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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.