In January 2024, the Office of Undergraduate Research announced 78 SURF Awards for the spring semester. Congratulations to all those who received awards!
Architecture & Urban Planning (School of)
Architecture
- Samuel Bensemann and Gavyn Wilson working with Samantha Schuermann, “Model Homes: Gender, Labor, and Form in 20th century Home Economics”
- Alexia Bunge working with Sergio Lopez-Pineiro, “Architecture for the Act of Voting”
- Dominic Gomez-Tagle working with Maura Lucking, “Stretching the Limits of Utopia: Laura Cornelius Kellogg and the Struggle for an Indigenous Garden City”
- Evan Johnson working with Sergio Lopez-Pineiro, “Reimagining Assembly Spaces for Face-To-Face Democracies”
Urban Planning
- Spencer Smolen working with Carolyn Esswein, “Green and Healthy Schoolyards: Transforming Milwaukee Public Schools”
Arts (Peck School of the)
Art & Design
- Islam Awad working with Nathaniel Stern, “Cybernatural Landscapes”
- Greta Craemer-Meihsner, Ambrose Schulte, and Sydney Seebach working with Nathaniel Stern, “Mother Computer: Thinking with Natural and Artificial Intelligences”
- Giron Pavonis working with Yevgeniya Kaganovich
Film, Video, Animation, & New Genres
- Georgia Didier, Rhea Raje, and Emanuel Zander working with Sean Kafer, “The Brady Street Neighborhood Historical Project”
- Aral Nen working with Sean Kafer, “Unity, Progress, and Activism in Milwaukee’s Urban Neighborhoods”
- Samuel Schoonover working with Sean Kafer, “Lasting Connections: The Service of Dr. Finlayson to a Community”
Theatre
- Owen Groth working with Sheri Pannell, “Once upon a Mattress a Musical Comedy with Music by Mary Rodgers, Lyrics by Marshall Barer, and Book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller, and Marshall Barer”
Biomedical Sciences & Health Care Administration (School of)
Biomedical Sciences
- Alia Ahmed working with Troy Skwor, “Identifying the Virulence Genes of Aeromonas Bacteria Responsible for Causing Adhesion to Human Colonic Epithelial Cells”
Business (Sheldon B. Lubar School of)
- Gabriel Heller De Messer working with Aaron Mandell, “Non-GAAP Reporting in Master Limited Partnerships”
Engineering & Applied Science (College of)
Biomedical Engineering
- Dani Christopherson working with Mahsa Dabagh, “Working with Biomedical Images”
- Setayesh Abiazi Shalmani working with Mahsa Dabagh, “Using Machine Learning in Biomedical Applications”
- Emlyn Swardenski working with Priyatha Premnath, “Role of Vasculature in Osteogenesis”
Computer Science
- Alec Brookens and Bijay Panta working with Jerald Thomas Jr, “Evaluation of Walking Speed Guidance Mechanisms in VR”
- Cole Tauscher working with Jerald Thomas Jr, “Development of VR-Based Vestibular Dysfunction Assessments”
- William Zickler working with Jerald Thomas Jr, “Leveraging Augmented Reality to Control an Industrial Robotic Arm”
Electrical Engineering
- Nicholas Birschbach working with Shuaiqi Shen, “Collaborative Artificial Intelligence on Connected Embedded Devices”
Materials Science & Engineering
- Jagger Vicente working with Pradeep Rohatgi, “Application of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Manufacturing Metal Matrix Composites”
Mechanical Engineering
- Clara Broecker working with William Musinski, “Multimodal Characterization and Testing of Murine Bone”
- Zachary Herbert working with Krishna Pillai, “Modeling the Wicking and Deposition of Uranium Salt in the Vadose Zone”
- Jake Siong and Matthew Van De Wege working with Brooke Slavens, “Exploration of Shoulder Pathology and Function in Manual Wheelchair Users with Spinal Cord Injury”
Freshwater Sciences (School of)
- John DeTuncq working with Russell Cuhel, “Water Chemistry of the Milwaukee Area of Concern as a Driver of Phytoplankton Community Structure and Primary Productivity”
- Benjamin Gallion working with Sandra Mclellan, “Phosphorous Status of Beaches and the Link to E. Coli Growth in Sand”
- Tessa Kooij working with Ryan Newton, “Determining Microsystis Genotype Relationships between Lake Winnebago and Green Bay”
- Emma Linhares working with Harvey Bootsma, “Constructing the Lake Michigan Food Web Using Fatty Acid Analysis”
- Said Mustafa Sadat working with Thomas Hansen, “Investigating the Training of Neural Networks for Automated Detection of Fish in Underwater Video”
Letters & Science (College of)
Anthropology
- Eric Walker working with Megan Thornton, “Cultural Item Inventory and Collections Management for Archaeological Sites in Winnebago County, Wisconsin”
Art History
- Indigo Garzez working with Richard Leson, “Creation and Implementation of New Digital Tools for Instruction in Medieval Art”
Biological Sciences
- Kleida Doci working with Jennifer Gutzman, “Identification of the Molecules That Regulate Tissue Forces during Zebrafish Brain Morphogenesis”
- Maja Malbasic working with An-Phu Tran, “Unraveling the Role of Rab-GTPases in LRRK2-Induced Neurotoxicity in Parkinson’s Disease”
- Andrew Pagel working with Claire De La Cova, “Modeling Noonan Syndrome Mutations in C. Elegans”
- Hassan Richardson working with Emily Latch, “Environmental Conditions Predicting the Presence of the Critically Endangered Grenada Frog”
- Amelia Scheiber working with Jeffrey Karron, “Variation in Reproductive Success across the Flowering Season”
- Leo Vogel working with Jeffrey Karron, “Ecology of Flower Color Variation in Shooting Star”
Chemistry & Biochemistry
- Zoe Wardle working with David Frick, “The Ability of Metabolic Enzymes to Utilize Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide Covalently Attached to RNA 5’-Ends”
- Grace Wheeler working with Alexander Arnold, “Synthesis of Novel Pegylated Imidazodiazepines”
Communication
- Kiersten Gonzalez working with Erin Parcell, “Marginalized Family Communication”
Conservation & Environmental Science
- Chloe Anderson working with Neal OReilly, “Indian Creek Bacteria and Chloride Study”
- Eugenio Calderon Rodriguez working with Neal OReilly, “Development of a Methodology to Assess Building Vulnerability for Potential Bird Strikes”
English
- Bailee Jones working with Anne Basting, “Exploring the Role of Practicing Democracy in Higher Education”
- Raquel Quevedo working with Rachel Bloom-Pojar, “Cuentos de Confianza: A Public Humanities Project with Promotores de Salud”
Geosciences
- Ross Brandolino working with John Isbell, “Physical Modeling of Iceberg Sedimentation and Grounding Structures as a Means to Identifying Such Features in the Rock Record”
- Kasserena Cvikel working with John Isbell, “Atlas of Glacial and Glaciomarine Sedimentary Rocks”
- Megan Davis working with Martin Dangelmayr, “Evaluating Nutrient Attenuation and Release in a Restored Urban Stream”
- Paige Ehmke working with Charles Paradis, “Modeling Groundwater Flow and Solute Transport during a Single-Well Injection-Drift Test”
History
- Dane Frieburg working with Rachel Buff, “Lost in the Red Scare”
- Ava Schultz working with Arijit Sen, “Climates of Inequality: Creating an Exhibit on Environmental Justice Struggles in Frontline Communities”
Journalism, Advertising, & Media Studies
- Delaney Carlson working with Marc Tasman, “From Malls to Social Media: The Emergence of Digital Third Spaces”
- Meredith Hetzer and Miles Verban working with Rachael Jurek, “Assessing University Engagement on the Campus ESP Family Portal”
- Liv McCurdy working with Marc Tasman, “The Role of Color Theory in Political Branding”
- Sonya Sinkula working with Marc Tasman, “Fandoms and Digital Communities”
Linguistics
- Preston Ruh working with Hanyong Park, “The Effects of Orienting Attention on the Training of Production for Non-native Utterances”
Mathematical Sciences
- Victor Florez working with Peter Hinow, “The Use of Generative AI as a Supporting Tool in Research in Applied and Interdisciplinary Mathematics”
- Theodore Koss working with Pamela Harris, “Arithmetical Structures on Coconut Trees”
- Stephen Lasinis working with Pamela Harris, “Pinnacles on Graphs”
Physics
- Starr Boney working with Min Gyu Kim, “Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulator (Mn, TM)3Al9Si with TM = Fe, Cr, and Co.”
- Se Jin Lee working with Ionel Popa, “The Mechanics of Polypeptides inside Biomaterials Made from Denatured Proteins”
Political Science
- Joshua Matthews working with Sara Pashak, “Supreme Court Justices’ Appearances and Legitimacy”
Psychology
- Dakota Gordon working with Jeffrey Lopez Rojas, “Processing of Social Information by the Entorhinal Cortex”
- Madeline Jereb working with Jeffrey Lopez Rojas, “Social Memory Processing in a Mouse Model of Schizophrenia”
- Anna Knight working with Jeffrey Lopez Rojas, “Differential Processing of Social Information by Medial and Lateral Entorhinal Cortices.”
Spanish & Portuguese
- Salvador Prado working with Nancy Bird-Soto, “From Hispanic to Latinx and UWM Latine Activism”
Public Health (Joseph J. Zilber School of)
- Charlee Katzka working with Scott Strath, “Research Grade Activity Monitor Responsiveness to Change for Measuring Sedentary Behavior”
- Nathaniel Rodriguez-Rood working with Todd Miller, “Analysis of Algal Toxins in Green Bay Fox River”
- Nicholas Wielgosz working with Todd Miller, “Analysis of Algal Toxins in Fish”
Rehabilitation Sciences & Technology (School of)
Athletic Training & Performance Psychology
- Nathan Ebersole working with Barbara Meyer, “Change in Firefighter Cadet Mental Skills Use before and after Mental Skills Training Workshops”
Social Welfare (Helen Bader School of)
Criminal Justice & Criminology
- Katharine Vetuschi working with Danielle Romain Dagenhardt, “Examining the Impact of Pretrial Decision-Making on Sentencing during COVID-19”
Social Work
- Zoe Kearney, Olivia Nwachukwu, and Kelly Prather working with Andrew Steward, “Evaluating the “Aging Together” Anti-ageism Peer Support Program for Older Adults”