At the Faculty of Science’s annual undergraduate summer research conference, students received awards in recognition of oral and poster presentations they gave on summer projects they worked on.

More than 60 students from the Faculties of Science, Health, and Environmental & Urban Change attended the Faculty of Science Summer 2023 Undergraduate Research Conference to present their projects, reflecting work ranging from bee conservation and biochemical innovations to quantum computing and more.

The conference was an opportunity for recipients of other summer undergraduate research awards (including the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Undergraduate Summer Research Awards, the Dean’s Undergraduate Research Awards, the Earle Nestmann Undergraduate Research Awards and the York Science Scholars Awards) to share projects they have worked on. Students’ presentations were judged by faculty members as well as postdoctoral and graduate students, and the winners for best presentations were announced at the end of the event. Health students were announced in a separate category.

The following science students received awards for their oral presentations:

• Hannah Le, a third-year chemistry student, won first place for the project “Value-Added Vat Orange 3 Dyes for Functional Materials Development,” supervised by Thomas Baumgartner, professor of chemistry;
• Chiara Di Scipio, a third-year biology student, won second place for the project “Investigating the signaling cascade of a CAPA neuropeptide in the Malpighian tubules of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster,” supervised by Jean-Paul Paluzzi, professor of biology; and
• Isaac Kogan, a first-year biology student, won third place for the project “Using Machine Learning to Interpret LFIA Results,” supervised by Sergey Krylov, professor of chemistry.

The following science students received awards for their poster presentations:

• Jessica Latimer, a fourth-year chemistry student, won first place for the project “Practical Accuracy Assessment of Equilibrium Dissociation Constants,” supervised by Sergey Krylov, professor of chemistry;
• Sarah Powell, a fourth-year physics student, won second place for the project “Theoretical particle physics on quantum computers,” supervised by Randy Lewis, professor of physics and astronomy; and
• Yash Shrestha, a second-year biology student, won third place for the project “Exploration of altered synaptic pruning in an autism model mouse,” supervised by Steven Connor, professor of biology.

Within the Faculty of Health, the following students received awards:

• Patrick Hewan, a psychology student, won best oral presentation for the project “Microstructural integrity of the Locus Coeruleus is related to decision-making in older adults,” supervised by Professor Gary Turner; and
• Mira Bhattacharya, a second-year cognitive science student, won best poster presentation for the project “Neuronal Correlates of Flexible Decision Making,” supervised by Professor Liya Ma.

Read more about the students and their projects in the conference program booklet.

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Buzzing with undergraduate researchers, faculty members and staff, the conference was an opportunity for recipients of NSERC Undergraduate Summer Research Awards (USRA), Dean’s Undergraduate Research Awards (DURA), and York Science Scholars Awards (YSSA) to present their summer research projects and to meet other awardees.

Fifty-five students from the Faculties of Science, Health, Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, and Environmental & Urban Change, and the School of Arts, Media, Performance & Design attended and shared their research projects and findings through talks and poster presentations.

The event opened with welcoming remarks from the Faculty of Science Associate Dean of Students Michael Scheid and the Faculty of Health Associate Dean of Research Chris Ardern.

“I hope that your research experiences have given you a deeper perspective of what frontline research is all about, helped you learn new skills and more about your interests, and led to new friendships and collaborations,” said Scheid.

The first talk of the day was presented by Professor Jane Heffernan, who delivered a keynote address on modelling immunity, focusing particularly on COVID-19. Ten students then presented talks in a morning session, and the remaining students presented posters in an afternoon session. The student presentations were judged by faculty members, postdocs and graduate students and the winners for best presentations were announced at the end of the event.

The following students received awards for their poster presentations:

• Minoosh Fathi – First place (tied) for the presentation “Phylogenetic history and molecular evolution of vertebrate opsins,” supervised by biology Professor Ryan Schott
• Mahya Rezaeifarimani – First place (tied) for the poster presentation “Synthesis of Monodisperse Silica Nanoparticles and the Incorporation of Fluorophores,” supervised by chemistry Professor Jennifer Chen
• Selin Tahir – Third place for the poster presentation “A scoping review of the literature on malaria statistical models and development of a cross-country predictive model for malaria in the Global South,” supervised by Professor Jude Kong in the Department of Mathematics & Statistics

The following students received awards for their oral presentations:

• Aleeza Qayyum – First place for the presentation “The Hyperphosphorylation of Amyloidogenic Tau,” supervised by chemistry Professor Derek Wilson
• Areeba Chaudhury – Second place for the presentation “Generation of Xeno Nucleic Acid (XNA) Aptamers Against Human α-Thrombin using T3 Ligase-catalyzed OligOnucleotide PolymERizations (LOOPER),” supervised by chemistry Professor Ryan Hili
• Claire Del Zotto – Third place for the presentation “Analysing Plant-Pollinator Interactions Along an Urbanisation Gradient,” supervised by biology Professor Sandra Rehan

The event closed with remarks from Faculty of Science Associate Dean of Research & Partnerships Vivian Saridakis and Associate Vice-President of Research Jennifer Hyndman.

“Students, it has been an honour to listen to your presentations today,” said Saridakis in her closing remarks. “I know a lot of hard work went into your research projects and putting together your abstracts and presentations for today’s event. Bravo and thank you to everyone for participating.”

Read more about the students and their projects in the conference program booklet. Event photos are available on the Faculty of Science .

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