Awards Presented for 'Best in Class,' "Best Student/Faculty Research' and 'President's Choice'
The presence of 80 students displaying their research via posters and other presentation media Thursday (May 4) transformed the normally athletics-oriented Fred Raizk Arena in Hermann Court into a strictly academic setting at the Eighth Annual Student Research Forum.
(PICTURED) Discussing their "Best in Class" award-winning research in the business administration category is the team of, from the left, Mitchell Pfaltzgraf, Andrew Stewart and Tallia McCormick.
The 46 research projects spanned across academic disciplines as faculty, staff and students took time out from the study day prior to the start of final exams to peruse the presentations and learn first-hand from student researchers.
Special “Best in Class” awards went to:
Agriculture — Alison Davis for “Effect of Bucket Color on Water Intake in Horses”; Fine Arts/Communication — Bethany Dresback, “Emotions of Black and White Versus Color Photography”; Biology — Anna Heineke, “Taq Polymerase: You Get What You Pay For”; Business Administration — Tallia McCormick, Mitchell Pfaltzgraf, Andrew Stewart, “Rocket League”; Humanities — Taylor Turner, “Residual Hauntings: The Specter of Feminism in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca”; Sport Sciences — Alisha Hayes, “High School Athletic Trainers’ Understanding of Best Practice and Incorporation of NATA’s Position Statement on Ankle Sprains”; and Social Sciences — “What is Wrong with Millennials?: Explained by Millennials.”
The prize for “Best Student/Faculty Collaboration” went to Daniel Hall and Dr. Douglas Woodmansee, professor of biology, for their research titled “Discovery of a Strain of the Fungus Talaromyces flavus with an Unusual Mutation of the Cytochrome Oxidase 1 Gene.”
The "President’s Choice Awards" went to Janae Wicker for her sport science research titled “Do Athletes With Musculoskeletal Injuries Show Similar Patterns of Cognitive Decline As Seen In Concussed Athletes?” and to Hayes Tillipaugh and Dr. Douglas Burks, professor of biology, for their research, “Determining the Frequency Which Feline Leukemia Virus Enters Animal Shelters for Purposes of Future Disease Prevention.”
Selected for “People’s Choice Awards" were Arizona Craycraft for “The Disney Princess” and Mikayla Hughes for “Interpretations of Emojis.”