Winners of the Sigma Xi Columbia-Willamette Student Research Symposium
April 12, 2013
A) Biological Science
Undergraduate First Place: Tim Luethke, U. Portland, Autotomy and the dorsoventral righting reflex in purple shore crabs (Hemigrapsus nudus).
Undergraduate Second Place: Matt Ortman, U. Portland, Effects of cheliped regeneration on aggression in the purple shore crab, Hemigrapsus nudus.
Graduate First Place: Sally Rogers, PSU, Kin recognition in a dioecious grass.
Graduate Second Place (tie): Catherine Dayger, PSU, Body condition modulates responses to capture stress and exogenous cortisone in female red-sided garter snakes.
Graduate Second Place (tie): Kyle Tidwell, PSU, Quantifying the effect of the invasive bullfrog (L. catesbeianus) on the Oregon Spotted Frog (R. pretiosa).
B) Biomedical Science
Undergraduate First Place: Kelli-Ann Lum, U. Portland, Evaluation of lactose as a possible pharmacological chaperone for beta-galactosidase in GM1-Gangliosidosis affected ovine fibroblasts.
Undergraduate Second Place: Vinson Diep, U. Portland, The investigation of galactose as a potential chemical chaperone for beta-galactosidase from fibroblasts in an ovine model of GM1-Gangliosidosis.
Undergraduate Third Place: Brittney Guro, U. Portland, Fluorimetric analysis of alpha-neuraminidase activity in normal and GM1-Gangliosidosis affected ovine fibroblasts with the protease inhibitor leupeptin.
Graduate First Place: Laura Owen, PSU, Homocysteine thiolactone (HTL) alters Ca homeostasis in cardiac muscle.
C) Chemistry
Undergraduate First Place: Thai Tran, PSU, Oxyhalogen-sulfur chemistry: kinetics and mechanism of oxidation of thiola by acidified chlorite and aqueous chlorine dioxide.
Undergraduate Second Place: Katherine Huynh, PSU, Detection of homocysteine and cysteine using fluorescence dialdehyde.
D) Earth and Environmental Science
Undergraduate First Place: Ryan Brown, PSU, A pyroxene enriched shock dike in the Buck Mountains 005 (L6) chondrite.
Undergraduate Second Place: Erica Ash, PSU, Investigating decaying logs in old growth and secondary forests.
Undergraduate Third Place: Barbara Olvera, PSU, Tree density in old growth vs. secondary forests.
Graduate First Place: Randall Smith, PSU, Environmental microscopy: surface films and biological habitat at the air-water interface and images of structure.
Graduate Second Place: Amy Truitt, PSU, Emerging insect pathology research influencing conservation strategies: Wolbachia and an imperiled butterfly, the incompatible marriage.
Graduate Third Place: Florian Roeger, PSU, New constraints on methane emissions from 1980 to 2008 using (isotopic labeled) methane from Cape Meares, Oregon archived air.
E) Engineering
Undergraduate First Place: Joseph Long, Oregon State U., Growth and biofilm creation of titanium-induced, silicon-starved Pinnularia sp. diatoms.
Undergraduate Second Place: Matthew Dally, U. Portland, Nonlinear parametric health monitoring of a slender cantilever beam subject to non-stationary excitation.
Undergraduate Third Place: Samira Rezaei, PSU, Designing a low-cost prosthetic arm device.
Graduate First Place: Hoon Park, PSU, Generation and verification of timing constraints for delay-insensitive design.
F) Physics
Undergraduate First Place: Elizabeth Anderson, PSU, Assessing curriculum of a physics in bio-medicine course.
Graduate First Place: Zachariah Peterson, PSU, Electrical and optical properties of zinc oxide nanostructured films.
Graduate Second Place: Fredrick DeArmond, PSU, Fundamentals of multi-photon fluorescence microscopy.
Graduate Third Place: JPS Fitzgerald, PSU, Plasmonic and photonic waveguides observed in the near-field with multiphoton photoemission electron microscopy.