Introducing the Spring 2018 UGRCE Award Recipients
This Spring 2018, the Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (UGRCE) Awards will provide financial and academic support to 28 student-initiated projects under the supervision of Northeastern University faculty members. The awards span a multitude of disciplines and professional fields across Northeastern University’s various colleges.
The UGRCE Awards offer Northeastern students the opportunity to propose original research and creative projects across a wide range of disciplines and conduct them over the course of the funded semester. The Awards, funded by the Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships, provide support for both early and advanced projects and allow students to develop themselves both academically and professionally as young scholars contributing to the knowledge base of their field of study. The goal of the awards is to allow students to gain discipline-specific knowledge through rigorous research and learn to disseminate their work to individuals from disciplines other than their own with the intention of fostering cross-disciplinary understanding.
All UGRCE awardees participate in a Friday Peer Talk series where they both present their projects’ progress, challenges, and successes, and offer feedback to other UGRCE Award recipients. We invite everyone to be part of the Peer Talk series to serve both as audience and reviewers for these outstanding scholars. If you are interested in attending one of the Peer Talk sessions, please click on the following link to register: Friday Peer Talk Guest Registration
Join us in congratulating all Northeastern students who are recipients of the UGRCE Awards for Spring 2018:
Early Research and Creative Endeavor Awards:
Improving Electrochemical Sensing using Forward Osmosis
Rachel Loo COE ‘21
Faculty Mentor: Professor Edgar Goluch, Chemical Engineering
Project Description: Bacterial infections are one of the top leading causes of death globally. This project seeks to improve the sensitivity of electrochemical sensors to detect bacteria during the onset of infections.
Humanizing Boston’s Haymarket
Ryan Maia CSSH ‘19
Faculty Mentor: Professor Carlene Hempel, Journalism
Project Description: Using interviews and portrait photographs, this project will create a digital collection of vignettes illustrating the lives led by vendors at Boston’s historic produce market.
Awareness, knowledge, and attitudes of contraceptive use and safe sex practice of high school adolescents in the Greater Boston area
Victoria Pelarski Bouvé ‘21
Faculty Mentor: Professor Janice Maras, Health Sciences
Project Description: This quantitative project assesses adolescents’ understanding of safe sex and contraceptive use in the Boston area to further understand factors that affect it.
Modeling Human Response Time to Improve the Design of WebSpeller — A Brain Interface for Augmentative and Alternative Communication
Deana Prochnau COE ’21
Faculty Mentor: Deniz Erdogmus, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project Description: Redesign WebSpeller, a brain interface for alternative communication, to be more user-friendly, through the derivation of a mathematical model mimicking human factors associated with increased complexity in design.
Gratitude and Costly Third Party Punishment
Jonathan Vayness COS ‘19
Faculty Mentor: Professor David DeSteno, Psychology
Project Description: This project seeks to test the hypothesis that the prosocial emotion gratitude will increase costly third party punishment by biasing thought in favor of future outcomes.
Diffusion Properties of Solutes through the Intervertebral Disc for Use in Drug Delivery
Erica Wagner COE ‘20
Faculty Mentor: Professor Ambika Bajpayee, Bioengineering
Project Description: This project seeks to examine drug carrier types that may be used to target the lumbar vertebrae to help relieve lower back pain.
Advanced Research and Creative Endeavor Awards:
Affective Speech Synthesis
Adaeze Adigwe COE ’19
Faculty Mentor: Sarah Ostadabbas, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project Description: This project aims to build the largest emotional speech database in the English language available to speech researchers working to improve the quality of human to computer interaction
The Gut-Brain-Axis: Exploring the Interface between Enteroendocrine Cells and the Enteric Nervous System
Minhal Ahmed COE ‘19
Faculty Mentor: Professor Abigail Koppes, Chemical Engineering
Project Description: This project seeks to understand the mechanisms by which enteroendocrine cells of the gut communicate with the enteric nervous system to convey luminal signals like nutrients and bacterial metabolites.
The Bridge Between Muscle and Bones: An Investigation of Tissue Repair and Regrowth
Isabel Arthur COE ‘20
Faculty Mentor: Professor Leila Devari, Materials Chemistry
Project Description: The goal of this project will be to understand the complexities of repair and regrowth of injured tendons and ligaments by modeling the tissues with a dense organized collagen network.
Health Literacy Among College Students
Jillian Egan Bouvé ‘19
Briana Balsamo Bouvé ‘18
Faculty Mentor: Professor Michael Gonyeau, Pharmacy and Health Systems Sciences
Project Description: This project aims to assess health literacy among college students to reveal existing gaps. Understanding these gaps may allow students to gain the education needed to appropriately maintain their health via future curricula changes.
An Analysis of Self-Assessed Confidence Pre and Post APPE Rotation in the Ambulatory Care Setting
Kaitlyn Gallant Bouvé ‘19
Faculty Mentor: Danielle Miller, Pharmacy and Health Systems Sciences
Project Description: Our project aims towards measuring confidence levels via surveys in sixth year students before and after their Ambulatory Care Rotation, to determine if education should be implemented into the curriculum.
Exploring the Central Dogma of Biology in Single Mammalian Cells
Guillaume Harmange COS ‘18
Faculty Mentor: Professor Nikolai Slavov, Bioengineering
Project Description: This project seeks to develop a method for quantifying the mRNAs and proteins in a single cell. The resulting method can provide unprecedented insight into mechanisms of gene regulation in heterogeneous cell populations.
Exploring the Microbial Secondary Metabolism of the Atacama Desert
Jared Hirschfield COS ‘20
Faculty Mentor: Professor Veronica Godoy-Carter, Biology
Project Description: Through the heterologous expression of environmental DNA in E. coli, this project aims to identify and isolate genes coding for autofluorescent secondary metabolites in bacteria sampled from Chile’s Atacama Desert.
Innovation in Schizophrenia Therapeutics: A TAAR1-centered approach
Rachel Hoffing COS ‘19
Faculty Mentor: Professor Greg Miller, Pharmaceutical Sciences
Project Description: This project aims to elucidate a novel molecular mechanism involving the Trace Amine-Associated Receptor 1 and the glutamate transporters that may lead to innovation in current schizophrenia therapeutics.
Collaboration Between Theatre and Engineering: Designing a Social-Psychological Metaphor
Liam Hofmeister CAMD ‘19
Desirè Bennett CAMD ‘21
Jennifer Goldberg CSSH ‘21
Connor O’Brien CAMD ‘18
Faculty Mentor: Professor Antonio Ocampo-Guzman, Theatre
Project Description: This project will explore how theatre artists can collaborate with engineers to design a structure that serves as both set and sculpture to communicate a social-psychological metaphor.
Boston Art Review
Jameson Johnson CAMD ‘18
Faculty Mentor: Professor Mark Lomanno, Music
Project Description: This project seeks to launch and expand a new community-led publication, Boston Art Review, for facilitating discourse around Boston’s constantly expanding arts network. The BAR will serve as a vital platform for artists, writers, and their audiences to convene.
Metacognitive Awareness and Mindful Traits in School of Pharmacy Students
Amanda Kim Bouvé ‘19
David DePalma Bouvé ‘19
Monica Patterson Bouvé ‘19
Faculty Mentor: Professor Jenny Van Amburgh, Pharmacy
Project Description: This project will be used to administer surveys to pharmacy students to identify a relationship between metacognitive awareness and mindfulness. Our findings will guide future interventions aimed at enhancing learning with metacognition and mindfulness.
Non Kuramoto (Former Master Electrician): A Web Series
Non Kuramoto CAMD ‘18
Faculty Mentor: Professor Jonathan Carr, Theatre
Project Description: This project will produce a web series that investigates diversity issues in theatre through a humorous exploration of regional theatre programming that applies traditional theatrical techniques to new media.
The Evaluation of Lactoferrin Supplementation on Behavioral Disorders Associated with Developmental Brain Iron Overload
Ji Hyun Lim Bouvé ‘18
Faculty Mentor: Professor Jonghan Kim, Pharmaceutical Sciences
Project Description: This project will investigate the effects of lactoferrin, an iron transport molecule, supplementation on iron overload mice. These findings may be useful in combating neurobehavioral dysfunctions that occur from early developmental iron overload.
Heterogenous Intelligent Robotic Mesh Network (HIRO-Net): A Rapidly-Deployable Temporary Replacement Network Infrastructure for Emergency Communications in Disaster Response Scenarios
Vladislav Martin COE ‘18
Faculty Mentor: Professor Tommaso Meloida, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Project Description: The project seeks to develop a Heterogenous Intelligent Robotic Mesh Network, a novel approach to off-the-grid emergency communications. The goal of this project is to provide a technology that quickly and reliably connects disaster respondents to victims of a disaster.
Solar Powered Electro-Fenton System for the Remediation of Estrogenic Compounds from Water Runoff
Emily Navarrete COS ‘19
Jonathan Perrier COE ‘19
Faculty Mentor: Professor Vasiliki Lykourinou, Chemistry
Project Description: This project seeks to conduct research and development of a solar powered, electrolytic groundwater remediation system that eliminates estrogenic molecules from agriculture based runoff water.
User Perceptions of Medication Assisted Treatment: Evidence from the /r/Opiates Forum
Jackson Reimer CSSH ’19
Faculty Mentor: Angela Kilby, Department of Economics
Project Description: Interpreting text as data from the largest known online public forum for opioid users, I try to understand when, how, and why different abuse combatting prescriptions are adopted.
Immune-Related Gene Expression and Bacterial Clearance in Transgenerational Immune Primed Mand sexta Larvaeuca
Silhouette Renteria COS ‘19
Faculty Mentor: Professor Wendy Smith, Biology
Project Description: This project explores expression of immune-related genes and bacterial clearance in transgenerationally immune-primed M. sexta larvae. The findings will reveal whether maternal transfer of enhanced immunity is sustained throughout larval life.
Optimization of a Multiplexed Assay Platform for Comprehensive Profiling of Epigenetic Modulators
Kritika Singh COE ‘20
Faculty Mentor: Professor Michael Pollastri, Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Project Description: This project will develop a high-throughput screening platform that will enable comprehensive and context-dependent profiling of epigenetic regulators and their small molecule inhibitors.
Northeastern University Global Health Initiative
Stephanie Stumbur Bouvé ‘20
Kritika Singh COE ‘20
Francesca Giorgianni CSSH ‘21
Adriell Louis CCIS ‘20
Faculty Mentor: Professor Rebecca Riccio, School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs
Project Description: This project seeks to develop and implement an interdisciplinary conference aimed at uniting students, faculty, and world-experts to encourage discourse about global health, workshop ideas for direct action, and present relevant research.
A Termite’s Perfect Parenting Handbook: How Parental Exposure to Pathogens Influences Immunocompetence of Termite Progeny
Emma Thornton COS ‘19
Faculty Mentor: Professor Rebeca Rosengaus, Marine and Environmental Sciences
Project Description: Through the introduction of pathogenic microorganisms in parent termites and subsequent assays of their offspring’s embryos, this project will be the first to study the phenomenon of transgenerational immunity in termites populations.
Comparison of Student Perceptions and Professor Expectations in Healthcare Simulation
Kelly Vassallo Bouvé ‘19
Emily Bitton Bouvé ’18
Shannon Moloughney Bouvé ’18
Faculty Mentor: Professor Kristin Greenwood, Physical Therapy
Project Description: This project will explore how the perceptions of faculty and students from the Bouvé College of Health Sciences compare regarding simulation experiences in the Arnold S. Goldstein Simulation Lab.