the Johnston Atoll” 
1:30  Alexander Sinitiere, “The Meaning of Multiplicity: Narrative, Suffering, and the Creation of the World" 
1:40  Patricia Blume, “Continuity Within Tolstoy’s Fiction And Nonfiction: The Cry For A Moral Revolution”  
1:50  Katherine Kelsch, “The Communication of Science through the Principles of Art” 

12:00 - 2:00 p.m. | Poster Presentation Session #1

  1. Sara Cantu, “What do you see? A Phenomenological Investigation of Being Racially Devalued”  
  2. Chang Shu-Lun, “Transformed Being-in-the-World: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Experience of Seeing Yourself Differently” 
  3. Guy LaMorgese, “A Novel Chronic Infection Model For Host-Pathogen Coevolution”  
  4. Anabel Clune, “Vice and Virtue in El Periquillo Sarniento”  
  5. Anita Kudakkasseril, “‘I See the Light’: A Phenomenological Exploration of the Experience of Being Genuine”  
  6. Antonio Mestanza, “Integrative Bioinformatics and Structural Analysis of T-Cell Receptors in COVID-19 Immunotherapy” 
  7. Jacob Nalagan (coauthors Zach Muscha, Michael Sanders, Dr. Peter McDonough), ”Study on Actuator Types Within TREETOPS: A Multibody Dynamical Simulation” 
  8. Thomas Anders, "Outfiting a New Digital Data Acquisition System for the University of Kentucky Accelerator Laboratory" 
  9. Dominic Villalobos, “Neutron Activation and Gamma Spectroscopy “  
  10. Kiera Devlin (coauthors Claire Vader, Michelle Fung),  “The Effect of High Dietary Fat on the Heart’s Metabolism”  
  11. Luke Robbins, "Economic Institutions and Recidivism: Evidence from U.S. States" 
  12. Mark Mora, “Computational Investigation of Aryne Boron Compounds”  
  13. Deirdre Holmes “I Am An Adult: Authorship of Your Life in College“  
  14. Sara Ame, “Turned Away by Creation, Faced with My Creator”  
  15. Patrick Kilcullen, “Casinos' Impact on Educational Attainment”  


2:00 - 3:00 p.m. | Oral Presentation Session #2


2:00pm Elizabeth Grant, "Chevalier: Virtue and Ignatian Spirituality in Gerard Manley Hopkins's The Windhover"
2:10 pm Lucy Gallagher, “The Journey Between Two Worlds: An Examination of Naomi Iizuka's Polaroid Stories through T. S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land'"
2:20pm Leah Lopez, “Standing Word“  
2:30pm Natalie Wilson, “The Festival in Gadamer's ‘Relevance of the Beautiful’”  
2:40pm Elena Romero, “The Hidden Erasmist / El erasmista oculta” 
2:50 p.m. Elizabeth Jacoby, “Detecting Gamma Radiation from Neutron Capture on Zirconium-88”

2:00 - 4:00 p.m. | Poster Presentation Session #2

15. Lauren Raab (coauthor Grace Hoang) , “Optimization of Reductive Amination: Under Green Chemistry Principles”  
16. Andrea Zavaleta-Vega, “Silver-Decorated ZnO Photocatalysts for UV-Driven Degradation of Ciprofloxacin and Tetracycline in Aqueous Systems” 
17. Joseph Nelson (co-authors Weinan Tan, Jonathan Dannatt, Prajay Patel,  Xin Cui), “Ruthenium-catalyzed enantioselective synthesis of tetrahydroisoquinoline derivatives with computational insight”  
18. Miriam Klassen  (co-authors Riju Robin, Theresa Golden, Ellen Steinmiller), “Preliminary Electroanalytical Detection of Heavy Metal Ions”  
19. Magdalena Fait, “Where You Live, How You Feel. A Study of Student Belonging” 
20. Emery Swank, “Impact of the Texas Public Education Grant on STAAR Performance in Texas Public Schools”  
21. Maya Prochnow, “Is Gratitude Enough? The Hidden Role of Religious Commitment in Generating Meaning in Life”  
22. Blaise Williams, “Comparison of Computational and Experimental Datasets in a Multimodal Machine Learning Framework Determining Hammett Sigma Constants” 
23. Elyse Scheller, “Does the SAT prepare you for Aristotle?: An Empirical Study of the Importance of Standardized Test Scores in Determining Admission and Success at UD”  
24. Nicholas Cannon, “Antioxidants as a Potential Therapeutic Approach for Cardiovascular Disease Induced by High Dietary Fat”  
25. Cecilia Dieffenthaller (coauthors Taylor Harville, Cong Liu, Prajay Patel), “Determining the spectroscopic effects of ligand-supported 4d and 5d transition metal clusters: A computational approach”  
26. Jorge (Alex) Lopez, “Using Completion Time on a Forced Choice Trial of the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test - Revised (HVLT-R) to Measure Engagement in a Mixed Clinical Sample”  
27. Matthew Petroff, “Utilizing Efficient and Accurate Computational Methods to Determine pKa”  
28. Margaret Watson, “Characterization of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Utilization and Degradation of Hydrocarbon Sources”  
29. Mila Meloche, “Loss of the beta-alanine transporter *BalaT* enhances low-threshold mechanosensation and reduces high-threshold nociceptive sensitivity in *Drosophila* larvae” 

3:00 - 4:00 p.m. | Oral Presentation Session #3


3:00pm Theo Nguyen, “Elevated mitochondrial metabolism in Down syndrome iPSCs reduces  commitment to neuroectoderm”  
3:10pm Brandon Saguil, “Transfer Learning for Transporter Protein Identification in Sorghum bicolor” 
3:20pm Noemi Del Campo, “Immunofluorescent Analysis of Microglia and Astrocytes in Plcg2 Variant Mice in the LOAD2 background”  
3:30pm  Bethany Kaufman, “Memory Eternal: Why the Dead Crave the Grave”  
3:40pm Maria Cordero, “Coral Reef after Microfragmentation”  
3:50pm Joe Teson,  “No Graceless Arguments: the Apologetics of St. Thomas Aquinas and the First Vatican Council”  

4:20 p.m. | Reception and Concluding Remarks

First Place, Oral Presentation: Ethan Reyes, “SWEET Pea: Functional Characterization of SWEET1 and SWEET10 Sugar Transporters in Pisum sativum”
Second Place, Oral Presentation: Antonio Rame, “Coevolution of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Drosophila melanogaster via a Chronic Oral Infection Model”  
Third Place, Oral Presentation: Larissa Tuttle, “Prude or Prophet?: Towards a Rehabilitation of Shame in Catholic Thought and Sacraments”
Honorable Mention, Oral Presentation: Thérèse Castillo, “Conversations at the Table: The Catholic Approach to Gender and Sexuality”

First Place, Poster Presentation: Anna Karki,  “Effects of Ketogenic Diet on the Heart Metabolism”
Second Place, Poster Presentation: Maryam Zeaa, “Synthesis of Kobayashi Precursors and Exploration of Aryne Insertions into Trimethyl Borate”
Third Place, Poster Presentation: Isabel Prieto, “Investigating the Growth and Distribution of Bathypathes in the Pacific Remote Islands”
Honorable Mention, Poster Presentation: Peter Warner, “CoASH plays a Key Role in Insulin-Dependent Activation of Pyruvate Dehydrogenase in the Heart”
Honorable Mention, Poster Presentation: Alecia Paul, “The Slow but Steady RuBisCO: Utilizing a Recombinant RuBisCO to Inform Optimization"

12:00 - 1:20 p.m. | Oral Presentation Session #1 

12:00 p.m. Luis Fernando Fuentes, “Is Philosophy Useless?”  
12:10 p.m. Emma Wells,  “St Elizabeth Ann Seton: Life and Conversion”
12:20 p.m. Ricardo Avila Sanchez, “Characterizing the T-Cell receptor 𝛃 Repertoire of ARDS Using Immune Sequencing”
12:30 p.m. Jennifer Schmalz, “Investigating male pregnancy in Gulf Pipefish using scanning electron microscopy to describe the anatomy of the brood pouch over the reproductive cycle”
12:40 p.m. Binoya Bhatt, “Inferior Genes: Women of Color and the Question of Beauty”
12:50 p.m. Max Hastreiter, “The Pursuit of Meaning: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Experience of Meaning”
1:00 p.m. Grace Bilnoski,  “Doña Inés as an Angel: An Exploration of Women's Empowerment in Catholic Doctrine and Don Juan Tenorio (1844) by José Zorrilla”
1:10 p.m. Theodore Nguyen, “Enzymatic Degradation of Jet Fuel Hydrocarbons by Pseudomonas aeruginosa”


Noon - 2:00 p.m. | Poster Presentation Session #1 

    1. Madison Meduna, “Optimizing and Tailoring Machine Learning Models to Predict pKa”
    2. Nathaniel del Puerto, “Biomolecular Modeling of Immune Sequences to Uncover Genomic Patterns in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome"
    3. Maryam Zeaa, “Synthesis of Kobayashi Precursors and Exploration of Aryne Insertions into Trimethyl Borate”
    4. Sara Cantu, “The Relationship between Attitude Towards Physical Activity, Academic Success, Life Satisfaction, Depression and Anxiety”
    5. Karli Puri,  “Artificial Intelligence Analysis of Cellular Viability and Size in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome”
    6. Thomas Raglow, “Recovery of the Flower Mound, an Urban Prairie Ecosystem, following a Fire Disturbance”
    7. Rebecca Leonard, “Do you See Me? A Phenomenological Study of the Experience of Being Seen”
    8. Alecia Paul, “The Slow but Steady RuBisCO: Utilizing a Recombinant RuBisCO to Inform Optimization”
    9. Brooke McCall,  “Alone Together: A Correlation Study on Social Media, Loneliness and Life Satisfaction”
    10. Sophia Hormillosa, “Total Eclipse of the Heart: A Phenomenologically-Inspired Reflexive Thematic Analysis of the Experience of Trauma”
    11. Lizeth Leyva,  “Valvatida Sea Stars in the Deep Pacific: Abundance and Environmental Relationships” 

2:00 - 3:00 p.m. | Oral Presentation Session #2  

2:00 p.m. Antonio Rame, “Coevolution of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Drosophila melanogaster via a Chronic Oral Infection Model”  
2:10 p.m. Ethan Reyes, “SWEET Pea: Functional Characterization of SWEET1 and SWEET10 Sugar Transporters in Pisum sativum”
2:20 p.m. Nadia Guerrero, “ SWEET Pea: Investigating the Roles of SWEET1 and SWEET10 Sugar Transporters in Pisum sativum"
2:30 p.m. Heidi Hughes, “The Sustenance of Selfhood: Dickinson’s Renunciative Poetic as Agentive Subjecthood”
2:40 p.m. Thérèse Castillo, “Conversations at the Table: The Catholic Approach to Gender and Sexuality”
2:50 p.m. Mary Anne Panganiban, Sarah Dilley, Gala Gutirrez, and Saraih Mendoza, “Streaming with Purpose: How Netflix Can Transform Social Interaction into Competitive Advantage”


2:00 - 4:00 p.m. | Poster Presentation Session #2  

12. Nolia Alexander, “Decoding College Success: Exploring The Relationship Between GPA, Learning Style, Major, and Anxiety”
13. Kathleen George, “Mechanistic Studies of Asymmetric Side-Capped Double Decker Silsesquioxane Synthesis”  
14. Noemi Del Campo,  “Coevolution of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Drosophila melanogaster in a Chronic Infection Model and Investigation of the Red Queen Hypothesis”
15. Sara Ame, “Racial Disparities in Social Status: Students' Loneliness, Social Anxiety, Self-Esteem, and Belonging”
16. Peter Warner, “CoASH plays a Key Role in Insulin-Dependent Activation of Pyruvate Dehydrogenase in the Heart”
17. Anna Karki,  “Effects of Ketogenic Diet on the Heart Metabolism”  
18. Kimberly Burch, “The Effect of Casinos on Family Time”   
19. Maximo Mengelle, “Being Authentic”
20. Michael Christov, “Social Media Addiction and its Relationship to Loneliness and Life Satisfaction”
21. Isabel Prieto, “Investigating the Growth and Distribution of Bathypathes in the Pacific Remote Islands”


3:00 - 4:00 p.m. | Oral Presentation Session #3 

3:00 p.m.  Patricio Martinez Rodriguez, “Self Help in Colonias: Communities Address the Failures of State Policy”  
3:10 p.m. Lucas Rodriguez, “Algorithmic randomness in harmonic analysis”  
3:20 p.m. Larissa Tuttle, “Prude or Prophet?: Towards a Rehabilitation of Shame in Catholic Thought and Sacraments”
3:30 p.m. Charles Dea, “Bots, Bandits, and Backgammon Graphics Engine”
3:40 p.m. Maria Cordero, “Coral Growth After Microfragmentation”  
3:50 p.m. Sharanya Palit, “Searching for Exoplanets in Various Star Systems”

4:15 p.m. | Reception and Concluding Remarks

2025 Research Day Gallery

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Previous Winners

2024 Research Day

First Place, Oral Presentation: Joann Nguyen
Second Place, Oral Presentation: Abigail Fritz
Third Place, Oral Presentation: Monique Bedolla

First Place Poster Presentation: Antonio Rame
Second Place Poster Presentation (tie): Kathleen George,  Nathan Pham
Third Place, Poster Presentation: Kate Sullivan
Honorable Mention, Poster Presentation  : Farah Atatrah, Hannah Mohr, Luisa De Vuono, Michael Pecha

2023 Research Day

Best Oral Presentation: Emma Bergman

 

 

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