Congratulations to the winners of the 2016 Undergraduate Research Poster Contest:

1. Sheridan Helen Cavalier: Abnormal Synaptic Protein Expression in the VPA-Rat Model of Autism Following Fear Extension Training (faculty advisor: Dr. Christa McIntyre)
2. Anthony Quang Dao: Cell-permeable and Nuclear-targeting Luminescent Gold Nanoparticles (faculty advisor: Jie Zhang)
3. Hans Chiwuike Ajieren: Insertion Devices for Self-Coiling Implants (faculty advisor: Walter Voit)

Winners were chosen from a field of 18 finalists by nine industry judges:

• Claire Aldridge of Remeditex
• David Brown of Baylor Heart Hospital
• Steve Coutoumanos of Dell
• Souvik Das of Capital One Auto Finance
• Todd Edwards of Raytheon IIS
• John Ellis of NEC
• Craig Lee of AT&T Foundry
• Rod Naphan of Fujitsu
• Sha-Chelle Devlin Manning of Pioneer Natural Resources

All of the poster contest participants were part of a record-breaking number to receive an Undergraduate Research Grant in the Fall of 2015.  This is an annual competition, so if you would like to be considered for a grant, applications for 2016-2017 will be accepted from August 22 – September 28, 2016.

This year’s winners: From left- Hans Ajieren, Sheridan Cavalier, and Anthony Dao

 Megan Zerez shows fellow finalists Yobouesseth Okou and Jordan Riddell her findings on Exploring the Evolvability of an Ancient, highly conserved Circadian clock in a non-circadian organism.

A student observes Anthony Daq’s poster on Cell-permeable and Nuclear-targeting Luminescent Gold Nanoparticles.

Daniel Lambert poses next to his poster Real-Time Gait Phase Detection for High-Performance Above Knee Powered Prostheses.

Industry judge Claire Aldridge listens to Ali Tejani explain his poster Ethnomedicine of the Maleku People of Northern Costa Rica.

Karthik Hullahalli and his poster Restarting the Broken CRISPR Immune System of Enterococcus faecalis.

Shivam Patel and Alex Gemsheim waiting for the winner announcements.

Sheridan Cavalier poses next to her award-winning research poster on Abnormal Synaptic Protein Expression in the VPA-Rat Model of Autism Following Fear Extinction Training.