Winners announced for 2016 Rice Undergraduate Research Symposium

More than 250 students competed for cash prizes in the annual campuswide Rice Undergraduate Research Symposium April 13. Students in all disciplines had a chance to share their research and design projects with the Rice and Houston communities through displays and presentations at Tudor Fieldhouse.

The symposium, put on by a student committee in conjunction with the Center for Civic Leadership, featured posters, oral presentations and cash prizes awarded by faculty and graduate student judges.

Prizes were awarded in the following categories:

School of Social Sciences:

First prize (three-way tie): Cristell Perez, the team of Tiffany Tang and Melanie Zook and the team of Derek Holliday and Benjamin Hamm Conard.

Second Prize (tie): Selina Baeza Loya and Timothy Chang.

Third prize: Megan Lewis.

School of Natural Sciences (top three projects): Charles-Etienne Sauve, Grant Stec and the team of Charlene Thomas and Zelun Wang.

School of Engineering’s Engineering Solo Project (three-way tie): David Yalacki, Steven Schepanski and the team of Tejus Satish and Kathleen Francis.

School of Engineering’s Engineering Group Project: the team of Erin Anderson, Ronal Infante, Lisa Sampson and Corin Peterson.

School of Humanities:

First prize: Edna Otuomagie.

Second prize: Susannah Wright.

Third prize: Rachel Landsman.

Humanities Research Center Prize: Edna Otuomagie.

Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences Prize: the team of Sally-Hodges Copple, Emily Jacobsen and Lucy Matveeva.

Chao Center for Asian Studies Prize: Kira Clingen.

Rice 360 Institute for Global Health Technologies Award: the team of Haley Hepler, Rishu Harpavat and Hiren Patel.

Shell Center for Sustainability Awards:

First prize: Rebecca Mather.

Second prize: Elaine Shen.

Third prize: the team of Sally Hodges-Copple, Emily Jacobson and Lucy Matveeva.

Baker Institute: Kelly MacKenzie.

Center for Civic Leadership Prize: the team of Sally Hodges-Copple, Emily Jacobson and Lucy Matveeva.

Student Choice Award: the team of Xin Huang, Stephen Xia, Thomas Liu and Yuan Gao.

Rice Neuroscience Prize:

First prize: the team of Xin Huang, Stephen Xia, Thomas Liu and Yuan Gao.

Second prize: Bairavi Shankar.

Third prize (three-way tie): Neeti Mehta, Charles-Etienne Sauve and the team of Nathaniel Forrester, Leah Ramkelawan, Charis Wang and Erik Yamada.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute Prize: Nathanael Assefa.

Baylor College of Medicine EMS Award:

First prize: Ryan Pappal.

Second prize: the team of Jessica Sheu and Emily Huang.