The College of Science hosted its largest ever Student Research Exposition on October 28, 2011. A total of 45 participating undergraduate and graduate students displayed posters of their research projects and answered questions from the judging panel as well as the general public.
"We think this program showcases exactly what is great about studying Science at the University of Idaho", says Mark Nielsen, Associate Dean in the college. "Because we're not a huge school, students have more significant contact with our faculty here, and even undergraduates have opportunities to work with our faculty on groundbreaking research. But it's because we are a research university that there is groundbreaking to be experienced -- our faculty is truly world class."
Over the last several years, the expo has become a signature event for the college, and participation has grown each year. Profiles of some of this year's participants are available below. The winning posters at this year's expo are:
Undergraduate Division
- First Place: Nick Weires (Chemistry)
Multi Component Clay-Catalyzed Syntheses of Pharmaceutically Relevant Heterocycles
- Second Place: Amanda Williams (Microbiology)
Phase Variation Anomallies Resulting from Disruption of Hybrid Histidine Kinase Response Regulator hhkY in Myxoccocus xanthus
Graduate Division
- First Place: Yaqun Xie with co-authors Isaiah Gyan and Haoyu (Chemistry)
Graphene Paper Synthesized by Thermolyzed Asphalt Reaction (TAR)
- Second Place: Roxana Hickey (Bioinformatics & Computational Biology)
Investigating Diversity and Ecology of Lactobacillus iners in the Vaginal Microbiota
Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society Awards
- Undergraduate: Alexander Peterson (Geography)
Plant Phenology, Late Spring Freezes, and Climate Change
- Graduate: Megha Karki (Chemistry)
Aerobic Oxidation Catalyzed by Clay: Rapid Green Synthesis of Heteroaromatic Scaffolds
