2024 Award Recipients

Design Option

First Place 

• Andre Brandao de Castro, College of Arts and Architecture / Theatre, “The Scenic Experience of ‘Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812’”

Second Place 

• Michael Ciaramitaro, College of Arts and Architecture / Theatre, “When Stars Collide: Designing Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812”

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Performance Option

First Place 

• Zephyr Willis, College of Arts and Architecture / Performance, viola, “Zoltán Kodály's Serenade for Two Violins and Viola Op. 12,” performed with Allison Smith, violin and Vinicius Vieira, violin

Second Place 

• Isabella Scotti, College of Arts and Architecture / Performance, percussion, “‘Derivative’ by Jlin from the Album ‘Perspective’ - Electronic Composition to Acoustic Performance,” performed with Jack Kerness, percussion; Paul Robeson, percussion; and Michael Valente, percussion

Third Place 

• Jonida Lazellari, College of Arts and Architecture / Piano Performance, piano, “Emma Lou Diemer- Toccata for Piano (1979)”
• Rui Zhang, College of Arts and Architecture / Piano Performance, piano, “Zhao Zhang’s Numa Ame and its Exploration of Eastern and Western Musical Elements”

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Research Poster Option

Arts and Humanities 

First Place 

• Brandon Johnson, College of the Liberal Arts / Communication Arts and Sciences, “The Rhetoric of The CEO Presidency”

Second Place 

• Sarah Cathry Dweik, College of the Liberal Arts / Communication Arts and Sciences, “Memory Work in the ‘Old Cities’ of Bethlehem and Hebron”

Third Place 

• Minjin Kim, College of the Liberal Arts / Applied Linguistics, “Exploring the potential of using ChatGPT for rhetorical move-step analysis: The impact of prompt refinement, few-shot learning, and fine-tuning"
• Maria Jose Andrade Gabino, College of the Liberal Arts / Spanish, “Negotiating Homosociality and Masculinities: Pedro Henríquez Ureña and the Ateneo de la Juventud Mexicana”
• Gavin Davis, College of the Liberal Arts / English, “The Dividing Blade: The Sword as an Ideologically Contested Object in the Literature of Tenth Century England”

Engineering 

First Place 

• Yanqiu Yang, College of Agricultural Sciences / Agricultural and Biological Engineering, “Approach to Biodiversity Protection: Employing AI and IoT Systems for the Containment of Box Tree Moth Proliferation”

Second Place 

• Sujay Hosur, College of Engineering / Electrical Engineering, “MagSonic: Hybrid Magnetic-Ultrasonic Wireless Interrogation of Millimeter-Scale Biomedical Implants with Magnetoelectric Transducer”
• Yue Yan, College of Engineering / Bioengineering, “Personalized Intravesical Immunotherapy for Bladder Cancer”

Health and Life Sciences 

First Place 

• Jisung Yuk, College of Health and Human Development / Kinesiology, “Concurrent anodal HD-tDCS to the posterior parietal cortex modulates the learning of a direction skill task”

Second Place 

• Mengzhu Tang, College of Agricultural Sciences / Pathobiology, “The role of vitamin D in host resistance to H1N1 influenza infection”

Third Place 

• Ram Neupane, College of Agricultural Sciences / Plant Pathology, “Peeling the Rotten Onion: A Three-Year Bacterial Survey of Onion Fields across Pennsylvania and New York”
• Sherif Olanrewaju, Nese College of Nursing / Nursing, “Invisible Minority: The Experiences of Migrant Nurses Caring for Older Adults in U.S Long-Term Care Facilities. A Preliminary Finding”

Physical Sciences and Mathematics 

First Place 

• Ayat Tassanov, Eberly College of Science / Chemistry, “Prediction and accelerated laboratory discovery of AMMQ3 compounds using tolerance factor approach”

Second Place 

• Tejal Shirsat, College of Agricultural Science / Soil Science, “Spatio-temporal Heterogeneity in Snow and Glacier Melt Runoff: Implications for Water Management in the Western Himalayas Transboundary Chenab River Basin”

Third Place 

• Shreya Mathela, Eberly College of Science / Chemistry, “Optical Signatures of Dopant Defect Coupling in Vanadium doped Tungsten Disulfide Monolayers”
• Rory Changleng, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences / Geosciences, “Diamonds trace formation of 3 Ga continental roots”

Social and Behavioral Sciences 

First Place 

• Makenna Lenover, College of the Liberal Arts / Anthropology, “Irritable bowel syndrome and the nutrition transition: contextualizing modern disease within cultural shifts”

Second Place 

• Madisen Plunkert, College of Agricultural Sciences / Education, Development, and Community Engagement, “Implementing Agricultural Literacy in Pennsylvania Elementary and Middle Schools: Perceptions of Principals”

Third Place 

• Sana Ahrar, College of Arts and Architecture / Architecture, “Mapping Community Dynamics: Integrating Social and Spatial Perspectives in decoding the functioning of Mixed-income Informal Neighborhoods”
• Daisuke Hayashi, College of Health and Human Development / Nutritional Sciences, “Reactivity to food cues and energy intake among women with binge-eating disorder: a pilot ecological momentary assessment study”

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Video Option

First Place 

• Connor Huxman, College of Engineering / Mechanical Engineering, “Flexible Orthopaedic Implants for Improved Bone Healing”

Second Place 

• Yiwen Zhang, College of the Liberal Arts / Criminology, “Do “Plea Rewards” Exist in Prison?”

Third Place 

• Megan Veltri, College of the Liberal Arts / Anthropology, “The Effect of Early and Late Life Chronic Social Stress on the Cellular Morphology of the Spheno-Occipital Synchondrosis in Female Post-natal Mice”
• Casey Tilley, College of the Liberal Arts / Comparative Literature, “Brazilian Cordel on the Amazon: Grassroots Poetry Between Extraction and Conservation”

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Visual Arts Option

First Place 

• Negar Dehghan, College of Arts and Architecture / Art, “Bake The Night Away: A Yalda Celebration Festival” 

Second Place 

• Forough Yazdanpanah, College of Arts and Architecture / Art, “Welcome to my world” 

Third Place 

• Elizabeth Krick, College of Arts and Architecture / Art, “Climate Changed: II-IV; and Untitled: I & II” 

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Data Visualization Award 

First Place 

• Ram Neupane, College of Agricultural Sciences / Plant Pathology, “Peeling the Rotten Onion: A Three-Year Bacterial Survey of Onion Fields across Pennsylvania and New York”

Second Place 

• Jisung Yuk, College of Health and Human Development / Kinesiology, “Concurrent anodal HD-tDCS to the posterior parietal cortex modulates the learning of a direction skill task”

Honorable Mention 

• Abby Gancz, College of the Liberal Arts / Anthropology, “Ancient dental calculus derived oral microbiomes as markers of disease in past populations”
• Kittiphum Pawikhum, College of Agricultural Sciences / Agricultural and Biological Engineering, “Design End-effector for Automatic Mushroom Harvesting”
• Yanqiu Yang, College of Agricultural Sciences / Agricultural and Biological Engineering, “Approach to Biodiversity Protection: Employing AI and IoT Systems for the Containment of Box Tree Moth Proliferation”
• Yue Yan, College of Engineering / Bioengineering, “Personalized Intravesical Immunotherapy for Bladder Cancer”