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Twelve awards were distributed at Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô’s Seventh Annual Texas STEM conference, held on Nov. 2, 2019.

Students from Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and Louisiana Tech University presented 46 presentations - 18 talks and 28 posters.

First, second and third place awards were given to both graduate and undergraduate students for best oral presentation and best poster presentation. Awards went to:  

Undergraduate Oral Awards:

First place:  Kyle Delk, Biology, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô, 2019 Presidential Fellow
Topic: “Effects of Vitamin D on Human Meibomian Gland Epithelial Cells”
Co-Author: Carolina Lema, University of Houston
Mentor: Rachel Redfern, University of Houston, College of Optometry, The Ocular Surface Institute

Second place: Katherine Harmon, Biology, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô
Topic: “siRNA Silencing of VPS32 in Tritrichomonas foetus”
Co-Authors: Peter Connolly, Guadalupe Cisneros, Diana Dang, Khushi Malani, Emily McCall, and Duy Vo
Mentor: Dr. Ashwini Kucknoor, Department of Biology, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô

Third place: Matthew Johnson, Physics, Major in Electrical Engineering, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô
Topic: “A Study of Current Data on Fast Radio Bursts. “
Mentor: Dr. Cengiz Sen, Department of Physics, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô

Undergraduate Poster Awards:

First place:  Emily Ingram, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô
Topic: “Analysis of the Catalyst Effect on Bulk Ammonia Borane-Polyethylene Oxide Hydrogen Storage Composites”
Co-Authors: Caitlyn Clark, Krishna Karel, Riqiang Fu and Dr. Ozge Gunaydin-Sen
Mentor: Dr. Ozge Gunaydin-Sen, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô

Second place: Donna Fleming, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô
Topic: “Theoretical Calculations of Epoxyketene to Lactone Thermal Rearrangement Transition States and Kinetics”
Mentor: Dr. Christopher B. Martin, Department of Chemistry and Bio-chemistry, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô

Third place:  Kyleigh Dixon, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô
Topic: “Development of an Algal-based Landfill Leachate Treatment System”
Mentor: Dr. Thinesh Selvaratnam, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô

Graduate Oral Awards:

First place:  Mukunda Khanal, Mechanical Engineering, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô
Topic: “An Analysis of Baking Schedules for Highly Moisture Sensitive Electronic Components”
Mentors: Dr.  Xuejun Fan and Dr. Jenny Zhou, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô

Second place:  Divine Sebastian, Mechanical Engineering, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô
Topic: “Multiscale investigation of corrosion on super-hydrophobic aluminum alloy using electrochemical techniques and in-situ AFM”
Mentor: Dr. Chun-Wei Yao / Department of Mechanical Engineering / Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô

Third place: Ashiqur Rahman, Ph.D. candidate in Chemical Engineering, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô
Topic: “Biosynthetic Conversion of Ag+ to Colloidally Stable Ag0 nanoparticles by Chlamydomonas
Reinhardtii: A Mechanistic View of the Light-Induced, Extracellular Polymeric Substances-Mediated Synthesis Process”
Co-authors: Shishir Kumar, Adarsh Bafana and Julia Lin, Nanobiomaterials and Bioprocessing Laboratory (NABLAB), Dan F. Smith Department of Chemical Engineering, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô; Si Amar Dahoumane, School of Biological Sciences and Engineering, Yachay Tech University,Hacienda San José s/n, San Miguel de Urcuquí 100119, Ecuador; 
Mentor: Clayton Jeffryes, Nanobiomaterials and Bioprocessing Laboratory (NABLAB), Dan F. Smith Department of Chemical Engineering, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô and Center for Advances in Water & Air Quality, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô

Graduate Poster Awards:

First place:  Seyedsaeid Hosseini, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô
Topic: “Influence of Pulverized Bottom Ash on Nano-Mechanical Properties of Interfacial Transition Zone and Bulk Matrix”
Mentor: Dr. Nicholas A. Brake, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô

Second place: Shanglei Pan, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô
Topic: “Evaluation of a thermo-tolerant acidophilic alga, Galdieria sulphuraria, for landfill leachate treatment”
Mentor: Dr. Thinesh Selvaratnam, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Â鶹ӳ»­Ó°Òô

Third place:  Anton Gribovskiy, Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Topic: “RF Spectroscopy with Nonlinear Si Integrated Microring Resonators”
Mentor: Dr. Malik Rakhmanov, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley