2017 Graduate Exhibition award winners announced

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Forty-one graduate students received awards for their research and creative scholarship in the 32nd annual Graduate Exhibition, held March 24 and 26 on Penn State's University Park campus. A complete list of winners is available below.

More than 200 graduate students participated in the 2017 Graduate Exhibition which included 220 graduate student participants in the research poster presentation option, 10 in the visual arts option, 10 in the performance option, and five in the video option. More than 170 individuals also volunteered to serve as judges. 

"Graduate students are the pillars of Penn State’s research enterprise and essential contributors to the intellectual diversity of the University," said Regina Vasilatos-Younken, vice provost for graduate education and dean of the Graduate School. “We are proud of the accomplishments of Penn State graduate students, whose participation made the 32nd Graduate Exhibition a success."

Graduate students who participated in the visual arts option will have their works displayed in the HUB-Robeson Art Gallery from March 24 to April 28. The winning videos can be viewed on YouTube.

The Graduate Exhibition will be held next year on March 23 and 25, 2018, and registration will open later this year.

Research poster option

Arts and humanities

First place

• Angelica Rocio Rodriguez Ramirez. Arts and Architecture/ARCHITECTURE. "Impact of Architectural Design Features of Communal Spaces in Social Housing Projects on Residential Satisfaction and Quality of Spaces"
• Julio Diarte. Arts and Architecture/ARCHITECTURE. "Transforming Waste Cardboard into Alternative Construction Materials: Radical Material Re-use for Self-built, Compact, and Affordable Housing"

Second place

• Pin-Yun Wang. Liberal Arts/APPLIED LINGUISTICS. "A Cognitive-Pragmatic Study on Modal Verbs of Possibility in Chinese: The Case of Neng"

Third place

• James Maxson. Liberal Arts/COMMUNICATION ARTS AND SCIENCES. "Burying the King Again: Buddy Bolden’s Jazz Funeral and Defleshed Memory"
• Lindsey Kurtz. Liberal Arts/APPLIED LINGUISTICS. "Conceptual Development of Analogical Reasoning in the Second Language Legal Classroom"
• Lauren Camacci. Liberal Arts/COMMUNICATION ARTS AND SCIENCES. "The Blueprint and the Mirror: Richard Nixon’s Presidential Rhetoric and American Masculinity"

Engineering

First place

• Brittany Banik. Intercollege Graduate Degree Programs/BIOENGINEERING. "Multiscale Approach to Bioinstructive Synthetic Scaffold Design for Tendon Tissue Engineering"

Second place

• Xiong Lei. Earth and Mineral Sciences,/PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS ENGINEERING. "Joint Inversion of Compressional and Shear Wave Attenuation to Characterize Gas Reservoirs"
• Jaskanwal Chhabra. Engineering/CIVIL ENGINEERING. "Sequential Decision Process for the Design of Resilient and Sustainable Buildings"

Third place

• Clara Capparelli. Engineering/CHEMICAL ENGINEERING. "The Influence of Morphology on Micropatterned Photopolymerizable Ion Exchange Membranes"
• Pei Wang. Information Sciences and Technology/INFORMATION SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY. "Translingual Obfuscation"

Health and life sciences

First place

• Faris Zuraikat. Health and Human Development/NUTRITION. "An Offer You Can’t Refuse: Serving Larger Portions Leads to Increased Intake Despite a Year of Portion-control Training"

Second place

• Maliheh Safari. Agricultural Sciences/PLANT PATHOLOGY. "Evolution of a Plant Persistent Virus and its Modification of Aphid Behavior"
• Chaoran Ma. Health and Human Development/NUTRITION. "Probable Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder and Risk of Stroke: A Prospective Study"
• Sara Klee. Agricultural Sciences/PLANT PATHOLOGY. "Taking Advantage of Native Phyllobacteria to Manage Fire Blight Disease in Pennsylvania’s Apple Orchards"

Third place

• Adwitia Dey. Intercollege Graduate Degree Programs/PHYSIOLOGY. "A Tell-Tale Mind: What Diet Induced Obesity Can Tell us About our Aging Brain"
• Yasina Somani. Health and Human Development/KINESIOLOGY. "Acute Nitrate Supplementation Lowers Retrograde Shear Stress in Post-menopausal Women"
• Marcia Satryan. School of Nursing/NURSING. "Impact of a Self-Learning End-of-Life Module on Nurses' Knowledge and Attitude"
• Samantha McKinney. Agricultural Sciences/ANIMAL SCIENCE. "Pathogen Survival in Fermented Dry Sausages Using a Low-Temperature Heat Treatment"
• Mihaela Ciulei. Health and Human Development/NUTRITION. "The Prevalence of Postpartum Depressive Symptoms in Iron Deficient and Iron Sufficient Mothers from Rural Bangladesh"
• Lauren Abbott. Health and Human Development/RECREATION, PARK AND TOURISM MANAGEMENT. "Understanding Soundscape Perceptions in National Parks"

Physical sciences and mathematics

First place

• Joanmarie Delvecchio. Earth and Mineral Sciences,/GEOSCIENCES. "A Long-lived Record of Climate-modulated Erosion Preserved in a Sandstone Headwater Valley, Central Pennsylvania"

Second place

• Austin White-Gaynor. Earth and Mineral Sciences,/GEOSCIENCES. "High-Resolution Body Wave Tomography of the Ross Sea Embayment, Antarctica"

Third place

• Maeva Pourpoint. Earth and Mineral Sciences,/GEOSCIENCES. "High Resolution Shear-Wave Velocity Structure of Greenland from Earthquake and Ambient Noise Surface Wave Tomography"

Social and behavioral sciences

First place

• Peiyuan Wang. Health and Human Development/KINESIOLOGY. "A Continuous Force Go/No-go Task Improves Sensitivity in Examination of Inhibitory Control in Young Adults with and without ADHD"

Second place

• Sarah Patterson. Intercollege Graduate Degree Programs/DEMOGRAPHY. "Family Structure and Adult Children’s Aid to Their Parents"
• Chih-Hsiang Yang. Health and Human Development/KINESIOLOGY. "Feasibility and Preliminary Efficacy of a Mindful Walking Program for Reducing Negative Affect in Older Adults"
• Lauren Halberstadt. Liberal Arts/SPANISH. "Investigating Community Norms and Linguistic Mechanisms in Codeswitching: Bridging Linguistic Theory and Psycholinguistic Experimentation"

Third place

• David Lander. Liberal Arts/ECONOMICS. "Borrowing and Welfare Implications of an Income Floor"
• Jessica Meyer. Liberal Arts/PSYCHOLOGY. "Frequency of Subconcussive Head Injuries, Traumatic Brain Injuries, and Hypoxic Brain Injuries in Victims of Intimate Partner Violence: Pilot Data"
• Maridel Reyes. Agricultural Sciences/FOOD SCIENCE. "Influence of Consumer Attitudes of Sweeteners on Intended Intake of Flavored Milk in Adolescent Women"
• Melissa Gutworth. Liberal Arts/PSYCHOLOGY. "Leader-Follower Fit and the Creative Process"

Performance option

First place

• Anthony Poehailos. Arts and Architecture/PERFORMANCE. "Arlequin"

Second place

• Fabio Saggin. Arts and Architecture/MUSIC. "Brasiliana"

Third place

• Stephen Fleming. Arts and Architecture/MUSIC. "KíM for Solo Snare Drum"

Video option

First place

• Wyatt Culler. Engineering/MECHANICAL ENGINEERING. "Experimental Investigation of Fuel Staging Transients in a Multi-Nozzle Combustor"

Second place

• Ece Alat. Earth and Mineral Sciences,/MATERIAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING. "Ceramic Coating for Corrosion (C3) Resistance of Nuclear Fuel Cladding"
• George Lohay. Eberly College of Science/BIOLOGY. "Identifying Connectivity and Gene Flow Barriers for the African Savanna Elephants between the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem and Metapopulations in Northern Tanzania"

Visual arts option

First place

• Lindsey Landfried. Arts and Architecture/ART. "Ultraviolet"

Second place

• Ciara Newton. Arts and Architecture/ART EDUCATION. "Disturbed Expressions: The Displaced and Reform of Dialect"
• Valerie Dillon. Arts and Architecture/ART. "Interfacing"

Data visualization award

Offered by the University Libraries’ Data Learning Center

• Sara Klee. Agricultural Sciences/PLANT PATHOLOGY. "Taking Advantage of Native Phyllobacteria to Manage Fire Blight Disease in Pennsylvania’s Apple Orchards"