During the first week of November 2020, the School of MCB hosted its second annual Undergraduate Research Symposium. Given that the event could not be safely held in person, the symposium was reorganized to be conducted virtually.
Thirty student presenters worked diligently to record themselves giving presentations about the research they’ve been conducting. There were undergraduate researchers representing each of the four departments in the School of MCB, as well as several labs outside MCB. The students’ presentation videos were available for viewing by faculty, staff, and students from Nov. 4th through 6th. The symposium culminated with a live Q&A session on Fri. Nov. 6th, in which the student presenters were available via Zoom to answer questions about their research projects. They were evaluated by a team of six alumni judges: Richard Berkowitz (BS, ’79, MD, ’83), Amruta Bhate (PhD, ’17), Luisa DiPietro (BS, ’76), James Dolan (BS, ‘02), Jonathan Godbout (BS, ’96, PhD, 01), and Matthew Roth (PhD, ‘91).
The following awards were given:
Outstanding Presentation- Allison Narlock (Whitaker Lab), "Integrase Mutant Reveals Major Growth Defects and Alters Gene Transfer"
Honorable Mentions- Ria Ravi (Blanke Lab), "The Trifecta of Pathogenesis" and
Royal Shrestha (Qiao Lab), "Perfluorononanoic acid impedes mouse oocyte maturation by disrupting meitotic functions"
A full list of student presenters follows (grouped by department):
Biochemistry
Sarah Matatov, Kalsotra Lab
Maureen McCoy, Chen Lab
Katie Toohill, Kalsotra Lab
David Van Wazer, Nair Lab
Cell & Developmental Biology
Wiktoria Kowalczyk, Belmont Lab
Microbiology
Annie Cheung, Blanke Lab
Aaron DeSalvio, Slauch Lab
Jonathan Forrest, Kuzminov Lab
Rachel Jones, Blanke Lab
Sean MacAllister, Blanke Lab
Allison Narlock, Whitaker Lab
Ria Ravi, Blanke Lab
Yiting Song, Blanke Lab
Anna Caroline Vermilya, Kehl-Fie Lab
Molecular & Integrative Physiology
Jilai Cui, R. Gillette Lab
Neal Dadlani, Anakk Lab
Nathanlown Dang, Anakk Lab
Meena Deshpande, Llano Lab
Tiffany Jong, Tsai Lab
Harsha Namburi, M. Gillette Lab
Eric Shin, Chung Lab
Srishti Tiwari, Nelson Lab
Labs outside MCB
Autumn Brandenberg, Dean Riechers Lab (Crop Science)
Degaulle Dai, Yong Su Jin Lab (Food Science & Human Nutrition)
Evan Dray, Daniel McKim Lab (Animal Sciences)
Caroline Kaminsky, Scott Silverman Lab (Chemistry)
Madeline Melzer, Jonathan Sweedler Lab (Chemistry)
Royal Shrestha, Huanyu Qiao Lab (Comparative Biosciences, Veterinary Medicine)
Abbey Tierney, Makoto Inoue Lab (Comparative Biosciences, Veterinary Medicine)
Megan Tomlin, Michael Spinella Lab (Comparative Biosciences, Veterinary
Medicine)