CBL Scholar Spotlight

Kirsta Foote

Major: Chemistry
Research Project:Investigation of the antibody Trastuzumab as a macromolecule platform to control the location of conjugation and ratio of imaging agents on a biomacromolecule for pharmaceutical implications.
Mentor: Casey Dougherty, Ph.D., Chemistry

Azka Ghaffar

Major: Computer Science
Research Project:Investigation on the topic of cryptography, specifically analyzing a variation of The Birthday Paradox as applied to non-uniform random variables to characterize underlying patterns and enhance cryptographic breaks.
Mentor: Christopher Briscoe, Ph.D., Mathematics and Physics

Rachel Griffith

Major: Computer Science
Research Project: Application of mathematical modeling for the investigation of the transport of small molecules through cellular membranes, and development of custom software for post analysis via conversion of experimental data in digital format to relevant small molecule transport parameters.
Mentor: Sunghee Lee, Ph.D., Chemistry

Frances Hoey

Major: Mathematics and Physics
Research Project: Investigating the topic of Arithmetical Structures on graphs of n vertices where n = {3; 4; 5; 6} to gain an insight into the relationships between the graphs and their vectors.
Mentor: Abigail Bishop, Ph.D., Mathematics and Physics

Keidy Matos

Major: Chemistry
Research Project: Synthesis of biomacromolecules and polymers which are known to be conjugated to multiple copies of drugs and/or fluorescent dyes in order to detect and target a variety of diseases in biomedical applications.
Mentor: Casey Dougherty, Ph.D., Chemistry

Kathy Nguyen

Major: Computer Science
Research Project: Application of open-source software for machine learning to train a classification algorithm that can distinguish a phishing webpage from the legitimate one.
Mentor: Smiljana Petrovic, Ph.D., Computer Science

Escarlin Perez

Major: Biochemistry
Research Project: Investigation of nonspecific interactions between model cell membranes and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for better understanding in how it differs between the human cells to bacterial cells.
Mentor: Sunghee Lee, Ph.D., Chemistry

Althea Chokwe

Major: Computer Science

Research Project: Studies on applying feature-awareness for all refactorings in Java Integrated Development Environments with checking whether each subprogram of Software Product Line (SPL) codebases meet every precondition and displaying selected features only in the SPL subprograms.

Mentor: Jongwook Kim, PhD, Computer Science

Frances Hoey

Major: Mathematics and Physics
Research Project: Investigating the topic of Arithmetical Structures on graphs of n vertices where n = {3; 4; 5; 6} to gain an insight into the relationships between the graphs and their vectors.
Mentor: Abigail Bishop, Ph.D., Mathematics and Physics

Kathryn Kenny

Major: Computer Science

Research Project: Implementation of a novel rename-method-refactoring tool that fixes all known flaws in precondition checks, and directly transforms program source code without pretty-printing Abstract Syntax Trees to enhance software reliability and increase speed.

Mentor: Jongwook Kim, PhD, Computer Science

Summer Pabon

Major: Chemistry
Research Project: One step synthesis of halogenated ynamides (1-amido-2-haloalkynes) for potential use in pharmaceuticals.
Mentor:Marius Draeger, Ph.D., Organic Chemistry

Dennise Romero

Major: Chemistry
Research Project: Investigation on the reaction of a new water-soluble N-heterocyclic carbene rhodium complex with nitrogen oxides, which play important roles in biological and environmental chemistry, via kinetics of intermediate decay, and acid dependence.
Mentor: Kathleen Kristian, Ph.D., Inorganic Chemistry

Marnie Skinner

Major: Chemistry
Research Project: Investigation of nonspecific interactions between model membranes and nanomaterials, such as graphene oxide and other graphene-based 2D nanomaterials for safe use in environmental sensing.
Mentor: Sunghee Lee, Ph.D., Biophysical Chemistry

Samantha Zurbriggen

Major: Chemistry/Biochemistry
Research Project: Investigation of polyamidoamine dendrimers with lipid bilayers to understand how these dendrimer-based nanomaterials interact with membranes for the successful development of pharmaceutical agents and wider biomedical engineering application based on these materials.
Mentor: Sunghee Lee, Ph.D., Biophysical Chemistry