Academics

Undergraduate Exhibition 2020 award winners announced

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Thirty-eight students were recognized for their outstanding research and performances during this year’s Undergraduate Exhibition. Nearly 200 students competed in the all-virtual exhibition, representing 11 Penn State campuses.

The Undergraduate Exhibition features categories and presentation types for students from all academic disciplines — from sciences to the performing arts—as well as separate presentations about student engagement experiences. Each year applications for the mid-April Exhibition typically open in January and close in late March. Students from all campuses are welcome to apply, and travel funds are available to students who qualify.

This year, most students were reviewed by four judges, and it was a record year for judge participation. The University Libraries also awarded The John Sr. and Kimlyn Patishnock Undergraduate Research Award: Excellence in Information Literacy.

This year’s winners

Gerard A. Hauser Award

  • Erin Doolin, College of the Liberal Arts — "Female Judges Sentence Harsher Than Male Judges in Sex Offense Cases"

Arts and Humanities

First Place
  • John Gurklis, College of the Liberal Arts — "Heritage Management at Khan al-Umdan in Acre (Akko), Israel: An Unsolvable 'Wicked' Problem?"
Second Place
  • Elise Schaffer, Penn State Lehigh Valley — "Access and Adaptations in Public Art Destinations"

Engineering

First Place
  • Nate Osikowicz, College of Engineering — "Optimal Dexterity for Tensegrity Robotic Arm"
Second Place
  • Karim Barsom, College of Engineering — "Assessing the Challenges of 3D Printing Barium Titanate"
Third Place
  • Jay Sim, College of Engineering — "Reinventing Foundry in a Box for the 21st Century"

Health and Life Science

First Place
  • Piper Jones, Eberly College of Science — "Methacholine Induces an Acute Inflammatory Response in a Mouse Model of Adolescent Asthma"
Second Place
  • Amy Kovaleski, College of Engineering — "Potential use of biocontrol Trichoderma spp. metabolites to control growth and aflatoxin production in A. parasiticus"
Third Place
  • Courtney Page, College of Agricultural Sciences — "Investigation into the regulation of [1, 25(OH)2D3] by CPY24A1 and the impact on T cell proliferation"

Physical Sciences

First Place
  • Zhuolai Pan, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences — "Dynamics of supraglacial lake drainage on Amery ice shelf, East Antarctica"
Second Place
  • Mollie Comella, Eberly College of Science — "Direct Amplification of Mosquito Blood Meals in Human Identification"
Third Place
  • Nicholas Litak, Eberly College of Science — "Ligand-gold core interactions control the electronic structure in gold nanoparticles"

Social and Behavioral Sciences

First Place
  • Abigail Luke, College of the Liberal Arts — "When Non-Conformity Trumps Partisanship"
Second Place
  • Shelby Conkling, Samantha Conway, Adrienne Pauline, Penn State Behrend — "The Effect of Essential Oil in Memory Retention"
Third Place
  • Sara Bickhart, College of Health and Human Development — "Women Are Not More Likely to Receive Suggestion to Cease Driving"

Oral Presentation and Performance

First Place
  • Tatiana McAnulty, Eberly College of Science — "Discovery of Novel Chemotherapeutic Agents Using a Pediatric Glioma Model"
Second Place
  • Andrea Regalbuto, Penn State Altoona — "Senior Exhibition: Flap/Flutter"
Third Place
  • Alex Modrzecki, College of the Liberal Arts — "Relationship Between Bicycle Friendliness and Other Sustainability Practices On A College Campus"

Engagement

First Place
  • Alex Grosek, Pranav Gupta, Valentina Marotti, Natalie Sanchez, Daniel Shoemaker, Jack Ziegler, Smeal College of Business — "Commercialization Study for Penn State Inventions"
Second Place
  • Andrew Garrett, Smeal College of Business — "Commercialization Study for Penn State Inventions"
Third Place
  • Jessica Wunderley, Smeal College of Business — "Commercialization Study for Penn State Inventions"

University Fellowships and Phi Kappa Phi Peter T. Luckie Awards for Outstanding Juniors

Arts and Humanities
  • Tucker Johnson, College of Arts and Architecture — "A Presence Within Reassembly: Rebuilding an Instrument and Redesigning a Performance Practice"
Science and Engineering
  • Erin Kelly, Eberly College of Science — "Investigating the Protein PF3D7_0420300 as a Potential Drug Target in the Malaria Inducing Parasite Plasmodium falciparum"
Social and Behavioral Sciences
  • Shuangshuang Chen, College of the Liberal Arts — "Testing the Anxiety-Reducing Effects of Dark Chocolates in Public Speaking Anxiety"

University Libraries’ Undergraduate Research Award: Excellence in Information Literacy

John Sr. and Kimlyn Patishnock Grand Prize
  • Evan Sneed, Eberly College of Science — "A Climatic Investigation of Cold Haber World Atmospheres II"
First Place
  • Autumn Deitrick, College of Engineering — "Optimizing the Weir Equation for Nature-Like Fish Passages"
Second Place
  • Aileen McKinstry, College of the Liberal Arts — "Guns Perps and Scalia: An Analysis of Justice Antonin Scalia's Originalist Jurisprudence in District of Columbia v. Heller"
Third Place
  • Kelsey Bittel, College of Health and Human Development — "Physical Activity, Seasonality, and Weather Indices: A Scoping Review of Research with Device-based Measures of Physical Activity"
Honorable Mention
  • Christopher Bryan, Penn State Harrisburg — "Neural Networks for Solar Panel Maximum Power Point Tracking"
Honorable Mention
  • Emma Domico, College of Health and Human Development — "Finding Genetic Variation in Publicly Available Sequence Data"
Honorable Mention
  • Nathan Sitzler, Marcella Puglia, Penn State Behrend — "Thought Suppression as a Mediator in the Relationship Between Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms and Negative Affect in Traumatized Individuals"

The Research Opportunities for Undergraduates program is part of Penn State Undergraduate Education, the academic administrative unit that provides leadership and coordination for University-wide programs and initiatives in support of undergraduate teaching and learning at Penn State. Learn more about Undergraduate Education at undergrad.psu.edu.
 

Last Updated April 28, 2020