April 13, 2021
Honors students bring home awards from RCAW 2021
Several Honors College students took home awards during the 15th annual Research & Creative Achievement Week (RCAW) on April 12, 2021.
This year, 86 Honors students presented during the undergraduate poster sessions and 29 Honors students presented during the undergraduate oral presentation sessions.
RCAW provides students with an excellent opportunity to practice their presentation skills and meet other creative scholars at ECU with similar interests. Scholars are invited to present their research to fellow students, scholars, colleagues, faculty, and the local community in a professional, conference-style setting. This year’s research categories consisted of biomedical sciences, business, community engagement, education, engineering, engineering/technology, fine & performing arts, human health, humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, sustainability and technology & computer science.
Amanda Powell’s Laser TAG submission
Honors College student Amanda Powell received an Honorable Mention in the Laser TAG Awards. Powell was the only undergraduate student to submit an image. Here’s what she had to say about her image:
The term ‘it takes a village’ is often used when describing how to best raise a child from infancy. But what many people don’t know is that this ‘village’ starts even before an embryo is created. My work in the ovary of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, allows me to visualize that it takes multiple cells and proteins in all shapes and sizes to help the maturing oocyte (egg) develop. In this image, large nurse cell nuclei (blue and green) provide nutrients, and information to the oocyte (green, at far right). Nutrients are transported between cells by large open ring canals (red), and the entire oocyte is enveloped by follicle cells which secrete eggshells proteins.
The following students received awards for their Undergraduate Student Oral Presentations:
Business
Rachel Watkins & Oswaldo Rangel-Corona
Mentor: Tim Christensen
Tellus: A Business Driving the World’s Transition to Sustainable Products
Human Health
Dana Shefet
Mentor: Virginia Stage
Your Child is Overweight, Now What? Understanding How Head Start Staff Communicate with Low-Income Families about Childhood Obesity
Humanities
Arvind Rajan
Mentor: Sheena Eagan
Medspectives – the Podcast about Health Professionals, the Stories of Their Practice, and their Diverse Perspectives into the World Around Us
Social Sciences
William Guiler
Mentor: Christyn Dolbier
A Neuropsychological Profile of College Students with ADHD
The following students received awards for their Undergraduate Student Poster Presentations:
Biomedical Sciences
Mikayla Luke
Mentor: Nicholas Polakowski
Predicting HBZ Interaction with BATF3 Enhancer Regions Through ChIP-seq
Biomedical Sciences
Ananya Pentakota
Mentor: Joseph McClung
Validation of a Novel Mouse Model of Cox6a2 Knockdown
Community Engagement
Alex Urban
Mentor: Tim Christensen
Campus Voter Initiative
Education
Adam Butler
Mentor: Terry Atkinson
The Child-Parent Reading Experience in Pediatric Medical Office Waiting Areas
Engineering
Grace Krell
Mentor: Stephanie George
Repeatability of AERO for Improved Lymphedema Assessment
Human Health
Katrina Free
Mentor: Hu Huang
Acute High and Moderate Intensity Treadmill Exercise Increases Appetite and NPY/AgRP Neuron Activity in Untrained Female Mice
Natural Sciences
Raazia Zia
Mentor: Anne Spuches
Structural and Thermodynamic Investigation of Pb2+ Binding to Human Cardiac Troponin C
Social Sciences
Marianne Congema and Sarah Hoffman
Mentor: Kim Larson
Culturally Responsive Community Palliative Care