Category: Graduate Entries 2025
Achala Wagure Gamarallage / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: J Rasika Dias Pyridines have long served as N-based supporting ligands in metal coordination chemistry due…
Aisosa Omere / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Joseph Buonomo Contemporary single-molecule protein sequencing relies on tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), employing either top-down or bottom-up…
Alexandra May / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Ricardo Sanchez Murillo Serpentinization of ultramafic minerals provides pathways for GeoH2 and CH4 production. We hypothesize…
Alisher Talgatov / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Sherri McFarland Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a strategy for treating cancer with high selectivity. PDT utilizes an…
Amira Claxton / Mathematics / Faculty Mentor: Alicia Prieto-Langarica Breast cancer is the second most common cancer and the leading cause of death among women worldwide….
G41 – Role of Novel Long Non-Coding RNAs in Neuroinflammation and Neurodegenerative diseases
April 10, 2025Ashcharya Rishi / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Subhrangsu Mandal Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder affecting nearly 7 million Americans and 50 million…
Ashley Alfred / Mathematics / Faculty Mentor: Jianzhong Su Hyperspectral Microscopy Imaging (HMI) combines hyperspectral imaging (HSI) with microscopy to capture both spatial and spectral details…
Ashley Hall / Psychology / Faculty Mentor: Angela Liegey Dougall Smartphones are deeply integrated into daily life, yet factors driving application usage remain underexplored. While prior…
Ayesha Ali Khan / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Byung Ran So MYC, a proto-oncogene, regulates cellular growth and proliferation by controlling the transcription and…
G45 – Revisiting the Mission Creek Fault: Unravelling Holocene Activity and Slip Potential.
April 10, 2025Ayush Joshi / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Nathan Brown The San Andreas Fault (SAF) in southern California exhibits a multistranded configuration, with slip…
Azizur Rahman, Prachi Rini Saha, Kyra Hudson / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Yike Shen Understanding regional variations in pesticide application is essential for…
G47 – Estimating Vapor Pressures of Pheromone Compounds Using Gas Chromatographic Retention
April 10, 2025Bipasha Sarker / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Kevin Schug Accurate determination of the vapor pressures of organic materials is important for predicting the sample’s…
Bita Amiri / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Robin Macaluso The global inorganic pigment industry is valued in the billions and is projected to expand…
G49 – A SIMPL Model of Phage-Bacteria Interactions Accounting for Mutation and Competition
April 10, 2025Carli Peterson / Mathematics / Faculty Mentor: Christopher Kribs Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistically pathogenic bacteria that causes fatal infections and outbreaks in hospital environments. Due…
G50 – Tap Water Isoscapes revealed ENSO’s Impacts on a Drinking Water Distribution System in Southern Africa
April 10, 2025Charity Kgotlaebonywe / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Ricardo Sanchez-Murillo This study applied isoscapes to assess the spatial and temporal distribution of water sources…
Christiane Funk / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Frank Foss The Asian corn borer (Ostrinia furnacalis) is a species of moth that is responsible for…
G52 – Assessing Wildfire PM2.5 Forecasting Accuracy and its Impacts on Decision-Making: A Model Comparison for Los Angeles 2025
April 10, 2025Christine Pham / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Yunyao Li Due to the growing impacts of climate change, wildfires have become increasingly frequent and…
Cindy Lou Skipper / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Nathan Brown North American glaciers and ice sheets have melted as the climate warmed since…
Claire Kim / Biology / Faculty Mentor: Todd Castoe Snake venom glands are a valuable system to test hypotheses related to the evolution and specialization of…
Dalton Lucas / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Sherri McFarland Photodynamic therapy (PDT) offers a controlled approach to cancer treatment by confining cytotoxicity to tumors…
G56 – Development of a pH-responsive Peptide-based Hydrogel for Effective Eradication of MRSA Biofilm
April 10, 2025Debdatta Das / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: He Dong Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureas (MRSA) is one of the major contributors towards severe wound infections,…
Deepika Virendra Karade / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Rasika Dias Our study unveils the remarkable influence of phenanthroline-based ligands with bulky aryl groups on…
G58 – Environmental health webtool development
April 9, 2025Dhruvilkumar Ashokbhai Chodvadiya / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Yike Shen The interdisciplinary field of environmental health sciences is rapidly evolving. Although knowledge graphs…
G59 – Exploring ECT-Induced Memory Disruption: Insights from Local Field Potential Recordings in Rats
April 9, 2025Diana Ibarra / Psychology / Faculty Mentor: Yuan Bo Peng Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a procedure that is used to improve severe symptoms of several mental…
G60 – Quantifying Ventifact Erosion Rates in California Using OSL Depth Profile Analysis
April 9, 2025Diana Valenzuela Davila / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Nathan Brown Ventifacts are rock formations sculpted by wind-driven sand, offering insight into wind erosion…
G61 – The role of U1 snRNP-specific proteins for post-transcriptional regulation of pre-mRNAs
April 9, 2025Duc Ngu / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Byung Ran So In eukaryotes, precursor messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) undergoes multiple post-transcriptional processes to produce mature mRNA,…
G62 – Inhibition of Orexin-1 Receptors Attenuates Morphine-associated reward and underlying neurobiological alterations
April 9, 2025Farzana Akter Koly, Christopher Dao / Psychology / Faculty Mentor: Linda Perrotti Morphine strongly activates the brain’s reward circuitry and stimulates orexin neurons in the lateral…
Francioli Yannick / Biology / Faculty Mentor: Todd Castoe A fundamental goal of biology is to understand the mechanisms that promote reproductive isolation and drive the…
G64 – Approaches for optimization of the phototherapy efficiency with metallodrug photosensitizers in cancer treatment
April 9, 2025Ge Shi / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Sherri McFarland Cancer remains a global health crisis. Tumor hypoxia presents a major challenge in cancer therapy….
G65 – Investigation of photoactive metallodrugs for Photodynamic Inactivation of Bacteria
April 8, 2025Gurleen Kaur / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Sherri McFarland Bacterial infection has a huge impact on human health across the world. The conventional antimicrobials…
G66 – Gas Chromatography Analysis of Odorous Compounds in Waste Handling Operations Using Air Sampling Canister Method
April 8, 2025Han Le, Christine Urbina, Lynn Do / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Kevin Schug This research focuses on an analytical method for identifying and quantifying…
Hannah Guss / Biology / Faculty Mentor: Todd Castoe Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease caused by schistosome blood flukes that affects over 200 million worldwide(Weerakoon…
G68 – Substantial Weight Gain by Oxidation of a Porous SiCO Gel under Inert Atmospheres
April 8, 2025Hannah Hayes / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Peter Kroll The pyrolysis of a polymer-derived porous SiCO gel was investigated through thermogravimetric analysis. Despite using…
Hannah Swain / Biology / Faculty Mentor: Laura Mydlarz Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS) is an isolated coral reef ecosystem in the Gulf of…
G70 – Are We Ranking Fairly? A Bias-Aware Bayesian Rank Aggregation Method for Peer- and Self-Evaluations
April 8, 2025Haoyao Ruan / Mathematics / Faculty Mentor: Xinlei (Sherry) Wang Rank aggregation (RA), which aims to combine multiple ordinal rankings into a single, reliable ranking, has…
G71 – Unveiling Local Structural Distortions and Band Gap Narrowing in Oxysulfide Pyrochlore Sn2Nb2O7-xSx
April 8, 2025Hoa Nguyen / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Robin Macaluso Heteroanionic approach in material design offers an exciting opportunity to strategically target new materials and…
Ishaan Varshney / Physics / Faculty Mentor: Nevin Weinberg Neutron stars (NS) in low-mass X-ray binaries accrete hydrogen and helium from a companion star. This accreted…
G73 – The Influence of Group Attractiveness and Diversity on Perceived Group Performance Ratings
April 8, 2025Jade Chacon / Psychology / Faculty Mentor: Jared Kenworthy Research on attractiveness suggests that more attractive individuals are assumed to have superiority on several traits, such…
Jared Richardson / Mathematics / Faculty Mentor: Jianzhong Su This collaborative study leverages data-driven agriculture and computational tools to predict causal relationships among rice traits under…
G75 – Stop The Sand Mafia!
April 8, 2025Jeffrey Warber / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Nathan Brown Sand is the second most exploited natural resource in the world after fresh water…
Jenny Nguyen / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Un-Jung Kim The increasing presence of microplastic (MP) in the environment is escalating the chronic exposure…
Joel Roberts / Psychology / Faculty Mentor: Jared Kenworthy This thesis explored the impact of extreme information on availability heuristics, specifically focusing on the differences between…
Joisha Girme / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Purnendu Dasgupta Iodine is a crucial element for the human body to synthesizethyroid hormones. Insufficient intake may…
Jose Cortes / Mathematics / Faculty Mentor: Andrzej Korzeniowski Accurate soil carbon measurement is essential for sustainable agriculture and effective emission management. Traditional methods such as core…
Joseph Balderas / Mathematics / Faculty Mentor: Li Wang Crop management is essential for optimizing yield and minimizing a field’s environmental impact, yet it remains challenging…
Juan Camacho / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Ricardo Sanchez-Murillo Urban streams in Texas are shaped by complex interactions between natural and engineered flow…
Kaas Ballard / Biology / Faculty Mentor: Todd Castoe The evolution of gene regulatory networks is a critical step in the evolution of novel traits. Snake…
Kalpana Dumre / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Charles Phillip Shelor Lithium-ion batteries are essential for modern society and are the preferred energy storage for…
G84 – Update on Dating Hydrothermal Explosions in Yellowstone National Park using Luminescence Dating
April 8, 2025Karissa Cordero / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Nathan Brown The Yellowstone Plateau Volcanic Field hosts an active hydrothermal system that has produced some…
G85 – State-Space Modeling Reveals ECT-Induced Network Reorganization In Pain-Processing Circuits
April 8, 2025Khitam Aqel / Mathematics / Faculty Mentor: Pedro Maia Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has shown promise in managing acute pain by influencing neural circuits involved in pain…
Kristen Wilson / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Arne Winguth The marine microbial loop is an important part of marine food webs that remineralize…
Manuel Chavez / Biology / Faculty Mentor: Cara Boutte Mycobacteria, including the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis, are a group of rod-shaped bacteria characterized by cell wall growth…
G88 – Site Characterization for Potential Use in Geologic Carbon Capture and Storage in the Fort Worth Basin, Texas
April 7, 2025Mary Ann Moody / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Majie Fan Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is essential for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions…
G89 – Microplastics and PFAS Accumulation and Metabolism in an Animal Model: Rat Blood and Tissues
April 7, 2025Maryam Ghalamkari / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Un-Jung Kim Early-life exposures to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) can lead to significant phenotypic changes in brain…
G90 – Machine Learning Interatomic Potentials for the Conversion of Polysiloxanes to SiCO Ceramics
April 7, 2025Mitchell Falgoust / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Peter Kroll Machine learning interatomic potentials (MLIPs) provide a means of scaling up quantum chemical calculations. Typical…
G91 – Nonlinear Wave Dynamics in 𝜹-Scuti Stars
April 7, 2025Mohammed Mourabit / Physics / Faculty Mentor: Nevin Weinberg Delta Scuti 𝛿-Scuti are a type of variable star that show detectable brightness fluctuations obeying a period-luminosity…
Morgan Rios / Psychology / Faculty Mentor: Angela Liegey-Dougall Since the COVID-19 lockdowns, social media usage has surged, contributing to increased screen time and sedentary behavior…
Nagashree Shridhar Bhat / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Subhrangsu Mandal Inflammation is a type of immune response against pathogenic invasion. Macrophages, being the essential…
Naif Abu Qarnayn / Mathematics / Faculty Mentor: Souvik Roy This work focuses on the analysis and numerical solution of nonsmooth optimal control problems governed by…
G95 – Prospective Memory Deficits and their Neural Correlates in Epilepsy: an fMRI Investigation
April 7, 2025Nichol Civitello / Psychology / Faculty Mentor: Crystal Cooper Prospective memory (PM), the ability to remember and execute future intentions, is essential for daily functioning. Patients…
G96 – Graph-Based Multi-View Learning: Joint Optimization of Structure Preservation, Feature Selection, and Regularization
April 7, 2025Ning Wanjun / Mathematics / Faculty Mentor: Li Wang Effectively integrating multi-view data is essential for many machine learning applications, yet challenges remain in preserving structural…
G97 – Modeling Seasonal Thermal Stratification and Mixing Variability in a Subtropical Reservoir
April 7, 2025Oscar Meza Tovar / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Arne Winguth This study examines how climate variability influences thermal stratification and mixing dynamics in…
G98 – Assessing the Dallas-Fort Worth Urban Microclimate and Surface Ozone Variability Under Differing Drought Conditions
April 7, 2025Patrick Sumner / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Arne Winguth The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex in North Central Texas is the 4th largest and fastest…
Pramanand Joshi / Physics / Faculty Mentor: J. Ping Liu Rare-earth elements, which are critical for the production of permanent magnets, face supply chain challenges due…
Purbita Chatterjee / Physics / Faculty Mentor: Yue Deng Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances (TIDs) are wave-like perturbations in ionospheric electron densities and play a significant role in…
G101 – Phase-Amplitude Coupling in Brain Regions Under Anesthesia and Euthanasia: A State-Dependent Analysis
April 7, 2025Rahul Kumar / Psychology / Faculty Mentor: Yuan B Peng The current study investigates Phase-Amplitude Coupling (PAC) across four corresponding brain regions consisting of the Anterior…
Reagan Miller / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Frank Foss For the search of hypothetical neutrinoless double beta decay of atoms – the design and…
Rijumon Nandy / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Majie Fan Loess deposits are key archives of past wind activity, exemplified by the extensive Chinese…
G104 – Investigating Prong-Induced Nasal Septum Injury in Preterm Infants Using Novel 3D Modeling and Simulation
April 7, 2025Rowa Hamdan / Physics / Faculty Mentor: Liping Tang Preterm infants, born before 37 weeks of gestation, often require continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) for respiratory…
Sadia Rahman Jhilik / Physics / Faculty Mentor: Muhammad Huda Silicon carbide (SiC) is a wide band gap semiconductor that demonstrates physical properties like high critical…
Sakil Islam / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Daniel Armstrong Drug discovery and impurity analysis in pharmaceutical industries are critical for human health. Most of…
G107 – SMN complex-mediated regulatory mechanisms of U4 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein assembly
April 7, 2025Sanat Myti / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Byung Ran So The spliceosome is a macromolecular RNA-Protein complex that catalyzes splicing, a two-step reaction that…
Sanskruti Sharma / Physics / Faculty Mentor: Sangwook Park Kepler’s supernova remnant, the remnant of the famous historical Type Ia supernova (SN 1604), provides an excellent…
G109 – Orbital Stability of Hierarchical 3 and 4-Body Systems with Inclination: Results for Kepler-1625, 1708, and HD 23079
April 7, 2025Shaan Patel / Physics / Faculty Mentor: Manfred Cuntz As the number of potential exomoon candidates grows, there is a heightened motivation of pursing orbital stability…
G110 – Late Paleogene loess in the White River Group in the Pawnee Buttes, northeastern Colorado
April 7, 2025Shankhadeep Baul / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Majie Fan In the western interior of the USA, eolian sedimentary rocks of the middle and…
G111 – Differential Roles of Broadly Expressed Transcription Factors in Early Cardiac Cell Specification
April 7, 2025Shiva Abbasi / Biology / Faculty Mentor: Theodora Koromila Early heart development requires precise transcriptional regulation to coordinate cell fate decisions during embryogenesis. However, the mechanisms…
Siddharth Gopalan / Biology / Faculty Mentor: Todd Castoe hAT-Tip100 transposable elements (TEs) are known to have been co-opted as regulatory loci (i.e., promoters and enhancers)…
Taylor Clark / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Kevin Schug Gas chromatography–vacuum ultraviolet (GC-VUV) spectroscopy is a powerful tool for analyzing complex chemical mixtures. By…
Thien Nguyen / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Gyeongjin (Jane) Park Catalytic oxidation reactions play a crucial role in synthetic chemistry by enabling selective oxygen…
Tiffany Aguirre / Psychology / Faculty Mentor: Linda Perrotti Withdrawal symptoms associated with Opioid Use Disorder are aversive and can lead to cue associations. While past…
G116 – Regulation of gametic gene expression across development via RNAi-to-RNAi cascade in C. elegans
April 7, 2025Trilotma Sen / Biology / Faculty Mentor: Alicia Rogers Coordination of gene regulatory networks is necessary for proper execution of cellular programs throughout development. RNA interference…
G117 – Optogenetic Control of Notch1 Signaling to Investigate Trabeculation and Early Heart Development in Zebragish
April 7, 2025Vanessa Avila / Biology / Faculty Mentor: Theodora Koromila Optogenetics enables precise, non-toxic control of specific cell activities using non-toxic blue light of 470nm. In this…
G118 – Utilizing fluorinated copper(I) scorpionate complexes for ethylene chemistry and their catalytic applications
April 7, 2025Vo Quang Huy Phan / Chemistry & Biochemistry / Faculty Mentor: Rasika Dias Fluorinated ligands play an important role in chemistry. In this work, we describe…
G119 – Recovering Mean and Standard Deviation from Boxplot Data: A Novel Bayesian Approach
April 7, 2025Lydia Pan / Mathematics / Faculty Mentor: Xinlei (Sherry) Wang Many clinical studies report summary statistics such as the median, quartiles, and range in boxplots, rather…
G120 – Differentiating Late Paleogene White River Formation/Group Sediments from Volcanic Ash in the Western United States
April 7, 2025Xiangwei Guo / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Majie Fan The late Paleogene White River Formation/Group in the western United States is a substantial…
Yidan Zhang / Earth & Environmental Sciences / Faculty Mentor: Yike Shen Childhood gut microbiota imbalance has been linked to long-term health risks, including metabolic disorders,…
G122 – Evaluation of Electrical Stimulation Parameters on Brain Activity in a Rodent Model of Migraine
April 7, 2025Zahra Asiri / Mathematics / Faculty Mentor: Pedro Maia Chronic pain is a major clinical challenge due to its complex neural basis and limited treatment options….
Priyanshi Borad / Biology / Faculty Mentor: Theodora Koromila Neurodevelopmental disorders, including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), are often linked to disruptions in early brain development,…