2026 CCRS Awards:
UCSF Outstanding Undergraduate Oral Presentation Winner: Margaret Mullooly, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Kristina Closser, “A Reproducible Computational Framework for Studying Peptide–Mediated Reversible Gold Nanoparticle Aggregation”
UCSF Honorable Mention Undergraduate Oral Presentation: Eli Ahmed, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Dillion Allen, “Autonomous AI in Cybersecurity: Local Behavioral Models for Endpoint Threat Detection”
UCSF Outstanding Graduate Oral Presentation Winner: Matthew Rodriguez, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Brian Tsukimura, “The Effects of Thermal Stress and Caloric Restriction on Reproduction of the Intertidal Porcelain Crab, Petrolisthes cinctipes”
UCSF Honorable Mention Graduate Oral Presentation: Manjot Singh, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Sharon Benes, “Use of Linear Regression and Analysis of Covariance to Build a Farm Level Regression Model for the Calibration of EMI Sensor Data (ECa) to Soil Salinity”
EECU Outstanding Math Presentation Winner: Juan Herrera, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Carmen Caprau, “An Invariant for Tied Links”
EECU Honorable Mention Math Oral Presentation: Michael Pritsky, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Tamas Forgacs, “Degree Sequences of Hyperbolicty Preservers”
Davin Youngclarke Award Winner: Giselle Ossun, Faculty Mentor: Dr. Ryan Ditchfield, “Culture and Jury Decision Making”
ACS Outstanding Oral Presentation Winner: Reagan Larson, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Morgan Hawker, “Influence of Substrate Placement on Functional Group Retention in 1,8-Cineole Plasma Deposited Films”
ACS Outstanding Poster Presentation Winner: Eliana Kahn, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Krish Krishnan, “Temperature-Dependent Dynamics of the Kalata B1 Peptide using Experimental and Computational Approaches”
The following awards are sponsored by the Division of Academic Affairs, the College of Arts and Humanities, the College of Health and Human Services, the College of Science and Mathematics, the College of Social Sciences, the Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, the Kremen School of Education and Human Development, and the Lyles College of Engineering.
Oral Presentations:
Outstanding Oral Presentation Winner: Vanessa Rhodes, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Jason Crow, “Knowing the Psychopath Within: Exploring the Connection between Psychopathy Knowledge, Opinion, and Self-Perceived Traits”
Outstanding Oral Presentation Winner: Noah Reed Miranda, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Sean Gordon, “Cannibalizing Poe: The “Pure Potential” of White Monstrosity in Edgar Allan Poe and Monica Ojeda”
Outstanding Oral Presentation Winner: Megan Selecky, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Brian Tsukimura, “Timing is Everything: Seasonal Dominance and Subtle Lunar Effects on Reproduction in a Rocky Intertidal Porcelain Crab”
Outstanding Oral Presentation Winner: Mackenzie Jackson, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Kristi Closser, “Exploring Recombination of Fragments from Acrylic Acid and Pentane Derived Precursors in Low Temperature Plasma via Computational Methods”
Outstanding Oral Presentation Winner: Batool Abdelruhman, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Cory Brooks, “Characterizing the Competitive Binding of VHH10 Nanobody and Maltose to Maltose-Binding Protein”
Outstanding Oral Presentation Winner: Vanessa Lopez, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Mui Vuong, “Supporting the Successful Transition of Transfer Students in the Central Valley”
Outstanding Oral Presentation Winner: Makayla Payne, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Paul Price, “Impostor Phenomenon in Physicians and Medical Students: A Meta-Analytic Review”
Outstanding Oral Presentation Winner: Alexis Perez, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Aly Tawfik, “Uncovering California’s Most Dangerous Roadways: An Analysis of Fatal Crash Rates in Every County Across the State”
Outstanding Oral Presentation Winner: Sara Wu, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Chris Pluhar, “The Geothermal and Hydrogeologic Mechanisms of Mono Hot Springs and Other Thermal Springs on the South Fork San Joaquin River, Sierra Nevada, California”
Outstanding Oral Presentation Winner: Christian RJ Castillo, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Pei-Chun Ho “Improved Probe Design and Analysis Method for Reliable Thermopower Measurements”
Outstanding Oral Presentation Winner: Orlando Lopez Perez, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Gloria Medina-Sancho, “Reevaluation of the Chilean Dictatorship: Violence, Censorship and Trauma under Pinochet’s Regime”
Honorable Mention Oral Presentations:
Honorable Mention Oral Presentation: Katherine Moua, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Joel Slade, “Adapting to the City: How Urbanization Influences House Finch Immune Genes”
Honorable Mention Oral Presentation: Eric Thompson, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Dermot Donnelly–Hermosillo, “Impacts of a Visualization Tool on Students’ Mental Imagery and Ways of Thinking”
Honorable Mention Oral Presentation: Sulayman Umari, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Cory Brooks, “The Role of Non-Canonical Disulfide Bonds in Nanobodies”
Honorable Mention Oral Presentation: Naylene Velasquez, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Morgan Hawker, “Oxygen-Releasing Sutures for Oral Wound Healing via PECVD” Honorable Mention Oral Presentation: Veronica Ramirez, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Rosa Chavez “Education as Transformation, Not Assimilation: Indigenous Student and Faculty Experiences in Higher Education”
Honorable Mention Oral Presentation: Jonathen Marin, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Earvin Balderama, “Predicting March Madness with Machine Learning”
Honorable Mention Oral Presentation: Armanjit Gill, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Shahab Tayeb, “Mapping the Research Landscape of Automotive Ethernet in Intravehicular Networks: A Systematic Review”
Honorable Mention Oral Presentation: Eduardo Garcia, Faculty Mentor, Dr. David Lent, “Neuroprotective Effects of Creatine in a Drosophila melanogaster Model of Parkinson’s Disease with Alpha-Synuclein Overexpression”
Honorable Mention Oral Presentation: Johnathan Andrade Antonio, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Pei-Chun Ho, “Analysis of Temperature (T) and Resistance (R) Data of Cel-xPrxOs4Sb12 (0≤ x ≤ 0.25)”
Honorable Mention Oral Presentation: Reymar Barisoro, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Kenneth Froelich, “Challenging Contemporary Healthcare by Establishing the Definitive Role of Music Interventions in Modern Medicine”
Poster Presentations:
Outstanding Nursing Poster Presentation Winner: Audrey Vang, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Eileen Jimenez, “Comparing Beliefs and Barriers to Cervical Cancer Screening Among Hmong, Hispanic, and Non-Hispanic White Women: A Cross-Sectional Study Using the Pap Smear Belief Questionnaire”
Outstanding Nursing Poster Presentation Winner: Dilpreet Sekhon, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Amber Shaver, “Analyzing Regional Health Inequities in Central California”
Outstanding Engineering Poster Presentation Winner: Brendan Chinnock, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Alaeddin Bani Milhim, “Precision Citrus Harvesting Robotic System for Controlled Stem Length”
Outstanding Engineering Poster Presentation Winner: Jonathan Gomez, Faculty Mentor, Dr. William Wright, “Nutrient Recovery and Pretreatment of Brackish Water using Anion Exchange”
Outstanding Poster Presentation Winner: Donnel Gray, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Gayle O’Bannon”, “Associations of Genetic Selection Indices to Mitochondrial Enzyme Activities Isolated from Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells in Pre-Wean Dairy Heifers”
Outstanding Poster Presentation Winner: Osvaldo Ruiz-Villegas, Faculty Mentor, Dr. The Nguyen, “Prosthetic Hand”
Outstanding Poster Presentation Winner: Sienna Davies, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Amanda McKeith, “Retrospective Analysis of Heat and Precipitation Stress on Dairy Cow Productivity in California’s Central Valley”
Outstanding Poster Presentation Winner: Raul Centeno, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Krish Krishnan, “Temperature-Dependent Hydration Layer Dynamics of Distinct Conformations in Antifreeze Glycoprotein-8”
Outstanding Poster Presentation Winner: Spencer Norvell, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Alaeddin Bani Milhim, “Design and Feasibility Analysis of a Multi-UAV Transient Electromagnetic Survey System for Groundwater Characterization”
Outstanding Poster Presentation Winner: Wasayef Ghannam, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Kathleen Dyer, “Endorsement of Learning Styles by Institutions of Higher Education”
Honorable Mention Poster Presentations:
Honorable Mention Poster Presentation: Midhun Puthiyelath, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Hubert Cecotti, “Spatial Data Augmentation for Single-Trial Detection of Event-Related Potentials using Deep Learning”
Honorable Mention Poster Presentation: Jillian Raschke, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Tinneke Van Camp, “Don’t Listen to the Hate”: Mapping Social Media Users’ Responses to Online Toxicity in TikTok Comment Sections”
Honorable Mention Poster Presentation: Guntash Singh, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Sangeeta Bansal, “Effects of Dissolved CO2 in Irrigation Water on Soil Organic Carbon Dynamics and Microbial Activity”
Honorable Mention Engineering Poster Presentation: Sucharith Sharma Devaram, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Zoulikha Mouffak, “TCAD-Based Analysis of GaN Gate-All-Around FETs with High Gate Dielectric Constant for Low-Power Applications”
Honorable Mention Poster Presentation: Zoie Gavel, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Shabnam Pooya, “Association Between Antioxidant Genetic Risk Score and Inflammatory Biomarkers in Intervention and Control Students at California State University, Fresno”
Honorable Mention Poster Presentation: Justin Angert, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Richard Kramer, “Investigating Retinal Ganglion Cell Synapses in the Superior Colliculus During Retinal Degeneration”
Honorable Mention Poster Presentation: Ariela Colin, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Yiliang Cheng, “Assessing the Effect of Vintage on Color Characteristics of Fresno State’s cv. Tempranillo and Zinfandel Wines”
Honorable Mention Engineering Poster Presentation: Nikki Schonken, Faculty Mentor, Dr. Quinn MacPherson, “Drone Propeller Thrust and Energy Efficiency Optimization”
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