WKU News

Twenty-two WKU students, including five from The Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science, will present their research at the 2019 Posters-at-the-Capitol event Feb. 21 in Frankfort.

“At Western Kentucky University students have an opportunity to work alongside talented faculty in cutting-edge research, creative and scholarly endeavors,” said Dr. Cheryl Davis, Associate Provost for Research and Creative Activity. “The Posters-at-the-Capitol event provides an opportunity for WKU students to meet their state legislators, present their work in person and explain the positive impact of their research experiences to those responsible for higher education funding in Kentucky.”

The program, now in its 18^th year, runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Eastern time) with special remarks in the Capitol Rotunda at 10:45 a.m. (Eastern time).

WKU and Gatton Academy students presenting their research include the following:

• Gatton Academy senior Anas Gondal of Nicholasville will present A Genetic Screen for Proteins Involved in ASP Invasion. Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Ajay Srivastava, Biology
• Senior Britt Fugmann of Nicholasville will present Are dietary factors and exercise levels related to fertility status? Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Rachel Tinius, School of Kinesiology, Recreation & Sport
• Graduate student Aref Ranjbar of Bowling Green will present Characterization of a Basement Membrane Associated Protein Encoding Gene in Drosophila melanogaster. Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Ajay Srivastava, Biology
• Senior Ethan Alan Conkin of Louisville, senior Timothy Jacob Abbott of Belton and visiting student Tyemirlan Murat of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, will present Community Brought Together. Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Shahnaz Aly, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
• Junior Emma Moore of Liberty will present Creating a computational tool to simulate vibration control for piezoelectric devices. Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Ozkan Ozer, Mathematics
• Gatton Academy seniors Satya Moolani of Owensboro and Elvin Irihamye of Lexington will present L-Serine Reduces Reactive Oxygen Species Yield in Cisplatin Treated Zebrafish Utricles. Faculty Sponsors: Dr. Michael Smith, Biology; Jerry Monroe, Biology
• Gatton Academy senior Lea Mitchell of Hebron and graduate student Rachel Kaiser of Covington will present Longitudinal Study of Water Quality in Jennings Creek, Bowling Green, Kentucky: Urbanization Impacts on Karst Groundwater. Faculty Sponsors: Dr. Jason Polk, Geography & Geology; Ethan Givan, HydroAnalytical Lab; Kegan McClanahan, Geography & Geology
• Seniors Olivia Parker of Crystal River, Florida, and Jamie Scott of Louisville will present Mirror Mirror: A Look into Muscle Dysmorphia. Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Rick Grieve, Psychology
• Gatton Academy senior Pranay Agrawal of Lexington will present Performance of the Parallelized Monte-Carlo Tree Search Approach for Dots and Boxes. Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Uta Ziegler, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
• Senior Alex Henson of Sparta will present Physical Properties of Engineered Nanocomposites for Defense Applications. Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Sanju Gupta, Physics & Astronomy
• Junior Lawrence Madriaga of Campbellsville will present Prediction of Metal Sample Failure from Scanning Electron Microscope images using Deep Learning Neural Network. Faculty Sponsors: Dr. Ivan Novikov, Physics & Astronomy; Dr. Morteza Nurcheshmeh, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
• Seniors Joseph Williams of Brandenburg, Anthony Graham of Bowling Green and Milton Ochoa Patino of Antioch, Tennessee, will present Revitalization: Creating new architecture from remnants. Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Shahnaz Aly, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
• Senior Kyla Scanlon of Louisville will present The Impact of Terrorism on Consumer Sentiment: Evidence from Twitter Data. Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Lily Zhuhadar, Information Systems
• Seniors Jacob Dobler of Bowling Green and Taylor Robinson of Franklin, Tennessee, will present Two-Dimensional Layered Materials (Graphene-MoS2) Nanocatalysts for Hydrogen Production. Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Sanju Gupta, Physics & Astronomy

Contact: Office of Research, (270) 745-6733