2019 Award Winners

Award for Artistic Excellence

Christine Phang (Humanities and Arts); “Little Mouse's Search: Exploring Meaning Through Children's Literature”

John Sprong (English); “In Recovery: A Collection of Short Stories”

Zain Islam-Hashmi (Architecture), Stephanie Smid (Architecture); “Alluminare: A Glow-in-the-Dark Collection”

Zain Islam-Hashmi (Architecture); “Dirt Forms: Understanding and Implementing an Earthen Construction Collectivism in Pittsburgh”

Xavier Apostol (Art); “Orchards”

The Boeing Blue Skies Award

First prize: “Connect, Protect, Explore, and Inspire the World” – Jonathan Fortis Rivera (Electrical & Computer Engineering), Alexander Patel (Electrical & Computer Engineering), Ishan Pardesi (Electrical & Computer Engineering); “Distributed Bluetooth Low-Energy Sensor Network for Modelling and Predicting Human Mobility at Meso-Scale”

Second prize: “Game Changer” – Junhan Kong (Computer Science); “StateLens: A Reverse Engineering Solution to Making Existing Dynamic Touchscreens Accessible”

Third prize: “Most Creative” – Hans Kumar (Mechanical Engineering), Serano Ng (Robotics); “Dexterity and Tactile Sensitivity: Strategies for a Jenga-playing Robot”

Dietrich Humanities Prize

Julie Heming (English); “Ghost Breath: Poems”

Ashley Chan (Art); “The Rochester Abandoned Subway”

Juliana Schnerr (Design); “MaryAnne, Ana, Marcela, Me. A Series of Short Stories”

Anne Crumley (CFA Interdisciplinary); “Rocking the Boat: De Facto Segregation and the Kennywood Swimming Pool: 1953-1956”

Chloe Desaulles (Humanities and Arts); “Dedications I-V”

Henry Armero Memorial Award for BCSA

Lingdong Huang (Computer Science and Arts) – “Pose Estimation Playrooms”

Mathematics Poster Competition

Grand prize: Emily Zhu – “Multicolor Ramsey numbers for small hypergraphs”

Poster prizes 

Alp Muyesser (Mathematical Sciences)- “Unavoidable colorful patterns in graphs”

Xinyu Wu (Computer Science) - “A log-Sobolev inequality for the multislice, with applications”

Annie (Jingjing) Xu (Mathematical Sciences) - “Traces for homogeneous Sobolev spaces in infinite cylindrical domains”

Young research award 

Yurong Li (Mathematical Sciences) and Lily Qiao (Mathematical Sciences) – “Portfolio optimization with order size impact”

The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute Award

First prize:

Rriddhiman Bezbaruah (Mechanical Engineering); “Using Additive Manufacturing to Construct Next Generation Brain-Machine Interface Devices to Improve Stroke Rehabilitation”

Cristina Banuelos (Biological Sciences); “Structural brain network topologies associate with aspects of value-based decision-making”

Second prize:

Wyatt Swift-Ramirez (Chemistry); “Gentle Attachment of Bioactive Molecules onto a Robust Graphenic Scaffold”

Jack Forman (Materials Science and Engineering), Katherine Forrester (Biomedical Engineering), Andre Gutierrez Marty (Mechanical Engineering), Beichen Liu (Chemical Engineering), Rena Miu (Chemical Engineering); “Low Cost Artificial Lung”

Honorable mention:

Alexander Baikovitz (Mechanical Engineering), Jonathan Duffy (Electrical & Computer Engineering), Zachary Sussman (Computer Science); “In-Sight: Tension-Based Haptic Feedback to Improve Navigation for People who are Blind”

Puja Dutta (Biological Sciences); “Targeting ppGalNAc-T3 to Block the Migration and Invasion of Cancer Cells”

Psychology Department Competition

Poster Competition

First prize: Cristina Banuelos (Biological Sciences); “Structural brain network topologies associate with aspects of value-based decision-making”

Runner Up: Nicole Ang (Information Systems), Kalpa Anjur (Computer Science), Dominic Calkosz (Computer Science), Elizabeth Fulton (Science and Humanities Scholars), Suanna Moron (Biological Sciences), Emery Noll (Biological Sciences), Bridget Tan (Electrical & Computer Engineering), Nathan Williams (Philosophy), Kristy Zhang (Business Administration); “Enhancing Executive Function in Preschool Children: Generalizability and Long-term Effects of Cognitive-Motor Training”

Oral Competition

First prize: William Crouch (Biological Sciences); “Helping or Hurting? The Role of Unmitigated Communion and Relationship Intimacy Following Support Receipt”

Runner-Up: Isabella Starvaggi (Psychology); “Cognitive Responses to Fatigue in Seasonal Affective Disorder”

Sigma Xi Poster Competition

First Prize: Puja Dutta (Biological Sciences); “Targeting ppGalNAc-T3 to Block the Migration and Invasion of Cancer Cells”

Second Prize: Isabel Yoon (Biological Sciences); “Long-term Neurodevelopmental Outcomes of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation for Late-infantile Krabbe Disease”

Third Prize: Dominique Petach (Biomedical Engineering); “Reducing Thrombotic Deposition in ECCO₂R Systems”

Statistics

Poster Presentation Competition

1st place:  Rishav Dutta (Computer Science); “Unsupervised Techniques for Identifying Pass Coverage amongst Defensive Backs Using NFL Tracking Data”

2nd place: Carlo Duffy (Statistics); “Associations of Physicians’ Propensity to Prescribe Opioids and Medicare Patient Panels’ Average HCC Risk Scores”

3rd place: 

Adin Adler (Statistics), Irina Javed (Statistics), Shannon Lu (Information Systems), Shreya Prakash (Statistics); “Characterizing Incidents at Black & Veatch”

Julie Kim (Statistics), Yi Wen (Business Administration), Jae Won Yoon (Business Administration), Wanhe Zhao (Statistics); “Utilizing Infant EEG Brain Patterns to Predict Childhood ADHD”

Early Research (Freshman/Sophomore)

Parvathi Meyyappan (Statistics), Harold Rockwell (Biological Sciences), Filipp Shelobolin (Statistics); “Predicting Galaxy Mass and Star Formation Rate from Emission Line Spectra”

Oral Presentation Competition:

Adam Tucker (Economics and Statistics); “Forecasting Recession: A Comparison of Parametric and Ensemble Methods”

Undergraduate Environmental Research Award

First prize: William Fahy (Chemistry); “Aqueous Phase Chemical Alteration of Volcanic Ash Ice Nucleating Ability”

Runner-up:  

Zachary Rapaport (Humanities and Arts), Christian Walsh (Design); “WaterWalks: Creative Action for Community Justice”

Zain Islam-Hashmi (Architecture); “Dirt Forms: Understanding and Implementing an Earthen Construction Collectivism in Pittsburgh”