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College of Arts and Humanities

Juried Art Dean’s Award

  • Rose Burger, “Champlevé Salt and Pepper Shakers” (faculty mentor, Sharon Massey)

Juried Art Honorable Mentions

  • Adrian Salotti, “IUP Library Mural Proposal” (faculty mentor, Ivan Fortushniak)
  • Rose Burger, “3 Silver Cloisonné Bird Rings” (faculty mentor, Sharon Massey)

Undergraduate:

Dean’s Award

  • Wyatt Skaugen, “Modern Theism: An Investigation Into the Existence of a Universal Creator Entity, Moral Laws, and the Consequences of the Existence of Such Things” (faculty mentor, Michael Schwartz)

Outstanding Poster

  • Jesse Gowin, “Jael and Judith: The polarization of the Most Blessed of Women” (faculty mentor, Alison Downie)

Outstanding Oral

  • Samuel Bigham, “The Frustrated Revolutionary: Wang Jingwei, the Keys to Power in Republican China, and the Limits of Revolution” (faculty mentor, Alan Baumler)

Eberly College of Business

Graduate:

Dean’s Award

  • Taylor Friedman, “Data Breaches and Cybersecurity in Financial Institutions” (faculty mentor, Yaya Sissoko) *2022 Undergraduate ECB Outstanding Oral Presentation Award winner

Outstanding Podium

  • Babere Marwa, “Impact of Artificial Intelligence in Finance” (faculty mentor, Yaya Sissoko)

Undergraduate:

Dean’s Award

  • Angel Alcantara, “Descriptive Analysis of Key Variables for Sub-County Distribution of PCCD Funds” (faculty mentor, Brandon Vick)

Outstanding Poster

  • Dominic Rocco, Blake Edwards, Kaitlin Eichenlaub, Matthew Levenson, and Ronald Fleck, “An Analysis of the Sensitivity of Stock Market Returns to the Release of Macroeconomic Data” (faculty mentor, Todd Potts) *2022 ECB Undergraduate Outstanding Poster Award winner

Outstanding Oral

  • Alyssa Carne and Alex Tseng, “The Effect of Demographic, Socioeconomic, and Other Influences on State DUI Rates” (faculty mentor, James Jozefowicz)

College of Education and Communications

Graduate:

Dean’s Award

  • Nafisah Ahmad Sulaiman, “Understanding Facebook Crisis Communication in the Context of Dialogic Theory of Public Relations: A Case Study of Twitter Ban in Nigeria” (faculty mentor, Nurhaya Muchtar)

Outstanding Poster

  • Mackenzie Mead, “The Tide Pod Challenge” (faculty mentor, Nurhaya Muchtar)

Outstanding Oral

  • Levi Donaldson, “How Facebook Leverages Data” (faculty mentor, Nurhaya Muchtar)

College of Health and Human Services

Graduate:

Dean’s Award

  • Meghna Babu and Julie Bullock, “Social Media Use in Early Adulthood and the Impact of Past Parental Mediation Practices” (faculty mentor, Lisa Newell)

Outstanding Oral

  • Alessa Juarez, Shannon Phaneuf, and Sadie Miller “Evaluating Moral Reasoning and the Efficacy of Ethics Courses Among Criminology Majors” (faculty mentor, Shannon Phaneuf)

Outstanding Poster

  • Lamia Dawood, “Testing the Mediating Effect of School Attachment on the Relationship between Physical and Psychological health: Does the Gender matter?” (faculty mentor, Daniel Heckert)

Undergraduate:

Dean’s Award

  • Christina Horst, “Examining Forgiveness and Reconciliation Among Estranged Adult Children” (faculty mentor, Tara Johnson)

Outstanding Poster

  • Riley Morrison, Hannah Culp, Emma Romberger, and Sophia Redmond, “Perceptions and Cognitive Ability” (faculty mentor, Mark Palumbo)

Outstanding Oral

  • Cameron Sivels, Ariasi Davis, and Emma Williams, “How incentive spirometry techniques are being instructed among healthcare professionals” (faculty mentor, Jack Albert)

Three-Minute Thesis 

Judge's Choice: Jenna Bluedorn, Growing Brand Engagement through Gen Z TikTok Humor

Peer Choice: Asmaa Radwan, Teacher Educators' Perception of Their Readiness to Prepare Preservice Teachers to Use AI in Their Teaching Practice: An Exploratory Study

John J. and Char Kopchick College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics

Graduate:

Dean’s Award

  • Rufus James, “Characterizing the effects of chloroquine treatment on planarian tissue maintenance” (faculty mentor, Robert Major) *2022 Sigma Xi 2nd place

Outstanding Poster

  • Alexander Riccardi, “Geospatial Intelligence Analysis of Sea Level Rise, Intense Storm Occurrence, and Population Vulnerability in New York City” (faculty mentor, John Benhart)

Outstanding Oral

  • April Flowers, “It's a Hairy Situation: Optimizing Hair Sample Methods for Lagomorph Conservation” (faculty mentor, Sarah Emel)

Undergraduate:

Dean’s Award  

  • Drew Rado, Maria Balega, and Zaryn Good, “Development of IoT Test Bed to Assess IoT Security Using Machine Learning” (faculty mentor, Waleed Farag) *Maria Balega was the 2022 W-STEM Undergraduate Poster Award winner

Outstanding Poster

  • Joanna Stralka, Idoia Huerta Gallardo, “Treating Methamphetamine Dependence; Optimization of Methods for Mice” (faculty mentor, Daniel Widzowski)

Outstanding Oral

  • Trajan Jones, “Displacement and Gentrification: Challenges of Urban Redevelopment in Providing Affordable Housing in US Communities” (faculty mentor, Sudeshna Ghosh) 

Jones White Writing Center Awards

  • Alyssa Carne and Aminah Herbert, “How Medical Malpractice Affects Health Insurance Rates” (faculty mentor, Daniel Burkett)
  • Sierra Leonard, “The Chemical Formulation of Hair Dye and its Risk of Bladder Cancer” (faculty mentor, Justin Fair)

Excellence in Data Analysis Award (sponsored by the ARL)

Graduate:

  • Mikala Hardie, “A Geophysical Survey of a Plantation Site in Baltimore County, MD” (faculty mentor, William Chadwick)

Undergraduate:

  • Evan Orr and Alan Davis, “Mathematical Optimization of Sports Betting and Fantasy Football” (faculty mentor, Daniel Burkett)  

Women in STEM Awards (sponsored by KCNSM)

Graduate

Outstanding Poster

  • Cierra Henderson, “Characterizing Cell Shape and Actin Accumulation In the Planarian Epidermis” (faculty mentor, Robert Major)

Outstanding Oral

  • Sonja Rossi-Williams, “Indigenous Occupation Strategies in Eastern Pennsylvania: An Exploration of Changing Subsistence and Technological Practices in Watershed 03A” (faculty mentor, Benjamin Ford)

Undergraduate

Outstanding Poster

  • Maggie Miller, “Cloning of Genes Encoding Wnt Pathway Members in the Planarian” (faculty mentor, Robert Major)

Outstanding Oral

  • Emma Fetchko, “Expression of wnt4a and fzd9b in zebrafish during kidney development” (faculty mentor, Cuong Diep) *2022 USOAR participant and invited presenter at the 2023 Undergraduate Research at the Capitol PA Event

Sigma Xi

Graduate:

First place:  Amanda Telep - "An Archaeological Study of Structures of the Nineteenth Century"

Second place:  Cierra Henderson - "Characterizing Cell Shape and Actin Accumulation in the Planarian Epidermis"

Third Place:  Bridget Roddy - "Using Ceramic Analysis to Reevaluate Competing Hypotheses of McFate and Monongahela Amalgamation at the Squirrel Hill (36WM35) Archaeological Site"

Honorable Mention:  Neil Rossman - "Phenotypic and expression analysis of tbx20 during planarian tissue regeneration"

Undergraduate:

First place:  Maclyn Vasey - "Modelling Prescription Opioid Oxycodone Addiction in Planaria"

Second place:  Mitchell Posney - "Honeysuckle Plants of Native Origin have more Soil Fungal Associations than Invasive Plants"

Third place (tie)

Maggie Miller - "Cloning of Genes Encoding Wnt Pathway Members in the Planarian"

Samuel Smith - "Cloning of Four-Jointed Gene in Planarian Flatworm"

Honorable mentions

Jacob Krinock - "GIS-based Optimal Route Selection for Oil And Gas Pipelines: An Exploratory Approach"

Riley Morrison, Hannah Culp, Emma Romberger, and Sophia Redmond - "Perceptions and Cognitive Ability"

Rachel Nesgoda and Brandon Faber - "Semi-Continuous Suzuki Cross-Coupling Utilizing Heterogenous Catalyst Palladium on Carbon in a High-Pressure Liquid Chromatography Column"

Best Computational Science Poster Award (S-COAM)

Drew Rado, Maria Balega, and Zaryn Good (Waleed Farag mentor) for their poster “Development of IoT Test Bed to Assess IoT Security Using Machine Learning”

 

Faculty Mentors

Thank you to the faculty mentors who worked with their students to develop research projects and turn them into professional presentations. We recognize the amount of work above and beyond typical job duties to coach your students! Your individual efforts make such a difference impacting student trajectories and empowering them to redefine themselves as research/scholars.

Abigail Adams,  Alan Baumler, Alison Downie, Amanda Poole, Andrea Palmiotto, Benjamin Ford, Brandon Vick, Carl LeBlond, Charles Lake, Chris Schaney, Christian Vaccaro, Christina Ruby, Colin Ashe, Cuong Diep,  Daniel Burkett, Daniel Heckert, Daniel Lee, Daniel Widzowski, David Janetski, Ellen Yerger, Frederick Adkins, Gail Sechrist, Gregory Kenning, Holly Travis, Ivan Fortushniak, Jack Albert, James Jozefowicz, Jana Villemain, Jeremy Waltman, John Benhart, Jonathan Lewis, Jonathan Warnock, Joseph Duchamp, Justin Fair, Katherine Farnsworth, Kenneth Coles, Kevin Patrick, Kristi Storti, Lara Homsey-Messer, Leo Yan, Lisa Newell, Luz Stella Marin Ramirez, Majed Zreiqat, Mark Palumbo, Megan Knoch, Michael Schwartz, Nathan Heuer, Nathan McElroy, Nurhaya Muchtar, Paul Hawkins, Paul Nealen, Robert Major, Sadie Miller, Sarah Emel, Sean Derry, Seema Bharathan, Shannon Phaneuf, Sharon Massey, Sudeshna Ghosh, Sudipta Majumdar, Tara Johnson, Terilyn Huntington, Todd Potts, Waleed Farag, Wanda Minnick, William Chadwick, Yaya Sissoko

Scholars Forum Judges

Thank you to the judges who volunteered time from your schedule to join us today, interacting with students and learning about the breadth of research and artistic contributions undertaken by IUP students. We hope you enjoyed the opportunity to learn about student research outside of your academic area.

Abigail Adams, Francis Allard, Janis Barner, John Benhart, Seema Bharathan, Karen Rose Cercone, William Chadwick, Zach Cheever, Clerissa Connelly, Jon Cooper, Lamia Dawood, Nick Deardorff, Shannon Dusack,  Taylor Edwards, Tracy Eisenhower, Benjamin Ford, Rachel Fox, Terry Fries, Sudeshna Ghosh, Lei Hao, Paul Hawkins, Jackie Heisler, Pao Ying Hsiao, Bethany Jackson, Avijita Jain, Dave Janetski, James Jozefowicz, Stephanie Jozefowicz, Larry Kupchella, John Levey, Elaine Little, Shijuan Liu, Ute Lowery, Soo Chun Lu, Andrada Maicaneanu, Sudipta Majumdar, Luz Marin, Jessica Baum Mehus, Sadie Miller, Wanda Minnick, Aya Muchtar, Channa Navaratna, Paul Nealen, Lisa Newell, Vicky Ortiz, Andrea Palmiotto, Amber Pinkerton, Nancy Pipkin-Hutchinson, Jen Roberts, Michelle Robinson, Tim Runge, Casey Sharek, Dawn Sherwood-Smith, Yaya Sissoko, Zach Stiegler, Larry Sugisaki, Nada Tayem, Todd Thompson, Joe Townsend, Holly Travis, Christian Vaccaro, Jana Villemain, Jon Warnock, Sarah Wheeler, Dan Widzowski, Omar Yacoub, Leo Yan, Marjorie Zambrano-Paff, Andrew Zhou, Majed Zreiqat, Nashat Zuraikat