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May 26, 2011

Winners of ULM 11th Annual Student Research Symposium announced

Winners of the 11th Annual Student Research Symposium at the University of Louisiana at Monroe were announced at an awards ceremony held May 5 in the ULM Library.

Used as a vehicle to showcase the outstanding research being conducted by graduate and undergraduate students, the symposium allows the presentation of unique and high quality work of our student family.

The symposium has provided a platform for the presentation of research conducted by nearly 3,000 student researchers.

Researchers 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 data, analyze it, 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.

Awards were given as follows:

College of Arts and Sciences

First Place: Melinda Dewberry of Monroe, graduate, Department of History. "Female King: A Study of Gender through the Imagery and Inscriptions of Hatshepsut." Mentor: Dr. Monica Bontty.

Second Place: Nathan Brown of Monroe, undergraduate, Department of English. "Shylock as a Construction of the Early Modern English." Mentor: Dr. LaRue Sloan.

Third Place: Karen Niemla of Monroe, graduate, Department of History "The Significance of Telephone Networks as Used for Broadcasting Original Content and Social Networking Before the Internet and World Wide Web." Mentor: Dr. Monica Bontty.

Department of Biology Graduate students Oral presentations

First Place: Vittobai Rashika Rangaraj of Monroe, "In vivo determination of NR4A nuclear receptor target in Caenorhabditis elegans." Mentor: Dr. Chris Gissendanner.

Second Place: Casey B. Nolan of Monroe, "The influence of misidentification on species richness measures from land snail bioinformatics." Mentor: Dr. Russell Minton.

Department of Biology graduate Poster presentations

First Place: Meghan O'Boyle of Start, "The biological potential of the feral pig (Sus scrofa) in Louisiana." Mentor: Kim Tolson

Second Place: Lisa Brown of Tyler, Texas, "Herpetofaunal survey of upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge in Northern Louisiana." Mentor: John Carr

Third Place: Nora Smith of Crossett, Ark., "Morphometric analysis of select cranial measurements taken from Louisiana wild canids." Mentor: Kim Tolson.

Department of Biology undergraduate Poster presentations

First Place: Gretchen Pridgen of Oak Ridge, "Optimization of a Tissue-specific MRNA Isolation Protocol in C. elegans." Mentor: Dr. Chris Gissendanner.

Second Place: John Robert Warner of Oak Grove and Brandon Morgan of Pineyville, "Characterization of Mycobacterium sp. Peaches - Genome Annotation and Heteroimmunity Study." Mentors: Dr. Ann Findley, Dr. Allison Wiedemeier and Dr. Chris Gissendanner.

Third Place: Lindsay Childress of Rayville, "Trematode Community of Aquatic Snails in Black Bayou Lake NWR in Northeast Louisiana." Mentor: Dr. Riccardo Fiorillo.

Department of Chemistry presentations

First Place: Robert A. Renn and Nick Fontaine of Monroe, "Tuning the Flexibility and Porosity in Lanthanide Open Framework Materials." Mentor: Dr. Ralph A. Zehnder.

College of Business Presentations

First Place Graduate: Chad Hargon of Monroe, "Exchange Rate Forecasting: A Comparison of Arbitrage Pricing Theory, Eviews, and Other Models." Mentor: Dr. Mike Parker.

First Place Undergraduate: Alana Sandidge of St. Jospeh, "The Impact of Virtual Classrooms in a Rural Community " Mentor: Dr. Arturo Rodriguez.

College of Education and Human Development

Kinesiology

First Place: Bobbie J. Broadhurst of Oak Grove, Sam Sneed of Woodville, Ala., Jenna White of Monroe, Talya Williams of Los Angeles, Jamie Wise of Jack, Ala., and Randy Young of Vicksburg, Miss.; "Physical Fitness Benefits of Aerobics Classes at ULM." Mentor: Brian Coyne.

College of Health Sciences Poster presentations

First Place: Stacie Brown of Monroe, Kristin DeLancy of Monroe, Jennifer Hootsell of Natchez, Miss., and Kasey Shows of Alexandria, "Augmentative and Alternative Communication: An Evolution." Mentor: Dr. Linda Bryan.

College of Pharmacy Graduate Poster presentations

First Place: Ameya Glkhale of India, "Peptides from CD2 to modulate cell adhesion by disrupting protein-protein interactions between CD2 and CD58." Mentor: Dr. Seetharama Jois.

Second Place: Mohamed Akl of Monroe, "Sesamin potentiates g-tocotrienol anticancer activity by modulating cell cycle regulatory proteins." Mentor: Dr. Paul Sylvester.

Third Place: Bilal Abuasal of Monroe, "In silico modeling for the non-linear oral absorption of the P-gp and CYP3A4 substrate (UK-343,664)." Mentor: Dr. Amal Kaddoumi.

Third Place: Baher Ibrahim of Egypt, "Role of the metabolic sensor, AMPK, in caudal hindbrain regulation of homeostatic and hypoglycemic patterns of food intake and body weight." Mentor: Dr. Karen Briski

College of Pharmacy Oral Presentations

First Place: Fathy Behery of Monroe, "Antiproliferative and Antimigratory 3,4-Dihydro-1,3-Oxazine, Mannich Base, and Hydroxymethyl Analogues of the Marine Phenolic Sesquiterpene (S)-(+)-Curcuphenol." Mentor: Dr. Khalid A. El Sayed.

Second Place: Nehad Ayoub of Monroe, "g-Tocotrienol inhibits c-met tyrosine kinase receptor expression and activation in highly malignant mammary tumor cells." Mentor: Dr. Paul Sylvester.

Third place: Sashikanth Banappagari of Monroe, "Conformationally constrained peptidomimetics for inhibition of protein-protein interactions." Mentor: Dr. Setharama Jois.

College of Pharmacy Undergraduate Poster presentations

First Place: Nicholas O'Connell of Mandeville, "P-glycoprotein up-regulation by tobacco-derived cembratriene enhances beta amyloid clearance." Mentor: Dr. Amal Kaddoumi.

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