On April 19, the College of Natural and Applied Sciences (CNAS) hosted their annual Undergraduate Research Symposium.  

The event was competitive, and winners were selected from multiple CNAS disciplines.  

Biology – Ecology, Wildlife and Conservation 

• 1st place: Taylor Hiers – “A novel approach to scoring rhythmic variation in evolving white-throated sparrow (zonotrichia albicolis) songs.” 
• 2nd place: Gabriela Rivero – “The phenology of a female Carolina wren call helps elucidate its function.” 

Both students are advised by Dr. Jay McEntee, assistant professor of biology.   

Biology – Cellular, Microbiology and Genetics 

• 1st place: Emma Braun – “Biochemical study of characterizing the interaction between quantum dots and actin.” 

• • Faculty advisor: Dr. Kyoungtae Kim, professor of biology. 

• 2nd place: Daniel Garten, Sophia Antonpoulos and Sara Woodman – “Dietary grape seed extract supplementation inhibits nociception and mediates GABAergic changes in a preclinical model of chronic TMD.” 

• • Faculty advisor: Dr. Paul Durham, distinguished professor of biology. 

Chemistry and Biochemistry 

• 1st place: Maximo Reyes, Jessica Linson, Preston Clubb, Martin Winburn and Barry Cheung – “Effects of atmospheric plasma treatment on the toxicity of polystyrene nanoplastics in wheat (triticum aestivum l.).” 

• • Faculty advisor: Dr. Cyren Rico, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry. 

• 2nd place: Krusha Bhakta – “Studies of backbone interconversion and dynamic properties in DNA via NMR.” 

• • Faculty advisor: Dr. Gary Meints, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry. 

Computer Science 

• 1st place: Gavin Moore and C.J. Moore – “An evolutionary multi-agent policy optimization framework using self-adversarial training scenarios.” 

• • Faculty advisor: Dr. Siming Liu, assistant professor of computer science. 

• 2nd place: Nathan Hartzler, Brenna Dove, Nat Thompson, Joshua Stevens and Ingrid Perkins – “Combining multiple deep learning models for online sarcasm detection.” 

• • Faculty advisor: Dr. Mohammed Y. Belkhouche, assistant professor of computer science. 

Cooperative Engineering 

• 1st place: Joshua Cox – “The effect of temperature on electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide and formate production.” 

• • Faculty advisor: Dr. Daniel Moreno, assistant professor of the cooperative engineering program.  

• 2nd place: Stephen Davis, Austin Crabtree and Justin Leuthauser – “Auto lawn: webpage-controlled yard devices.” 

• • Faculty advisor: Dr. Rohit Dua, assistant teaching professor of the cooperative engineering program.  

Geology 

• 1st place: Oluchi Nweke – “Sequiota cave spring and pond influence on water quality in Galloway Branch, SE Springfield, Missouri.” 

• • Faculty advisors: Dr. Bob Pavlowsky, distinguished professor of geography, geology and planning and Hannah Bieser, Ozarks Environmental and Water Resources Institute (OEWRI) research assistant. 

• 2nd place: Abby Momberg – “Can books be toxic? An XRF analysis of arsenic content in book covers from Meyer Library Special Collections.” 

• • Faculty advisor: Dr. Douglas Gouzie, professor of geography, geology and planning. 

Geography, Geospatial and Planning 

• 1st place: Genevieve Stark and Katherine Rudolph – “Who welcomes refugees? Refugee resettlement agencies and third sector organizations in the Southeastern U.S.” 

• • Faculty advisor: Dr. Emily Frazier, assistant professor of geography, geology and planning. 

• 2nd place: Allison Gargus – “Beach erosion trends at crab pond point sea turtle nesting site, southwest coast, Jamaica.” 

• • Faculty Advisor: Pavlowsky and Hannah Lowery, OEWRI research assistant. 

Hospitality Leadership 

• 1st place: Madison Smith, Alyson Morgans, Jake Boaz and Dodgle Schapeler – “Destination image of Kansas City from the perspective of Generation Z.” 

• • Faculty advisor: Dr. Nancy Kageyama, assistant professor of hospitality leadership. 

Mathematics 

• 1st place: Grace Herbold and Jake Gabbert – “Developing fraction-as-measure conceptions to support growth in students’ algebraic reasoning capacities in Math 101.” 

• • Faculty advisor: Dr. Patrick Sullivan, associate professor of mathematics. 

Physics, Astronomy and Materials Science 

• 1st place: Matthew Bruenning – “Implementation of a Hough transform on a field programmable gate array.” 

• • Faculty advisor: Dr. Tiglet Besara, assistant professor of physics, astronomy and materials science. 

• 2nd place: Rachel Lee – “Development of artificial intelligence-based forcefields to model tunnel barriers in superconducting qubits.” 

• • Faculty advisor: Dr. Ridwan Sakidja, professor of physics, astronomy and materials science. 

Learn more about the symposium