Photos by Stan Kruse
Colorado State University undergraduates recently showcased a range of scholarly work across disciplines at the annual Celebrate Undergraduate Research and Creativity showcase hosted by CSU’s Office for Undergraduate Research and Artistry.
This year’s event, featuring more than 250 presentations, was held at the University Center for the Arts on April 20, followed by an awards ceremony on April 27 in the Lory Student Center.
Learn more
View this year’s Celebrate Undergraduate Research and Creativity presentations online at symposium.foragerone.com/csu-curc2023/presentations.
CURC organizers in The Institute for Learning and Teaching said that they were impressed by the students who participated and showed off their incredible work.
“This year, we had some amazing artistic projects that were presented as well as a lot of impressive research studies,” said Michelle Matter, who served as 2023 CURC coordinator. “The work being done here is high-quality and highly impactful, and the CSU students that presented at CURC are truly outstanding and very talented. Not only are these students doing really cool work, but they’re also able to explain that work in cross-discipline conversations, which really makes the event fun and fascinating for everyone.”
Matter said a large number of people signed up to judge or volunteer at CURC this year, bringing support from different colleges and departments as well as the greater Fort Collins community.
“CURC continues to grow, and with the continued support of our awesome community, we are thrilled to continue celebrating our undergraduate students,” she said.
This year’s award sponsors include CSU’s Energy Institute, the Graduate School, Data Science Research Institute, College of Liberal Arts and Colorado School of Public Health at Colorado State University.
CURC winners
Best in Show
Visual Arts
Alex Hey
Warner College of Natural Resources
“Noise Pollution in a Developing World”
Written Work
Cayden Clark-Johnson
College of Liberal Arts
“Yellow Planet: A Poetry Collection”
Oral Presentation
Molly Ring
College of Health and Human Sciences
“The Role of Niemann-Pick Type C2 (NPC2) Genes During Ivermectin Blood Meal Response in Mosquito Plasmodium Vectors “
Performing Arts
Katherine McGuinness
College of Natural Sciences
“Fate (Excerpts)”
Community Engaged Learning Poster
John Argenio
College of Liberal Arts
“Public Achievement Through Deliberation”
Research Poster
André Eberspacher
College of Natural Sciences
“Stability studies and spectroscopy characterization of Novel Vanadium Catechol Complexes”
Liz Carlsen
College of Natural Sciences
“The Birds and The Bees: Testing a New PCR Protocol’s Ability to Identify Avian Sex”
Jacob Lonergan and Miles Hopkins
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
“Age Differences in Myelin Content Quantified Using Advanced Diffusion MRI”
Megan Hager
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
“Glial mitochondrial damages are unique to exposure type in dual-hit model of manganese and rotenone.”
Excellence in Liberal Arts Research and Art
Christian Suarez
College of Liberal Arts
“Mexican Flag (Acrylic on Canvas)”
Bryant Gross
College of Liberal Arts
“The Youth Mental Health Crisis is Affected by Social Media Usage “
Excellence in Data Science
First Place
Joy Love
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
“Metagenomic Analysis of Varying Data Sets: Lactobacillus Vaccine Vector”
Second Place
Tyson O’Leary, Federico Larrieu, Abigail Williams, Nathan Orwick and David Riva
College of Natural Sciences
“GPU-accelerated Visualization of Urban Sustainability Datasets”
Excellence in Energy and Climate Solutions
First Place
Alayna Gilbert
Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering
“Upgrading and Analysis of Red Oak Pyrolysis Oil to Develop Sustainable Aviation Fuels”
Second Place
Hayley Stern
Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering
“Metabolic Engineering of the Shikimate Pathway in Synechocystis for Production of Trans-Cinnamic Acid”
Innovation in Energy and Climate Solutions
First Place
Mary Skillicorn
Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering
“Innovation in Energy & Climate Solutions”
Second Place
Kim Junhwan, Hermela Darego and Jackson Holden
College of Natural Sciences
“Are Parking Lots Cooking Fort Collins? Correlation Analysis of Parking Lots and Heat Island Effects using Satellite Imagery and Open Street Maps”
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice Research
Emma Oredson, Elise Golyer and Madison Guzman
College of Health and Human Sciences
“Invisible Identities in CSU Undergraduate Students”
Mykayla Fitzpatrick
College of Liberal Arts
“Singing through Change: Classical Vocal Pedagogy for Testosterone HRT”
Public Health
First Place
Caley Valdez
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
“The Relationship Between the Gut Microbiome, Urothelial Cells, and Recurrent Urinary Tract Infections”
Second Place
Evelina Bouckova, McKennon Wiles and Maddy Wustrau
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
“Chronic stress induces depression- and anxiety-like behavior, cognitive decline, and social dysfunction”
College Honors – Research
Sarah Gabel
College of Agricultural Sciences
“Nutrient Challenge During Gestation on Lamb Growth and Development”
Matthew Cash
College of Business
“Who Chose For You?”
Josh Survis
College of Health and Human Sciences
“Phytochemical compound, PB125, improved mechanisms of proteostasis in a guinea pig model of musculoskeletal decline”
Sydney Lacy
College of Health and Human Sciences
“Neuroimaging of Vestibular and Oculomotor Function in Healthy Athletes & Athletes with Concussion?”
Robert Swerer
College of Liberal Arts
“Dangers of Texting and Driving”
Coehen Sperry
College of Liberal Arts
“Spider-Man 3: The Bastard Child of a Trilogy, Or a Misunderstood Reflection of Our Lives?”
Julia Newcomb
College of Natural Sciences
“Biogenic Amines in Decapod Crustaceans”
Justin Warner
College of Natural Sciences
“A Reverse Genetics Approach for Identifying an Acetyltransferase Responsible for Brown Pigmentation in Brown-Colored Algae”
Kalia Kodrich
College of Natural Sciences
“Role of MutS2 in Ribosomal Quality Control in Arabidopsis thaliana”
Anna Galaeva
College of Natural Sciences
“Sterically Hindered Hydrophobic Vanadium(V) Complexes as Chemotherapeutics”
Rachel Masters
College of Natural Sciences
“Realism in Virtual Reality Nature Immersion”
Bailey Lubash
College of Natural Sciences
“Local adaptation in feather microstructures of an alpine finch”
Paris Kiehl
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
“Creating Rotavirus Vaccine Constructs Using A Probiotic ‘Lactobacillus acidophilus’ Platform”
Phoenix Espinoza
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
“The Effects of Weekly Intermittent Fasting on SARS-CoV-2 Severity in Mice “
Ellison Black
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
“Selective cholinergic activation prevents memory loss and the in vivo growth of amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s disease”
Michael Doolittle
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
“HIV and FIV glycoproteins increase cellular tau pathology via cGMP-dependent kinase II activation”
Emily Perkins
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
“Establishing molecular mechanisms of glial-mediated response in chronic pain and associated disease”
Elizabeth Dorst
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
“Creating an Aerosol Transmission Model for Tuberculosis Meningitis in Mice”
Cavin Alderfer
Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering
“Analyzing Trends in Groundwater Storage and Water Quality in the United States from 1920-2020”
Walter Jordan
Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering
“Mobile Additive Manufacturing of Carbon Fiber Composites”
Kadin Samlaska
Warner College of Natural Resources
“Impacts of the Cameron Peak Megafire on Ground Squirrel Body Mass”
Brandon Weigand
Warner College of Natural Resources
“A Five Factor Approach to Exploring Cellular Personality”
Rylee Sharkey
Warner College of Natural Resources
“Impacts of Fuel Breaks on the Invasion of Annual Grasses in the Sagebrush Ecosystem”
High Honors – Research
Marcie Jung
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
“Bull Sperm Capacitation by Extracellular Vesicles Produced by the Reproductive Tract “
Tyler Lewis
College of Natural Sciences
“Synthesis, Characterization, and Stability of Novel Vanadium Catechol Complexes”
Annika Abbott
Warner College of Natural Resources
“A Seasonal Comparison of Nocturnal Migratory Bird Passage over the Contiguous United States”
Sreeya Kairamkonda
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
“HPV Vaccination Rates in New Mexico and Future Directions for Promoting the HPV Vaccine Among Young Adults”
McKennon Wiles and Evelina Bouckova
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
“Ketamine’s rapid antidepressant effects are mediated by Ca2+-permeable AMPA receptors in the hippocampus”
Lauren Hatch and Ethan Grady
Warner College of Natural Resources
“Using Radar to Investigate Changes in Mexican Free-tailed Bat Ecology in Southern Texas”
Highest Honors – Research
Chaia Geltser
College of Health and Human Sciences
“MSWS-12 as a Predictive Tool for Gait Asymmetry Reduction in People with Multiple Sclerosis (PwMS).”
Zachary Cohn
Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering
“Generation of hairy roots from Catharanthus roseus”
Christina Wallace
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
“Time-dependent identification of gait abnormalities in a murine MPTP model of Parkinson’s disease”
Matthew Scarsbrook
College of Health and Human Sciences
“Tibialis Anterior Maximal Force Capacity and Balance Assessment Scores in People with Multiple Sclerosis”
Claire Lundstrom
College of Natural Sciences
“Expanding the Toolset: Engineering a Sensor to Detect Ubiquitinated Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor”
Ella Kim and Ellie Nelson
College of Natural Sciences
“Synthesis and Characterization of Schiff-Base Metal Catecholate Complexes for Intratumoral Cancer Treatment”
