2021 Graduate Research Symposium winners announced at ��

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State’s Graduate Student Association is honoring 47 winners of the university’s 20th Graduate Student Research Symposium.

The recent virtual event gave 80 students the chance to showcase oral and poster presentations to a panel of �� faculty members and researchers. Projects were divided across four categories—education, arts and sciences, and business; forest resources and veterinary medicine; agriculture and life sciences; and engineering. Winners received monetary awards—first place, $300; second place, $150; and third place, $50.

Winners include (by category):

POSTERS

FOREST RESOURCES AND VETERINARY MEDICINE DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Natasha K. Murphy, a forest resources doctoral student from Ireland, for “A Better View: Osprey display different behavioral response to two nest survey methods.”

SECOND—Casey Iwamoto, a forest resources doctoral student from Seattle, Washington, for “Potential benefits of biochar and mycorrhizal fungi on shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata) restoration in Northcentral Alabama.”

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FOREST RESOURCES AND VETERINARY MEDICINE MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST (Tie)—Elizabeth Baach, a forestry master’s student from Carmel, Indiana, for “Using Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data to explore the relationship between functional diversity and productivity in Mississippi forests.”

FIRST (Tie)—Macy Gosselaar, a forestry master’s student from Olathe, Kansas, for “Impact of differentially expressed genes in monoclonal and polyclonal plantings of Populus deltoides for agricultural nitrogen mitigation.”

SECOND—James N. Helferich, a wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture master’s student from Broadalbin, New York, for “Inferring the effects of climate change on individual growth rates in a threatened pit viper.”

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AGRICULTURE AND LIFE SCIENCES DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Oshani Nayanathara, a forest resources doctoral student from Sri Lanka, for “Development of lignin-based anti-corrosive polyurethane coating for metals.”

SECOND—Lisa Ziegler, a human development and family science doctoral student from Baden-Baden, Germany, for “Understanding eating disorder risk factors in college students: A mixed-methods needs assessment for designing eating disorder prevention programs.”

THIRD—Riley Messman, an agricultural science doctoral student from Albion, Illinois, for “Effects of maternal nutrient restriction and melatonin supplementation on bovine placental taste receptors.”

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AGRICULTURE AND LIFE SCIENCES MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Casey Moss and Shannon Allen, agricultural and extension education master’s students from Bruce, Mississippi, and Gassaway, West Virginia, for “Leading the Future: An assessment of county extension agents perceived leadership skills and leadership proficiency.”

SECOND—Ramandeep Kumar Sharma, a plant and soil sciences master’s student from Starkville, for “Corn yield response to nitrogen and sulfur application in Mississippi.”

THIRD—James Dew, a plant and soil sciences master’s student from Shannon, for “An evaluation on the effects of additions and deletions of specific nutrient management strategies on corn yield at different plant densities.”

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EDUCATION, ARTS AND SCIENCES, AND BUSINESS DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—S.M. Asger Ali, an earth and atmospheric sciences doctoral student from Starkville, for “Severe Weather Coverage: A comparative content analysis of Tennessee and Mississippi based local television broadcaster’s tornado warning communication.”

SECOND—Jasmine Sorrell, an educational psychology doctoral student from Starkville, for “Driving with ASD: Using stimulus fading to teach driving facts.”

THIRD (Tie)—Jannatul Ferdush, an earth and atmospheric sciences doctoral student from Dhaka, Bangladesh, for “Geostatistical applications in soil pH mapping at low-lying areas of Bangladesh.”

THIRD (Tie)—Sachini N.K. Kodithuwakku Arachchige, a kinesiology doctoral student from Ratmalana, Sri Lanka, for “The Walls are Closing In: Postural responses to a virtual claustrophobic simulation.”

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EDUCATION, ARTS AND SCIENCES, AND BUSINESS MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Cassandra DeGaglia, an applied anthropology master’s student from Washington, D.C., for “Highlighting the invisible: Marginalization in 19th and 20th century anatomical and medical anatomical skeletal collections.”

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ENGINEERING DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Yehong Peng, an electrical and computer engineering doctoral student from Hunan, China, for “Smart partitioning based fully distributed AC optimal power flow.”

SECOND (Tie)—Durant Fullington, an industrial and systems engineering doctoral student from Thomasville, Georgia, for “Data anonymization for process-defect modeling of additive manufacturing.”

SECOND (Tie)—Mahathir Mohammad Bappy, an industrial and systems engineering doctoral student from Narsingdi, Dhaka, Bangladesh, for “In-situ Layer-wise certification for direct energy deposition processes based on melt pool morphology dynamics analysis.”

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ENGINEERING MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Frank Brinkley, a mechanical engineering master’s student from Dennis, for “An open-source medical bone screw insertion apparatus.”

SECOND—McKenna Patterson, a mechanical engineering master’s student from Augusta, Georgia, for “The current state of the industrial energy assessment and its impact on today’s manufacturing industry.”

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ORAL PRESENTATIONS

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FOREST RESOURCES AND VETERINARY MEDICINE DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Devin M. Chen, a forest resources doctoral student from Omaha, Nebraska, for “A comparison of diets for optimal tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum) larvae growth and development to bolster conservation efforts.”

SECOND—Rebecca D. Bracken, a forest resources doctoral student from Austin, Texas, for “Assessing the use of a managed forest landscape by a declining aerial insectivore in the southeastern U.S.”

THIRD—Tharindu Karunaratne, a forest resources doctoral student from Galle, Sri Lanka, for “Bamboo char supported zero-valent iron (BC-ZVI) for water remediation.”

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FOREST RESOURCES AND VETERINARY MEDICINE MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Holly M. Todaro, a wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture master’s student from Port Huron, Michigan, for “Micro-habitat selection of Bachman’s sparrows in managed pine forests in Eastern Mississippi.”

SECOND—Mahesh Tiwari, a forestry master’s student from Kathmandu, Nepal, for “What factors predispose households in trans-Himalaya (Central Nepal) to livestock predation by snow leopards?”

THIRD—Darcey Collins, a forestry master’s student from Bauxite, Arkansas, for “Novel silvicultural practices for managing mixed-species stands for non-industrial private landowners.”

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AGRICULTURE AND LIFE SCIENCES DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Josiane Argenta, a plant and soil sciences doctoral student from Erechim, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, for “Response of cotton chromosome substitution lines to sublethal doses of 2,4-D.”

SECOND—Victoria Jefferson, a molecular biology doctoral student from Tupelo, for “Characterization of a previously unannotated coding region of Bovine Herpesvirus 1.”

THIRD—Shraddha Hegde, a forest resources doctoral student from Leland, for “Economic impact assessment of the U.S. catfish industry.”

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AGRICULTURE AND LIFE SCIENCES MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Allison Harman, an agriculture master’s student from Leesville, South Carolina, for “Evaluating therapeutic supplements that alter prostaglandin production in a bovine endometrial epithelial cell model.”

SECOND—Mckenzie Carvalho, an agriculture master’s student from Maxwell, California, for “The urban-rural gap in financial literacy: Features and implications.”

THIRD��(Tie)—LeAnn Ward, a computational biology master’s student from Brandon, for “Evolutionary analysis of aging-related genes between the long-lived pollen feeding Heliconius butterfly species and other Lepidopterans.”

THIRD��(Tie)—Katelin Waldrep, an agriculture master’s student from Cherokee, Alabama, for “Managing Iron Deficiency Chlorosis (IDC) through a cropping system approach.”

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EDUCATION, ARTS AND SCIENCES, AND BUSINESS DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Junnatun Naym, a business administration doctoral student from Dhaka, Bangladesh, for “Effect of regulatory enforcement actions on CEO forced turnover: Evidence from violation penalties.”

SECOND—Courtney J. Bolstad, an applied psychology doctoral student from Fergus Falls, Minnesota, for “Age moderates the relation between sleep problems and suicide risk.”

THIRD—Raymond Femi Awoyemi, a chemistry doctoral student from Ekan, Kwara State, Nigeria, for “Investigation of hydrogen diffusion in high hardness steels.”

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EDUCATION, ARTS AND SCIENCES, AND BUSINESS MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Jordan Wesley, a history master’s student from Hattiesburg, for “To Be Womanly Always, Discouraged Never: The role of southern sororities in American containment culture.”

SECOND—Kayla Jordan, a history master’s student from Sweet Water, Alabama, for “More than ectoplasm: A study of Civil War memory and Southern ghostlore.”

THIRD—Kendall Comish, a history master’s student from Ridgeland, for “Fighting AIDS Patients: How NIMBY-ism/urban revanchism was used to fight against a Mississippi AIDS boarding house.”

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ENGINEERING DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Logan Betts, an engineering doctoral student from Brunswick, Georgia, for “Towards an electromagnetic modeling and simulation framework for estimating composition of cementitious geomaterial.”

SECOND (Tie)—Javier Mendez Monroy, an engineering doctoral student from Bogota, Colombia, for “Runoff, sediment and nutrients load, and crop yield modeling in the Mississippi Delta region using APEX.”

SECOND (Tie)—Laihmen Quan, an engineering doctoral student from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, for “Salinity effect on CO2-sensitive Polyacrylamide.”

SECOND (Tie)—Matthew Register, an engineering doctoral student from Vicksburg, for “A sequentially coupled thermomechanical model for wire arc additive manufacturing of M250.”

SECOND (Tie)—Meena Raju, an engineering doctoral student from Bengaluru, India, for “Long term trend and change point analysis of streamflow and rainfall in Mississippi River Valley Alluvial Aquifer (MRVAA).”

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ENGINEERING MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Laura Andrea Sarmiento Rodriguez, a civil engineering master’s student from Bogota, Colombia, for “Assessment of runoff water quality from irrigated corn fields under different cover crop residues treatments.”

SECOND—Lorena Chavarro-Chaux, a civil engineering master’s student from Oporapa, Huila, Colombia, for “Assessing the pollutants loads and stream function in a headwater of Catalpa Creek.”

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