Dozens of students participate in regional research symposium held at Schuylkill

SCHUYLKILL HAVEN, Pa. — Penn State Schuylkill hosted the 2022 Penn State Eastern Regional Undergraduate Research Symposium on Saturday, April 23. The event featured research from dozens of students across seven campuses: Penn State Abington, Brandywine, Hazleton, Lehigh Valley, Schuylkill, Scranton and York. 

The symposium featured a presentation from speaker Jessica Petko, associate professor of biology at Penn State York, who discussed research she and her students conduct with arachnids. Petko, fondly known as the “Spider Lady” on her campus, studies the spiders’ circadian (daily) cycles and their neurotransmitter receptors and adaptations to the local environment. 

The Eastern Regional Undergraduate Research Symposium has been held for 11 years, with the participating campuses taking turns hosting the event each spring. This was Penn State Schuylkill’s second time hosting the event, with the first in 2015. 

Presentations

Students presented work in four categories: Arts and Humanities; Business and Social Sciences; Biological and Health Sciences; and Physical Sciences, Engineering, and Informational Sciences. First- and second-place research presentations were identified in each category, with Schuylkill students coming in first place in two of the four categories. 

Arts and Humanities

First place:

"70,000: Seafaring Sirens" 
Katherine Joyce, Penn State Schuylkill 
Faculty adviser: Anita Vickers 

Second place:

"Invasive Species: The Importance of Scientific Illustrations" 
Delilah Jabbour, Penn State Lehigh Valley 
Faculty advisers: Elizabeth R. Flaherty and Karen Kackley-Dutt 

Also presenting:

"Beating Writer’s Block: How to Write Based on Real Life" 
Samhita Chitturi, Penn State Abington 
Faculty adviser: Linda Patterson Miller 

Business and Social Sciences

First place:

"Let’s Talk About Sex Work!" 
Hannah Irwin, Fernando Gaton, Mikayla Wilkins, Drew Bartos and Hailee Foster, Penn State Lehigh Valley 
Faculty adviser: David Livert 

Second place:

"Devaluation of Future Rewards as an Underlying Mechanism of Media Multitasking in the Classroom" 
Savannah Cothron, Penn State Hazleton 
Faculty adviser: Yusuke Hayashi 

Also presenting:

"Family Routines During COVID-19" 
Emily Pinto, Penn State Scranton 
Faculty adviser: Raymond Petren 

"Making Ethical Choices: Analysis of Government Laws and Ethics in Celebrity Cases of Whistleblowers from 1971-2021" 
Carol Rayos, Penn State Schuylkill 
Faculty adviser: Juyoung Song 

"JLWOP: It is Time to Raise the Bar to 21 and Up" 
Carol Rayos, Penn State Schuylkill 
Faculty adviser: Ronald Kelly 

"Maternal Gatekeeping After Divorce and Separation" 
Kimberlyn Sanchez, Penn State Scranton 
Faculty adviser: Raymond Petren 

Biological and Health Sciences

First place:

"Relations between Phytoplankton and Toxins in Pocono Region Lakes" 
Aloura Gavalis, Penn State Schuylkill 
Faculty adviser: Sarah Princiotta 

Second place:

"Unraveling The Web of Circadian Gene Evolution and Function in Arachnids"
Hunter Haggett, Penn State York 
Faculty adviser: Jessica Petko 

Also presenting: 

"The Synthesis and Computer-Aided Design of Imine and Hydrazone Derivatives of Flavonoids for use as Potential Inhibitors of the Papain-like Protease of COVID-19" 
Hamzah A. Al-Quaid, Penn State Brandywine 
Faculty adviser: Anna Sigmon 

"Stories from Nurses on the Front Lines of the COVID-19 Pandemic" 
Logan DeSanto, Penn State Scranton 
Faculty adviser: Michael M. Evans 

"Plant Interactions Perceived as Stress Relieving During COVID-19 Pandemic" 
Alexandria DeWolfe and Marston Jamieson, Penn State Scranton  
Faculty adviser: Megan Van Etten 

"Patterns of Abiotic Factors on Algal Bloom Growth" 
Caitlyn Goggin, Penn State Schuylkill 
Faculty adviser: Sarah Princiotta 

"Heparin’s Potential to Reduce Inflammation in Aortic Endothelial Cells" 
Rory Rafferty and Ali Naqvi, Penn State Lehigh Valley 
Faculty adviser: Jacqueline McLaughlin 

"Using Brassica rapa Mutants to Measure the Long-Term Effects of Pollinator Declines: First Steps" 
Sarah Sherpinskas, Penn State Scranton 
Faculty adviser: Megan Van Etten 

Physical Sciences, Engineering, and Informational Sciences

First place:

"Exploring Effectiveness of HIDS for Machine-Learning Data Defense" 
Himani Vommi, Penn State Brandywine 
Faculty adviser: Dr. John Andrew Landmesser; Campus: Brandywine 

Second place:

"Examining the Microbial Properties of Photo Composites" 
Logan Coomes, Penn State York 
Faculty advisers: Forrest A. Landis and Anne M. Vardo-Zalik 

Also presenting:

"A Tale of Three Sequences" 
Dennis Bromley, Penn State Brandywine 
Faculty advisers: Marina Skyers and Samantha Pezzimenti 

"COVID-19 and Our Increasingly Online Lives" 
Ethan Carvajal, Penn State Schuylkill 
Faculty adviser: Jennifer Breese 

"Investigation of Support Options Not Included in Transverse Beam Loading Simulation" 
Tobey Field, Fouad Awwad and Ethan Davies, Penn State Lehigh Valley 
Faculty adviser: Tracey Ann Carbonetto 

"Aerodynamics of Airborne Droplets behind the Social Distancing Rules for COVID-19" 
Phuong Ho and Sean Thomas, Penn State Abington 
Faculty adviser: Andrei Blinkouski 

"Halogen Bonding in Photochromic Naphthoquinone Based Diarylethenes" 
Kevin Lowen and Brett Wilson, Penn State Hazleton 
Faculty adviser: Dinesh Patel 

"Analysis of Giant Pulses from the Vela Pulsar" 
Nicholas Pagano, Katherine Hayhurst and Avinash Sookram, Penn State Abington 
Faculty advisers: Ann Schmiedekamp and Carl Schmiedekamp 

"The Synthesis of a 1,3-pyridothiazin-4-one" 
Elyssa Yeagley, Penn State Schuylkill 
Faculty adviser: Lee Silverberg 

Providing ample opportunities for recognizing research

Penn State Schuylkill has held an array of research-focused events this spring, beginning the presentation season with the Student Research and Scholarship Conference on Wednesday, April 6. This campus-specific event featured 13 presentations in the same disciplinary categories outlined above for the regional symposium. 

In addition, Penn State Schuylkill students delivered oral presentations of their research at the campus’ Undergraduate Research and Creative Accomplishments Symposium, held Wednesday, April 27. This event allowed students to speak about their research in depth with the campus community through multi-slide presentations.

Finally, several nursing students at Penn State Schuylkill  presented their research at a virtual Sustainable Microbiology Symposium. Lecturer of biology and faculty adviser Mary Ann Smith spearheads the campus’ Small Worlds Tiny Earth Project, which aids in antibiotic discovery in soil samples collected on campus.

Conducting research at Penn State

Part of Penn State’s land-grant mission is to conduct and promote research that improves people’s lives, and undergraduate research opportunities exist across the commonwealth. Visit Penn State’s research website to learn more about opportunities and funding at the University.