Undergraduate
Research
Exposition
April 21, 2017
A celebration of inquiry
Order of Events
12:30 p.m.
SYMPOSIUM TALKS
Engineering & Applied Sciences
Lattimore 201
Humanities
Dewey 2-110D
Natural Sciences & Mathematics
Bausch & Lomb 106
Social Sciences
Welles-Brown Room, Rush Rhees Library
2:00 p.m.
POSTER SESSION
Hawkins-Carlson Room
Rush Rhees Library
3:15 p.m.
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH AWARDS
SA PROFESSOR OF THE YEAR AWARDS
Hawkins-Carlson Room
Rush Rhees Library
3:55 p.m.
CLOSING REMARKS
Hawkins-Carlson Room
Rush Rhees Library
Engineering & Applied Sciences
Lattimore 201
12:30 p.m.
Nancy Aguilera ’18
Optical Engineering
Mentor: Professor Andrew Berger
"Measuring Organelle Size Distributions in Single Cells
Using Scattered Light"
12:50 p.m.
Ibrahim Mohammad ’17
Mechanical Engineering & Mathematics
Mentor: Professor Douglas Kelley
“Laboratory Model of Inner Ear Mechano-Transduction”
1:10 p.m.
Ge Song ’17
Biomedical Engineering
Mentor: Professor Jennifer Hunter
“Adaptive Optics Scanning Light Ophthalmoscopy for Retinal
Imaging and Vision Disease Detection”
*Abstracts available in final pages
Humanities
Dewey 2-110D
12:30 p.m.
Sarah Bjornland ’17
Optics
Mentor: Professor Gregory Heyworth
“Effects of Ultraviolet Radiation Exposure on Manuscripts”
12:45 p.m.
H. Mark Kenney ’17
Religion & Economics of Health Care
Mentor: Professor Emil Homerin
“Religion of Illness”
1:00 p.m.
Jessica Newman ’17
British and American Literature
Mentor: Professor Katherine Mannheimer
“Of Song and Songbirds: Exploring Music and Place in
Emily Dickinson’s Poetry”
1:15 p.m.
Danielle Vander Horst ’17
Classics & Archaeology, Technology & Historical Structures
Mentor: Professor Elizabeth Colantoni
“Making Men Gods: The Precedence and Pursuit Of
Deification at Rome”
*Abstracts available in final pages
Natural Sciences & Mathematics
Bausch & Lomb 106
12:30 p.m.
Jordan Aronowitz ’17
Molecular Genetics
Mentor: Professor Michael Welte
“Characterizing the Effect of HSF Mutations on Brain Tumor
Development in D. melanogaster”
12:45 p.m.
Jenna Glatzer ’17
Neuroscience
Mentor: Professor Amy Kiernan
“Progenitor Proliferation in the Mammalian Otocyst”
1:00 p.m.
Alicia Wei ’18
Neuroscience & Mathematics
Mentor: Professor Andrew Wojtovich
“Optogenetic Control of ROS Production in C. elegans”
1:15 p.m.
Keith Wiley ’17
Physics
Mentor: Professor Kevin McFarland
“Effects of Nuclear Mass on Pion Neutrinoproduction”
*Abstracts available in final pages
Social Sciences
Welles-Brown Room, Rush Rhees Library
12:30 p.m.
Gabrielle Bueno ’17
Brain & Cognitive Sciences & Psychology
Mentor: Professor Jessica Cantlon
“The Effect of Stimulus Features on Metacognitive Decisions
in Monkeys”
12:45 p.m.
Ethan Dimmock ’17
History
Mentor: Professor Molly Ball
“The Cuban “Colonial Complex”: The Spectre of Imperialism in
American Guidebooks to Twentieth Century Havana”
1:00 p.m.
Emily Landau ’17
Psychology
Mentor: Professor Loisa Bennetto
“Speech Disfluencies in Autism Spectrum Disorder”
1:15 p.m.
Joseph Orman ’17
Anthropology
Mentor: Professor John Osburg
“The Wild West of Weed: Activism, Business, and Changing
Legislation”
*Abstracts available in final pages
Poster Exhibition Participants
ENGINEERING & APPLIED SCIENCES
Callum Breene ’18
Chemical Engineering
“Effect of Additives on Reduction Potential for Electroplating
Battery Anodes”
Daniel Diaz-Etchevehere ’17
Environmental Science
“High Resolution Analyses Reveal Elevated Sea-to-Air Methane
Fluxes in Localized Areas in the Gulf of Mexico”
Connor Virgile ’19
Biomedical Engineering
“Differentiating Glioblastoma and Metastasis Using MRI”
NATURAL SCIENCES & MATHEMATICS
Alice Bandeian ’17
Geological Sciences
“Microstructural Study of Deformation in Fault Rocks from the
Peruvian Andes”
Roberto Bertolini ’17
Mathematics
“Modeling Japanese Knotweed with a Reaction Diffusion
Equation”
Ashley Bui ’17
Brain & Cognitive Sciences & Psychology
“Projections from the Temporal Cortex to the Basal Nucleus of the
Amygdala in the Macaque Create a Gradient of Visual Input”
Hayden Carder ’18
Chemistry
“Modeling Japanese Knotweed with a Reaction Diffusion
Equation”
Danlei Chen ’17
Brain & Cognitive Sciences
“Using fMRI to Explore the Neural Basis of Anticipation after
Implicit Distributional Learning”
Varun Chowdhry ’19
Cell & Developmental Biology
“Using a Specialized Translation System to Study Ribosome
Biogenesis”
Aryel Clarke ’17
Biochemistry
“Effects of Anti-Prion Compounds on Autophagy and the
Lysosome”
Mattison Flakus ’18
Physics & Applied Mathematics
“Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jet: Shielding Gas Effects on DNA
Damage”
Zunran Guo ’17
Physics & Applied Mathematics
“Vector Boson Scattering (VBS) Analysis in ZZ + 2 jets Production
with TMVA”
Toby Kashket ’18
Brain & Cognitive Sciences
“Investigating the Link between Low Level Perceptual Suppression
and Higher Level Cognitive Abilities”
Mahir Khan ’18
Neuroscience
“Using BOLD to Measure Cerebrovascular Reactivity”
Shon Koren ’17
Neuroscience
“Insights into Autophagy and Alzheimer's Disease: The Role of the
BAG3-Hsp70 Interaction in Clearing Tau in Rat Primary Cortical
Neurons”
Heather Le Bleu ’17
Cell & Developmental Biology
“Extraction of High-Quality RNA from Human Articular
Cartilage”
Rosa Park ’17
Biochemistry
“Uncovering Pathways to Longevity Through the Sirt6
Ribosylome and Interactome”
Gavin Piester ’17
Biochemistry & Chemistry
“Effects of Infectious and Genetic Factors on Lysosomal Function:
Implications for Demyelinating Diseases”
Adriana Schoenhaut ’17
Brain & Cognitive Sciences
“Contributions of Visual and Extra-Retinal Cues to Selectivity for
Direction of Eye Rotation in Macaque Area MSTd”
Jonathon Thomalla ’18
Cell & Developmental Biology
“Determining ATP Synthase-β’s interaction with Jabba in vivo”
Hanna Vinitsky ’17
Neuroscience
“Reciprocal Effects of Glymphatic Function and the Experimental
Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis (EAE) Model of Multiple Sclerosis”
Tony Zhao ’17
Statistics
“Understanding Radiation Therapy Resistance of Colorectal
Cancer”
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Nianzhi Chen ’20
Gender Studies & Anthropology
“What Influences Ugandan Women's Choices?”
Kelsey Csumitta ’17
Brain & Cognitive Sciences & Psychology
“No Gender Differences in Children's Core Numerical Processing
Abilities”
Sadie Dix ’18
Brain & Cognitive Sciences & Psychology
“Conveying Speaker Reliability to Affect Contrastive Inference”
Allison Friske ’17
Psychology & English
“Bias in Parental Appraisals of Childhood Adversities: Links to
Parental and Offspring Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms”
Julianne Kapner ’19 & Theresa Kettelberger ’19
Linguistics (Kapner) / Linguistics & Classics (Kettelberger)
“Glottalized Stops in Eastern Armenian”
Crystal Lee ’18
Brain & Cognitive Sciences & Linguistics
“Learning Adjective Meanings Through Variable Exemplars”
Crystal Lee ’18, Lauren Oey ’18, & Emily Simon ’17
Brain & Cognitive Sciences & Linguistics (Lee) / Brain & Cognitive
Sciences, Statistics, & Linguistics (Oey) /
Brain & Cognitive Sciences (Simon)
“How We Comprehend Foreign-Accented Speech: Learning
to Generalize Across Talkers”
Wesley Orth ’17
Brain & Cognitive Sciences & Linguistics
“Contextual Factors in Child Adjective Comprehension”
Christine Otto ’17
Brain & Cognitive Sciences & Psychology
“The Asexual Experience and Community in Denmark”
Benjamin Panny ’17
Neuroscience & Psychology
“How Do We Adapt When We Feel Awe?”
Torrey Wyatt ’17
Biology & Public Health
“Rural Indian Women: Down the Path of Empowerment”
Student Association Professors of the Year
Humanities
John Givens
Department of Modern Languages & Cultures (Russian)
Natural Sciences & Engineering
Kalyani Madhu
Department of Mathematics
Social Sciences
Michael Rizzo
Department of Economics
Undergraduate Research Awards
3:15 p.m.
PROFESSOR STEVEN MANLY
Introductory Remarks
3:18 p.m.
PRESIDENT JOEL SELIGMAN
Presentation of the President’s Awards for Undergraduate
Research
3:28 p.m.
DEAN RICHARD FELDMAN
Presentation of the Deans’ Awards for Undergraduate Research
in Engineering & Applied Sciences, Humanities, Social Sciences,
Natural Sciences & Mathematics
3:35 p.m.
PROFESSOR STEVEN MANLY
Presentation of the Professors’ Choice Awards for
Undergraduate Research
3:40 p.m.
SA PRESIDENT VITO MARTINO
Students’ Association Professor of the Year Awards
3:55 p.m.
PROFESSOR STEVEN MANLY
Closing Remarks
SYMPOSIUM ABSTRACTS
Nancy Aguilera ’18
"Measuring Organelle Size Distributions in Single Cells Using
Scattered Light"
Angular scattering patterns of single cells can be fit to the solution
to Maxwell’s equations for light scattered by infinite spheres, which
can be used to measure the distribution of sizes of the organelles
inside the cell. This research is unique in that it can monitor single
cell changes over time. The goal of this work was to determine the
amount of fluctuations in the size predictions over time due to
measurement noise and error in the optical system, as well as
changes due to biological causes. This was accomplished by
acquiring the scattering pattern from cells fixed with formaldehyde,
and comparing the results to measurements of live cells. By
analyzing different parameters obtained from fitting the scattering
patterns to theory, it was found that the live cells demonstrated more
fluctuations in size predictions over time than fixed cells.
Jordan Aronowitz ’17
“Characterizing the Effect of HSF Mutations on Brain Tumor
Development in D. melanogaster”
The transcription factor HSF has been shown to dramatically
enhance the growth of diverse tumors, in cultured cells, in mice, and
in human patients (Dia, 2007), making it an attractive target for
anti-cancer therapy. However, the molecular mechanisms by which
HSF sustains tumor growth remain ill defined. We are interested in
determining whether HSF also supports tumor growth in D.
melanogaster; if so, this process can be studied using the advanced
genetics tools available in flies. We take advantage of a larval brain
tumor model: larvae homozygous for loss-of-function alleles of the
gene lgl (lethal giant larvae) display overprofileration of
neuroblasts and overgrowth of the brain. Using the null allele HSF1,
we generated animals with a single copy of wild-type HSF: in this
genetic background, the size of lgl-induced brain tumors was
reduced, and immunostaining for the neuroblast-specific marker
Deadpan indicates that fewer neuroblasts are present. These results
suggest that HSF indeed promotes tumor growth in Drosophila. We
are now employing immunostaining and Western analysis to
determine if reduced HSF gene dosage results, as predicted, in
lower accumulation of HSF protein. We are also characterizing the
effect of the point allele HSF4; in animals carrying a single copy of
HSF4, the tumorous brains are similar in size to those in animals
with two copies of wild-type HSF. These observations suggest that
HSF4 may enhance the function of HSF in this context, providing a
new tool for analyzing the role of HSF in tumor development.
Gabrielle Bueno ’17
“The Effect of Stimulus Features on Metacognitive Decisions in
Monkeys”
Metacognition is the ability to know what you know. Humans can
use this ability to both evaluate our own thoughts and to make
decisions based on our knowledge. Studies show that humans use
features like perceptual fluency and visual similarity when making
metacognitive judgments. Like humans, monkeys make accurate
metacognitive certainty judgments. However, the extent to which
they use visual features like perceptual fluency when making these
certainty judgments is unknown. To investigate what visual features
affect monkeys’ metacognitive judgments, we are analyzing data
and images from a previous metacognition experiment to see how
visual features such as sample complexity, sample uniqueness, and
distractor similarity might affect monkeys’ confidence. This will
help further reveal what aspects of metacognition we share with
monkeys, and thus a better understanding of where they arose in
evolutionary history.
Sarah Bjornland ’17
“Effects of Ultraviolet Radiation Exposure on Manuscripts”
Multi-spectral imaging is used to recover illegible text from
damaged manuscripts. The modality employs light emitting diodes
at a wide range of wavelengths including visible, infrared, and
ultraviolet. The International Commission on Illumination (CIE)
recommends that manuscripts are not exposed to any level of
ultraviolet radiation, despite the wavelength’s role in text recovery.
My project attempts to determine the levels of total ultraviolet
exposure that will induce irreversible damage to the manuscripts.
Ethan Dimmock ’17
“The Cuban “Colonial Complex”: The Spectre of Imperialism in
American Guidebooks to Twentieth Century Havana”
This is a study examining the influence of tourists on the
development of Cuba from the time of the US Military Occupation,
1898-1902, into the beginning of the Socialist period in 1959. The
urban public spaces of Havana act as the stage upon which tourists
and Cubans interacted for over a century. The attitudes toward
different neighborhoods of Havana reveal the impact of tourism on
the physical development of the city, and with this development the
nature of the pleasure-seeking American’s relationship with Cuba.
By tracing American writings on Cuba back to before the military
occupation, the roots of American tourist paternalism can be dug up
and set into the context of the over-arching theme of growing
American imperialism in the Caribbean and Latin America
generally. This paper is particularly concerned with Habana Vieja,
the colonial neighborhood, because of the assumed historical value
and subsequent preeminence Habana Vieja’s plazas had for tourists,
on top of the plazas’ existing importance to Spanish colonial and
Cuban Republican symbolic displays of political power. Situating
the importance of the plaza in the Latin American urban sphere is
integral to contextualizing the thesis of this project and both
establishes the topic in the wider realm of Latin American history
and grounds the significance of Cuba as unique within Latin
America. The tourist influence in Havana’s public space is
determined through the examination and evolution over time of
American guidebooks to these cultural spaces. The guidebooks, and
their authors, were the means by which generations of tourists
became inculcated in the paternal attitude Americans had towards
Cubans across the Twentieth Century, itself a product of US
imperial expansion in the Caribbean and Latin America, displacing
Spanish colonial power. The dissemination of the fictitious Cuban
Colonial Complex via tourist guidebook to Havana transformed
explicit imperial intentions toward Cuba into the tacit paternal
attitudes of a century of American tourists.
Jenna Glatzer ’17
“Progenitor Proliferation in the Mammalian Otocyst”
Auditory and vestibular disorders result from damage or death of
critical inner ear cell types, as mammals lack a biological
replacement mechanism for these cells following damage. The
progenitors of these critical cells begin dividing in the otocyst, an
early embryonic structure that undergoes a dramatic increase in size
as well as structural changes during development. Knowledge of the
molecular mechanisms by which these cells normally proliferate in
the otocyst may be useful for replacement therapies aiming to
regenerate these critical cells in vivo or in vitro after injury. One
obstacle to this is the current dearth of information regarding how
inner ear progenitors proliferate in mammals. In efforts to
understand the molecular events surrounding proliferation, we
focused on Sox2, a critical gene for inner ear development and
additionally for stem cell maintenance. Mice with otic-specific
mutations in the Sox2 locus (Lcc mutants) display inner ears with
profound sensory defects and gross morphological abnormalities.
The extent of these deficits could suggest a failure of early
proliferative events in the otocyst; however, a role for SOX2 in otic
proliferation had not previously been investigated. In order to test
SOX2’s role, we conditionally deleted Sox2 using an inducible-Cre
mouse line (SOX2-CreER) crossed with a line carrying a floxed
Sox2 allele (Sox2fl/fl). Cre was activated by tamoxifen
administration at 3mg/40g of body weight at embryonic day (E) 8.5.
To further characterize the role of SOX2, we used an over-
expression paradigm where a mouse line carrying a constitutive-Cre
(FOXG1-Cre) was crossed to a line carrying a floxed stop cassette
upstream of Sox2 (RosaSOX2). Samples were collected in both
cases at embryonic day (E) 10.5, and processed for cryosectioning,
immunohistochemistry, and imaging with Zeiss AxioVision
Software. Proliferating cells were labeled using an antibody to pHistone H3 (pHH3), a marker of dividing cells, while an antibody to
SOX2 was used to characterize the expression pattern of SOX2 in
the E10.5 otocyst. In wildtype controls, SOX2 expression was
observed broadly except in the most dorsal portions of the otocyst,
and robust proliferation was also observed at this time point. The
overwhelming majority of pHH3+ cells (> 80%) co-localized with
SOX2 in wild-type controls. Notably, SOX2-deficient mutants had
about 50% fewer pHH3+ cells and a 40% reduction in otocyst
volume, a result not attributable to an increase in cell death at this
time. These results indicate a novel role for Sox2 in inner ear
proliferation. Efforts are currently underway to determine whether
overexpression of SOX2 leads to increased proliferation, further
establishing a direct role for SOX2 in promoting cell division in the
early otocyst.
H. Mark Kenney ’17
“Religion of Illness”
Issues of death and dying are central to palliative care. Treatment
for the dying focuses on comfort as defined by the individual as
opposed to being decided solely by the medical system. This project
recounts the stories of terminally ill patients in Rochester’s comfort
care homes focusing on the ways in which their religious and/or
spiritual beliefs may influence their approach to death and dying.
Palliative care relies heavily on understanding a patient’s particular
belief structure in order to accommodate each individual’s needs to
die comfortably. Rochester provides a unique study population as it
is the only city in the world with privately functioning comfort care
homes for the dying. Each comfort care home in Rochester only
houses two residents in order to retain their status as a home as
opposed to a medical facility and are tax exempt non-profit
organizations funded solely through fundraisers and donations.
Comfort care homes retain the love and freedom of a home
atmosphere, while offering constant skilled care for those with a
three month or less terminal prognosis. The mission of comfort care
homes is to provide free accommodations for the terminally ill,
including those who do not have access to other types of palliative
care, emphasizing that dying comfortably should be a human right.
Through the stories of the individuals admitted to comfort care
homes, this project will provide qualitative evidence of the benefits
that palliative care offers the dying and the importance of
Rochester’s comfort care homes in expanding these experiences.
Emily Landau ’17
“Speech Disfluencies in Autism Spectrum Disorder”
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is categorized by deficits in
social communication and interaction in addition to restricted or
repetitive interests and/or behaviors. People with ASD who
experience language difficulties tend to have impairments with
semantics and pragmatics, but have no difficulty with syntax,
morphology, or phonology. Therefore, a person with ASD who
struggles with pragmatics may be unaware of how to effectively
maintain a conversation and correct communication breakdowns.
Speech disfluencies can then be used to look at communication
because they offer a unique insight into the intent of the speaker;
some disfluencies contain a communicative purpose (called
productive disfluencies), while others lead to a breakdown of
communication (unproductive disfluencies). Productive disfluencies
include filled pauses and self-repairs, while unproductive
disfluencies include silent pauses and repetitions. This study
compares productive versus unproductive disfluencies in
conversational speech to determine if there are significant
differences in the rates of occurrence between ASD and typically
developing (TD) participants. The hypothesis is that individuals
with ASD will produce more unproductive disfluencies due to the
pragmatic difficulties associated with ASD. Research is still
ongoing, and final results have not yet been obtained. The results of
this study will help us to understand how children and adolescents
with ASD are using pragmatic language.
Ibrahim Mohammad ’17
“Laboratory Model of Inner Ear Mechano-Transduction”
A sound wave entering the mammalian ear displaces cochlear fluid,
which in turn displaces hair-like organelles called hair bundles that
act as acoustic sensors. Their incredible sensitivity is poorly
understood, and probably depends on pre-amplification via fluidstructure interaction. Our lab uses a laboratory model to simulate
this biological system to study the viscous coupling between the
vibrating structures, cochlear fluid, and hair bundles. Measurements
are taken by introducing a sinusoidal excitation to the physical
model, taking videos, and then using particle tracking via MATLAB
code. I will present measurements of modeled hair bundles’ gain
and phase difference over a range of frequencies. Recent numerical
simulations show that the sensor behaves as a high-pass filter with a
gain plateau. However, our results show a peak in the gain. Further,
I will show how the length of bundles affects gain.
Jessica Newman ’17
“Of Song and Songbirds: Exploring Music and Place in Emily
Dickinson’s Poetry”
Emily Dickinson’s poetry has been set to music thousands of times
by composers of wide-ranging genres and geographical locations.
This integration of music and text raises questions regarding the
aesthetics of Dickinson’s poetry that make it so melodically
conducive. One composer whose interpretation of Dickinson
remains most prevalent on the modern concert stage is Aaron
Copland, whose compositional goal was to develop “a body of
music that expressed a distinctly American consciousness,” a sense
of homeland and place. I argue that Copland searched for a poet
who, like him, could capture the essence of their American
environment; Dickinson and her poetry met this need: her lyric in
structure and form – its use of hymn and ballad meter – reflects the
religious and secular atmosphere in which she lived; her exploration
of diverse images and themes in her poetry – the sacred and
spiritual, the Civil War and death, the natural and the material –
engages with the philosophies, cultural customs, and opinions of
other New England thinkers and citizens. Through in depth analysis
of Dickinson’s poetic forms and themes, Copland’s musical
interpretations, and settings of Dickinson by other composers, this
study illuminates the ways in which interaction of music and text
heightens the poetic voice and simultaneously strengthens
compositional choices, revealing and emphasizing the innermost
thoughts and opinions of both poet and composer.
Joseph Orman ’17
“The Wild West of Weed: Activism, Business, and Changing
Legislation”
This research examines changes in the businesses and activist
community surrounding cannabis following the trend of increased
state legalization, focusing on the state of Washington. The central
question of this research is how cannabis legalization is both
informed by and informs cannabis communities, and how these
communities adapt to an ever-changing political environment that
often occupies a space of “semi-legality”. I study these changes
through the lens of Seattle Hempfest, a festival occurring every
August in Seattle, Washington that advertises itself as “The largest
pro-hemp festival in the United States.” In my research, I have
attended Seattle Hempfest in both August of 2015 and 2016, in
order to interview the vendors and businesses, speakers and
panelists, and Hempfest volunteers and administrators that
constitute this event. My interviewing questions concern length of
participation in the cannabis community, their perceptions of
developing and passed legislature concerning cannabis legalization,
and their own conceptions of the cannabis communities in which
they are involved in. I also apply my own participant observations
during the event. Finally, I will comment on the specific initiatives
and policies that are advocated by the activist community connected
to Seattle Hempfest, identity intersections, and how legitimacy is
established and given to certain activist positions. In discussing
conclusions from my research, I find that the activist community
often perceives themselves as being “left out” of policy making and
legislature, fueling a conception of government as over-regulatory
and greedy, and leading to divisions within the community over
legislative support, the fear of corporatization of cannabis, and the
exclusion of many community members based on economic means
and the criminal justice system. In summary, I undertook this
research in order to develop an anthropological analysis of a newly
developing legal community, and see my research as grounded in
the tradition of legal anthropology discourses.
Ge Song ’17
“Adaptive Optics Scanning Light Ophthalmoscopy for Retinal
Imaging and Vision Disease Detection”
The adaptive optics scanning light ophthalmoscope (AOSLO)
allows for high resolution imaging in vivo of retinal structures and is
useful for studying retinal diseases at a cellular level. Ex vivo
imaging can be done using the same AOSLO by inserting a
microscope objective into the optical path to visualize retinal tissues
with improved axial resolution. Observing retinal structures in this
manner can provide information complementary to in vivo imaging.
In this project, excised non-human primate retina is imaged to
determine quantitative and qualitative structural information of the
various retinal layers. Optical contrast of retinal structures is
provided by two-photon excitation of intrinsic fluorescence in near
infrared and allows for direct calculations of physical parameters
such as cell density and average cell size. The greater axial and
lateral resolution and stronger fluorescence signal afforded by ex
vivo imaging can also assist with determining the spatial and axial
distribution of two-photon fluorescence in different parts of retinal
cells.
Danielle Vander Horst ’17
“Making Men Gods: The Precedence and Pursuit Of Deification
at Rome”
One of the most confounding aspects of the Roman religion is the
imperial cult; the worship of the emperor as if he were a god. There
are many aspects of this topic that warrant attention, but my concern
is the classical precedence for this practice, and the introduction and
later implementation of it into Roman society at the dawn of the
Empire. This paper is split into two parts. The first is a historical
discussion concerning the Greek precedence for the imperial cult,
especially as it flourished under and after Alexander the Great. I
then follow the strands of Greek culture as they permeated through
the Roman Republic, the issues and virtues of Greek ideals in
Roman society, and what attitudes and ideas contemporaries such as
Plutarch and Cicero exhibited in their works. Finally, I examine the
rise of the Empire under Caesar and Augustus, their respective
shortcomings and successes regarding the establishment of the cult.
This first part relies on primary and secondary sources. In the
second part of my thesis, I further extrapolate upon the arguments
made in the first half but supplement my statements with
archaeological evidence. By examining the material remains, from
coins to entire monuments, we can trace the rise of Greek influence
in Roman art and society, and better understand the imagery and
ideologies which men like Caesar and Augustus put forth in order to
establish their rule and, eventually, their worship. The conclusion of
my thesis is that Greek influences were imperative for the rise of the
Roman imperial cult, as it was not an inherently Roman practice,
and that, while the initial hunt for god-like worship in Rome began
in earnest under Caesar, Augustus was responsible for its successful
establishment.
Alicia Wei ’18
“Optogenetic Control of ROS Production in C. elegans”
Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) can be detrimental or may lead to
beneficial adaptive responses. The factors that distinguish between
these outcomes are not readily determined using existing
techniques. Here, we have developed a novel C. elegans model to
study the effects of ROS in a physiologic context using a
combination of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing and optogenetics.
Mitochondria are a main source of ROS and are central to cell death
and adaptation to stress. We used cutting edge genetic techniques to
fuse components of the mitochondrial respiratory chain to proteins
that can produce ROS in response to light. MiniSOG produces
singlet oxygen, which has the singular capacity to elicit damage,
while SuperNova creates superoxide, which we predict may be
beneficial in limited amounts. We fused miniSOG to complex II of
the mitochondrial respiratory chain in C. elegans. The strain
exhibited light-sensitive loss of complex II activity and the worms
exhibited adverse reactions to light under conditions of mild stress
such as, paraquat, an ROS generator or FCCP, a protonophore. In
contrast, the strain expressing the SuperNova fusion had no adverse
reaction to light and the conditions of mild stress when coupled with
light. Future experiments will be necessary to determine whether
light is in fact beneficial in this strain, as we hypothesize. With
these constructs, we will be able to study the complex II of the
mitochondrial respiratory chain ROS microdomains.
Keith Wiley ’17
“Effects of Nuclear Mass on Pion Neutrinoproduction”
The kinematics of pions produced by neutrinos interacting with the
nuclear targets of the MINERvA detector are studied in order to
look for discrepancies between current simulations and data. These
results have an important role in the constraint of systematic
uncertainties in near-future accelerator neutrino experiments such as
DUNE. The analysis is ongoing and results are, for the moment,
inconclusive.
The Office of Undergraduate Research would like
to give special thanks to:
Judges
Mark Buckley
Gonzalo Mateos Buckstein
Amanda Larracuente
Anne Merideth
Patrick Oakes
Ronni Pavan
Ronald Rogge
Staff
Ezrine Taylor
Lauren Sharpe
&
Our friends at
The David T. Kearns Center
University of Rochester
Office of Undergraduate Research
Dewey Hall 4209-B
Rochester, NY 14627
(585) 276-5306
[email protected]
Catering provided by Meliora Catering