VCU news

By Eric Beidel

The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program with the Virginia Commonwealth University Office of Research and Innovation has announced the 2015 Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship Summer Fellows.

The fellowship provides the opportunity for faculty and students to partner on a funded research project of their choice. The fellowship is designed to provide outstanding undergraduates the chance to make significant progress on a formal, structured research endeavor during the summer in collaboration with a faculty mentor.

“To become the innovator, to become the researcher, to become the artist, you don't have to wait to do that,” said Herb Hill, director of undergraduate research opportunities at VCU. “The fact that these students are realizing that now is extraordinary.”

This year, new fellowships also were funded by the Global Education Office, Division for Inclusive Excellence, Division of Community Engagement and the Center for Clinical and Translational Research. These projects are focused on global learning and research, issues of diversity, community-engaged research and clinical research into advancing human health.

UROP Summer Fellowship Awardees for 2015 include:

School of Allied Health

Pacifique Munezero: The evaluation of the measurement of cholesterol and triglycerides in chromatography fractions by the Cobas c311 chemistry analyzer. Faculty mentor: William Korzun, Ph.D.

Molly Long: The effect of cannabinoids on pro-inflammatory chemokines/cytokines produced by human macrophage-like cells in response to the HIV proteins Tat and GP120. Faculty mentor: Melissa Jamerson, Ph.D.

School of the Arts

Anya Shcherbakova: Wandering with an awareness of space. Faculty mentor: John Malinoski.

School of Business

Antonio Schiano di Cola: An analysis of the factors underlying income inequality. Faculty mentor: Leslie Stratton, Ph.D.

Daniel Matheson: Student-to-student online interaction within an online introductory information technology course. Faculty mentor: Elena Popel, Ph.D.

Nabeel Janjua: Developing information and communication technologies for education (ICTE) for Haiti. Faculty mentor: Manoj Thomas, Ph.D.

College of Humanities and Sciences

Simran Sandhu: Does GAL4 drive the expression of phenotypic markers in phiC31phiC31-based RNAi transgenic Drosophila? Faculty mentor: Michael Grotewiel, Ph.D.

Robert Haufler: Synthesis and characterization of highly luminescent Ge1-xSnx nanocrystals. Faculty mentor: Indika Arachchige, Ph.D.

Matthew Zellner: Overexpression of ADAM10 increases the susceptibility to Th2 driven allergic disease through two mechanisms, ADAM17 downregulation and increased cleavage of the ADAM10 substrate CD23, the negative regulator for IgE synthesis. Faculty mentor: Daniel Conrad, Ph.D.

Eva Childrey: Forensic analysis of surface associated fatty acids from Bacillus spores. Faculty mentor: Christopher Ehrhardt, Ph.D.

Katharine Hines: A case study of Fundación en Vía, an Oaxacan nonprofit. Faculty mentor: Christopher Saladino.

Ashley Grant: Assessing the antidepressant-like properties of (R)-Amisulpride in C57BL/6 mice. Faculty mentor: Joseph Porter, Ph.D.

Ian Kitchens: Gas-phase studies of organic reaction mechanisms. Faculty mentor: Scott Gronert, Ph.D.

Ryan Poland: Elucidating the role of activators of G-protein Signaling 3 (AGS3) in methamphetamine relapse-like behavior. Faculty mentor: Scott Bowers, Ph.D.

Jerry Mize: Evaluating the relationships between parental competence, parent-adolescent relationships, and religiosity and parent messages about substance use and abuse. Faculty mentor: Wendy Kliewer, Ph.D.

Kathryn Kirchoff: Role of Sdf1 chemokine and Cxcr4b receptor in migration of facial branchiomotor neurons in Danio rerio. Faculty mentor: Greg Walsh, Ph.D.

Alexander Ip: Three-dimensional silk matrices for neural tissue engineering applications. Faculty mentor: Raj Rao, Ph.D.

School of Dentistry

Danielle Nogle: A pre-post survey analysis of altered oral hygiene habits in a low socioeconomic community after oral health education. Faculty mentor: Joan Pelligrini, Ph.D.

School of Engineering

Brittany Allen: Creating a hybrid ECM/degradable polymer scaffold for lung modeling and regeneration. Faculty mentor: Rebecca Heise, Ph.D.

Devin Mair: Signaling pathways and physiological changes involved in tumorigenesis. Faculty mentor: Christopher Lemmon, Ph.D.

School of Life Sciences

Denney Turner: Do artificial nest boxes differ from natural cavity nests with regard to nest survival rate and the females who choose them? Faculty mentor: Lesley Bulluck, Ph.D.

Keith Herbert: Identifying relations in biomedical text for literature-based discovery. Faculty mentor: Bridget Thomas-McInnes, Ph.D.

School of Nursing

Kyle Wickliff: Exploring acute changes in exhaled breath condensate pH of mechanically ventilated adults: A focus on medications and hemodynamic variables. Faculty mentor: Alison Montpetit, Ph.D.

Kelly Britton: The effects health professional students' experiences of encountering issues of race, class, gender, and other social and structural variables in their interactions with colleagues have on their interprofessional education and collaborations. Faculty mentor: Candace Burton, Ph.D.

Carey Evans: Graphical images of the symptom experience created by adolescents and young adults with cancer. Faculty mentor: Suzanne Ameringer, Ph.D.

Diana Naidoo: Predictors of the efficacy of a guided imagery stress management intervention in pregnant African-American women. Faculty mentor: Nancy Jallo, Ph.D.

Global Education

Cassie Sun: Reviving Panxiu in contemporary culture: Exhibition and cultural exchange. Faculty mentor: Kristin Caskey.

Ardilla Deneys: Attributes of forest kindergartens and what they can teach us about the interior design of schools. Faculty mentor: Rab McClure.

Sydney Brown: The Australia dental therapy project. Faculty mentor: Kim Isringhausen.

Inclusive Excellence

Natalie Robles: Exploring the sports activities participation of children with disabilities, and possible associations with cognitive and academic outcomes: A secondary data analysis. Faculty mentor: Zewelanji Serpell, Ph.D.

Hasan Alkhairo: A comprehensive study on the interrelation between community engagement, community gardening and youth development. Faculty mentor: Erin Stanforth.

Community Engaged and Translational Research

Zachary Stahl: Hydroponics and community: Tying together project-based art with urban agriculture. Faculty mentor: Hope Ginsburg.

Cydni Gordon: Left behind: Exploring the impact of migration on individuals, families, and the village community of Teotitlán del Valle. Faculty mentor: Rosalie Corona, Ph.D.

Emily Johnson: The effects of dietary counseling and nutrition education on patient awareness and compliance. Faculty mentor: Joan Pellegrini, Ph.D.

Clinical and Translational Research

Kaylee Newcomb: Cyclization of peptides with dibromobenzyl linkers and their affinity with BRCA 1. Faculty mentor: Matthew Hartman, Ph.D.

For more information on VCU Summer Research Fellowships, contact Herb Hill at hhill@vcu.edu or (804) 828-4450.

 

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