2020 Graduate Student Research Symposium winners announced at MSU

STARKVILLE, Miss.—51�Թ�� is renowned for providing students with opportunities to conduct innovative and meaningful research alongside world-class faculty.

The university’s Graduate School and Graduate Student Association recently gave 45 master’s and doctoral students a forum to showcase work from the spring and fall��2020 semesters during the Graduate Student Research Symposium.

Twenty-nine of these students received cash prizes for having top-ranked oral presentations and poster projects assigned to one of four categories—arts and humanities; life and biomedical sciences and engineering; physics, mathematics, computer science and engineering; and social and behavioral sciences.

A team of 20 campus faculty members representing a cross-section of academic disciplines served as judges.

This year’s winners include (by project type, category and classification):

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POSTERS

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ARTS AND HUMANITIES��EDUCATION MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Eric H. Anderson, an applied anthropology master’s student from Loxley, Alabama, for “Medieval Medical Treatment for Cranial Trauma from Ilok, Croatia.”

LIFE AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Dana Reid, an agricultural science doctoral student from Clarendon, Jamaica, for “The Effect of Melatonin on Dam Milking Traits and Calf Performance in Beef Cattle.”

SECOND—Brittany N. Szafran, an environmental toxicology doctoral student from Moundsville, West Virginia, for “Immune Effects of Carboxylesterase Inactivation in the Neonatal Murine Lung.”

THIRD—Monzur Kader Chowdhury, a veterinary medical science doctoral student from Sylhet, Bangladesh, for “Elucidating the role of DeoR transcriptional regulators in Listeria monocytogenes in virulence and environmental adaptation.”

LIFE AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Dianna A. Wilson, a food science, nutrition and health promotion master’s student from Norfolk, Virginia, for “Evaluating the Effectiveness of Chitosan Ice on Delaying the Onset of Spoilage in Channel Catfish.”

SECOND—Miranda H.J. Huang, a wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture master’s student from Carmel, Indiana, for “Exploring Tick Questing Behavior.”

THIRD—Clayton W. Hale, a forestry master’s student from Nolensville, Tennessee, for “Student Centered Cooperative Instruction Increases Student Engagement in Plant Identification Courses.”

SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES��DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—S.M. Asger Ali, an earth and atmospheric sciences doctoral student from Khulna, Bangladesh, for “Media Framing and Agenda-Setting of Hurricane Harvey's News Coverage: A Content Analysis of the Houston Chronicle, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal from 2017-2018.”

SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES��MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Keri L. Porter, an applied anthropology��master’s student from Greenville, Texas, for “Lived Experience in the 51�Թ�� State Asylum: An Osteobiography of Burial 8.”

PHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Amali Herath, a chemistry doctoral student from Kurunegala, Sri Lanka, for “Biochar-supported Polyaniline Hybrid for Nitrate Adsorption from Aqueous Systems.”

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ORAL PRESENTATIONS

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ARTS AND HUMANITIES EDUCATION DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Sadia Alam Shammi, an earth and atmospheric sciences doctoral student from Narayangonj, Bangladesh, for “Use Time Series NDVI and EVI to Develop Dynamic Crop Growth Metrics for Yield Modeling.”

ARTS AND HUMANITIES EDUCATION MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Andrea M. Lopez of Starkville, an applied anthropology master’s student, for “Re-examining Gender Disparities in Publication Trends Among North American Archaeological Journals.”

LIFE AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING��DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Josiane C. Argenta, a plant and soil sciences doctoral student from Brazil, for “Tolerance of Cotton Chromosomal Substitution Lines to 2,4-D: A Dose-Response Study.”

SECOND—Rebecca D. Bracken, a forest resources doctoral student from Austin, Texas, for “Does Intercropping Switchgrass in a Private, Working Forest Affect Avian Diversity and Abundance?”

THIRD—Riley D. Messman, an agricultural science doctoral student from Albion, Illinois, for “Melatonin-induced Changes in the Bovine Vaginal Microbiota during Maternal Nutrient Restriction.”

LIFE AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING��MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Kira K. Howell, a plant and soil sciences master’s student from Washington, D.C., for “Allelopathy in weedy rice: A Recourse for Breeding Allelopathic Rice Cultivars.”

SECOND—Mary Gracen A. Fuller, a plant and soil sciences master’s student from Biloxi, for “These Stairs Were Made for Stepping, the Competition: Greenhouse Screening of Competitive Chromosome Substitution Cotton Lines using the Stair-Step Technique.”

THIRD—Baku Acharya, a chemistry master’s graduate from Nepal, for “Differentiation of Hydroxyproline Isomers Using Infrared Multiple Photon Dissociation Spectroscopy and Computational Chemistry.”

PHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING��DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Prakash Adhikari, an engineering doctoral student from Chitwan, Nepal for “Spectroscopic Study of the Structural Properties of Prostate Tumor Tissues Obtained by Xenografting of Drug-sensitive and Drug-resistant Prostate Cancer Cells.”

SECOND—Maleesha De Silva, a chemistry doctoral student from Sri Lanka, for “The Fate of Functionalized Imidazolium-based Ionic Liquid Cations in the Gas-Phase: A Combined Theoretical and Mass Spectrometric Approach.”

THIRD—Ahmad Taninah, a physics doctoral student from Palestine, for “Modeling of R-Process in Covariant Density Functional Theory.”

SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES��DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Courtney J. Bolstad, an applied psychology doctoral student from Fergus Falls, Minnesota, for “Prevalence of Suicidality Among Individuals with Nightmares.”

SECOND—Deepali M. Dhruve, an applied psychology doctoral student from Irvine, California, for “Intergenerational Transmission of Psychological Aggression in Male Parent-Child Dyads: Role of Emotion Regulation and Parental Emotional Availability.”

THIRD—Junnatun Naym, a business administration doctoral student from Dhaka, Bangladesh, for “Shareholder Investment Horizons and Class Action Lawsuits.”

SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES��MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Darcey A. Collins, a forestry master’s student from Bauxite, Arkansas, for “Hunting Activities of Forestry Undergraduates in 51�Թ��.”

For more information about MSU’s Graduate School and Graduate Student Association, visit��.

MSU is 51�Թ��’s leading university, available online at��.

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