Fifteen UAH students earn awards for Summer Community of Scholars research

SEP 20, 2022 | Jim Steele

Undergraduate students show and explain their summer research projects in the atrium of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology.

Michael Mercier | UAH

Fifteen student research posters were selected for top Deans and Space Grant Award honors at the end-of-program Summer Community of Scholars (SCS) poster session held on Sept. 14 in the Shelby Center for Science and Technology at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of the University of Alabama System.

“The quality and depth of the research and creative scholarship this year is absolutely phenomenal,” says Dave Cook, director of undergraduate research.

“The students' work is impressive, and we are extremely grateful for the mentorship provided by our faculty and research staff on these projects. Their willingness to work with undergraduates over the summer leads to some really exciting possibilities for everyone involved.”

Participant posters presentations are available through the LOUIS Student Works repository in the UAH Salmon Library.

“If you didn’t get a chance to come to the poster session, these online resources are extremely useful, especially if you want to see some examples of projects and learn about getting involved in undergraduate research through the summer program,” Cook says.

There were 36 SCS undergraduates who spent the summer working with faculty and research staff on cutting-edge projects covering a wide variety of disciplines from physics to animation and everything in between, he says.

The SCS is composed of the Research or Creative Experience for Undergraduates and the Honors Capstone Research Summer Program. Its purpose is to support research or creative experiences for undergraduate participants in all fields of study.

The overall vision of the program is to sustain a vibrant culture of research and creative activities for undergraduates at UAH. Participants undertake activities within a project of research or creative works.

Possible activities include laboratory experiments, musical compositions, field studies, clinical projects, engineering experiments and projects, theoretical work, human behavior studies, writing projects and visual art projects. The activities are supplemented with professional development workshops throughout the summer.

Poster winners:

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences

First Place
Ben Hornyak, Art: “Music Videos Done Backwards: Creating Video to Shape Song”
Mentor: Vinny Argentina

Second Place
Sean Berry, Art: “The Jewish Experience in Huntsville”
Mentor: Reagan Grimsley

Third Place
Alyssa Harmon, Psychology: “‘A life of ambiguity’: LGBTQIA mixed-race experiences of (in)visibility”
Mentor: Jennifer Sims

Alabama Space Grant Winners

First Place
Christopher San Miguel, Biology: “Large Scale Overexpression and Purification of Taq DNA Polymerase in Escherichia Coli”
Mentor: Joseph Ng

Second Place
Lily Compher, Electrical Engineering: “Developing a Self-Navigating Robot to Map Disaster Regions”
Mentor: Naga Venkat Adurthi

Third Place
Audra Carver, Physics & Astronomy: “Using neural network to search for isolated Hα clouds in the Virgo cluster”
Mentor: Ming Sun

College of Engineering

First Place
Hayden Hitt, Aerospace Engineering: “Mitigation of the Laminar Separation Bubble using Active Vortex Generators”
Mentor: Konstantinos Kanistras

Second Place
Cameron Clarke, Mechanical Engineering: “Creation and Development of an Obstacle Database for UAS Pathfinding”
Mentor: Casey Calamaio

Third Place
David Tipton, Civil Engineering: “Numerical Simulation on the Fire Performance of Reinforced Concrete Flat Slab”
Mentor: Elias Ali

College of Science

First Place
Harrison Knox, Physics: “Polarization Switching in Gold Nanostructure Array”
Mentor: Seyed Sadeghi

Second Place
Layla Jeries, Biology-Chemistry: “Developing Methods for Testing Inhibition of E. coli Strains by Urinary Lactobacilli”
Mentor: Tatyana Sysoeva

Third Place
Hayden Estes, Computer Science: “Algorithm-Based Fault Tolerance at Scale”
Mentor: Joshua Booth

Honors College

First Place
Lauren Richardson, Chemistry: “Assessing Undergraduate Expression of Biochemical Mechanisms”
Mentor: Sharifa Love-Rutledge

Second Place
Eliana Carter, Earth System Science: “Characteristics of Wet Downburst Wind Events using MRMS Radar Products”
Mentor: Lawrence Carey

Third Place
Mary K. Long, Mechanical Engineering: “A New Method for Triggering Lithium-Ion Cell Internal Short Circuit (ISC) While Monitoring the ISC Current”
Mentor: Guangsheng Zhang

Learn More

Contact

Dave Cook
256-824-5705
dave.cook@uah.edu

Jim Steele
256-824-2772
jim.steele@uah.edu