The topics may be mysterious to non-scientific types, but the research was solid at the 28th Annual Central California Research Symposium on April 12 at California State University, Fresno.
Hosted by the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at Fresno State, the symposium brings together investigators, students and faculty from a variety of disciplines to share the results of their scholarly work. Co-sponsors of the event include the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Fresno Medical Education Program and Alliant International University.
A record total of 66 oral and 53 poster presentations were made at the event, which attracted students from throughout the Central Valley and as far as San Jose. Top winners were awarded $250 each.
Two students from California State University, Fresno captured first-place honors for their oral presentations. Carlos Tristán received graduate honors for his project, “Expression Profile of Transgenic Nicotiana tabacum Plants Expressing Caenorhadbitis elegans’ Cell Death,” while Hilary Casner received first-place honors for best undergraduate oral presentation, “Effects of Lexical Competition on Audiovisual Integration in Speech Perception.”
In the poster competition, the two first-place winners were Sivakumar Sachidhanantham (“Geo-spatial modeling of wine grape quality using GIS”) and Christian Aguilar (“Protein Profile of Transgenic Nicotiana tabacum Plants Expressing Caenorhadbitis elegans’ Cell Death Genes”). In addition, Edward Reese was honored for the best sciences presentation (poster), “Convergent Evolution of Antifreeze Proteins: Bioinformatics of the Genes and Proteins.” The award is sponsored by the American Chemical Society.
For copies of the abstracts and pictures from the event, visit http://orsp.csufresno.edu/awards07.htm. For more information, please contact Doug Carey at (559) 278-0840.
Other winners were:
Doctoral Award for Best Poster Presentation: Justin Matthews – “How Spatial is Social Distance?”
Undergraduate award for Best Oral Presentation, Honorable Mention (Tie): Paula Wright – “Health, Wealth, and Home: The Effects of Household Air Quality on Income” and Sean Thompson – “Fluid Biomechanics of a Mussel Bed.”
Awards for Best Poster Presentation, Honorable mention: (Session I): Vanessa Becerra – “A Key to Brachyuran Megalopae of the San Francisco Bay Estuary”; (Session II): Nicholas Blanchard – “Phenotypic Characterization and Genetic Mapping of Traits in the Pepper Root Rot Pathogen.”
