Published March 18, 2015
The University of Louisiana at Monroe recently announced the winners of the 15th annual
Student Research Symposium. Used as a vehicle to showcase the outstanding research
being conducted by graduate and undergraduate students at ULM, the symposium presents
the unique and high quality work of ULM students.
The symposium has provided a platform for the presentation of research conducted by
over 3,000 student researchers since the inaugural Student Research Symposium in 2001.
Students are required to conceptualize a research question, work with a faculty mentor
to address the question, design a research method, identify the subjects, correctly
and objectively collect and analyze data, reach conclusions, and make recommendations.
Student researchers presented their work either by presentation poster or by a platform
presentation in which they read their research aloud to the audience.
In both cases, student researchers were expected to answer questions from judges who
have credentials in the student’s research field.
Award winners are as follows:
School of Behavioral and Social Sciences
Graduate: Poster Presentations
First place: Rachel Knight of West Monroe presented “Beauty Pageants and Life History
Theory.” Knight’s faculty mentor is Dr. Kilian Garvey.
Graduate: Oral Presentations
First place: Farah Salameh of Baton Rouge presented “Factors that Predict Objectively
Measured Altruistic Behavior.” Salameh’s faculty mentor is Dr. Jack Palmer.
Undergraduate: Poster Presentations
First place: Dawa Sherpa Lama of Woodside, NY presented “Cognitive Reflection and
Fear Perception: An exploration of aversion to ambiguous stimuli.” Lama’s faculty
mentor is Dr. Kilian Garvey.
Second place: Baylen Harris of Oak Grove presented “Music preferences as a predictor
of altruism and empathy.” Harris’ faculty mentor is Dr. Jack Palmer.
Third place: Olivia Travis of Madison, Miss. presented “Self-Reported Religiosity
as a Predictor of Altruism.” Travis’ faculty mentor is Dr. Jack Palmer.
Undergraduate: Oral Presentations
First place: Kate Saterfiel of Monroe presented “Personality Profile of Recovering
Alcoholics.” Saterfiel’s faculty mentor is Dr. Jack Palmer.
School of Health Professions
Graduate: Poster Presentations
First place: Tonya Keene of Winnsboro presented “Effectiveness of integrating a 4-week
fine motor program for 4 year old students in a regular education preschool classroom.”
Keene’s faculty mentor is Dr. Carolyn Murphy.
Second place: Jordan Harris of California, Md. presented “How can we continue to improve
our use of stereotypes?: internal family systems and stereotyping.” Harris’ faculty
mentor is Mr. Jason Austin.
Third place: Amber Bettencourt of Livermore, Calif. presented “Uh-huh: A third implicature?”
Bettencourt’s faculty mentor is Dr. Johanna Boult.
School of Humanities
Graduate: Oral Presentation
First place: Catherine Olson of Oil City presented “Roman de la Rose: A ‘False Seeming’
Multiplicity.” Olson’s faculty mentors are Dr. Jana Giles and Dr. Rebecca Stephenson.
Undergraduate: Oral Presentation
First place: Rachael Maddox of Start presented “Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Unraveling
the Roles of Shakespeare’s Forests.” Maddox’s mentor is Dr. Julia Guernsey-Pitchford.
School of Nursing
Undergraduate: Oral Presentation
First place: Briana Strange of Shreveport presented “Community Assessment as Clinical
Experience.” Strange’s faculty mentor is Dr. Sherilyn Wiggins.
School of Pharmacy
Graduate: Poster Presentations
First place: Salman B. Hosain of Bangladesh presented “Heterozygous missense p53-mutant
leads to drug resistance, epithelialmesenchymal transition and stemness in colon cancer
cells.” Hosain’s faculty mentor is Dr. Yong-Yu Liu.
Second place: Hassan Ebrahim of Egypt presented “The Louisiana lichen-derived depsidone
norstictic acid inhibits invasive breast cancer cell proliferation in vitro and in
vivo through targeting the proto-oncogene receptor tyrosine kinase c-Met.” Ebrahim’s
faculty mentor is Dr. Khalid El Sayed.
Third place: Yazan S. Batarseh of Jordan presented “In vitro studies on amyloid b
handling by astrocyte.” Batarseh’s faculty mentor is Dr. Amal Kaddoumi.
Graduate: Oral Presentations
First place: Osama Alawin of Jordan presented “The antiproliferative effect of _-tocotrienol
on HER2 breast cancer cells is associated with lipid raft mediated mechanism.” Alawin’s
faculty mentor is Dr. Paul W. Sylvester.
Second place: Loqman Mohamed of Libya presented “Donepezil and rivastigmine enhance
brain A_ clearance in aged rats: a novel mechanism for cholinesterase inhibitors against
Alzheimer’s disease.” Mohamed’s faculty mentor is Dr. Amal Kaddoumi.
Undergraduate: Poster Presentations
First place: Ashley Depaula of Hammond, and Courtney Langley of Kinder presented “Discovery
of Compounds Using High Throughput Screening to Enhance the Integrity of Blood-Brain
Barrier and Potential Efficacy for the Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease.” Depaula
and Langley's faculty mentor is Dr. Amal Kaddoumi.
School of Sciences
Graduate: Poster Presentations
First place: Osvaldo Rivera of Puerto Rico presented “An investigation of the effects
of HFD in the head of Drosophila melanogaster,” with co-authors: Jamon Harris, Silvienne
Sint Jago, and Siddhartha Dhakal. Rivera’s faculty mentor is Dr. Matthew Talbert
Second place: Fernanda Alonzo of Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico presented “Preliminary
Annotation of Rhodococcus erythropolis Phages Chewy VIII and Trina,” with co-authors:
G. Brooke Morgan, and the 2014-2015 ULM Sea Phages class. Alonzo’s faculty mentors
are Dr. Allison M.D. Wiedemeier, Dr. Chris Gissendanner, and Dr. Ann M. Findley.
Undergraduate: Poster Presentations
First place: Kyle Gresham of Monroe presented “Genome Annotation and Preliminary Host
Identification for Bacteriophage Hobo,” with co-authors: Grant Gallien, Taylar Boutte,
Nicholas Carlson, Samantha Clark, Joseph Davis, C. Connor Dixon, D. Derek Dozier,
Quoc-Nam Duong, Lauren Enyeart, Cassidy Horton, V. Grace Jeanfreau, Bria Mays, Shelbi
Penny, Anna Rogers, Tanner Traweek, Harry Hawthorne, Trapper Munn, and Fernanda Alonzo.
Gresham’s faculty mentors are Dr. Allison M.D. Wiedemeier, Dr. Chris Gissendanner,
and Dr. Ann M. Findley.
Second place: Adebanjo Adedoja of Nigeria presented “A Comparison of Characteristics
of Different Bacteriophage of Agrobacterium Tumefaciens,” with co-authors Tyler Hawthorne,
Erin Foster, Mackenzie Miller, and Cortez Davis. Adedoja’s faculty mentor is Dr. Allison
M.D. Wiedemeier.
