Access 2020 - 2021

WELCOME! ACCESS RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM

ACCESS 2020-2021 takes the International Women's Day #ChooseToChallenge pledge

to call out gender bias and inequality

Acknowledgements

Welcome Guests

PLease scroll down to see projects

Thank you for joining us! ACCESS, established 1991, is a first-year experience that culminates in a semester of research. Each spring semester, ACCESS students work directly with faculty and graduate students to contribute to an existing research project or develop their own. This is just the beginning as over 75% of our students will continue to engage in research throughout their undergraduate education. ACCESS scholars frequently publish before graduating and numerous alumni have been recognized for their contributions to research, by way of scholarships, including the prestigious Churchill and Goldwater awards, as well as other distinctions.

The ACCESS 2020-2021 cohort spent their entire freshman year learning remotely, but that did not stop them from participating in research, forming lasting connections with their peers, and getting involved across the University of Utah campus.

Having been primed for research and academic success, the ACCESS 2020-2021 cohort is ready to transition into peer mentorship roles and pay it forward to future generations in the ACCESS program, and as role models of success and perseverance in science and engineering. The initiative and drive shown by the 2020-2021 group, who faced challenges associated with the pandemic and new types of learning, was truly inspiring and we can’t wait to see where they go.

Congratulations ACCESS 2020 - 2021!

-Tanya Vickers, ACCESS Director (Email: Tanya.Vickers@utah.edu)

-Sam Shaw, ACCESS Program Manager (Email: shaw@science.utah.edu)

PROJECT INTRODUCTIONS

Use links to learn more

Optimal Movement of a Polar Bear in a Heterogenous Icescape

Research Advisors: Ken Golden, Jody Reimer - Mathematics, College of Science

Introduction: Polar bears are threatened by climate change, including the precipitous rate at which Arctic sea ice is melting. These changes may cause polar bears to spend more time traveling through water, during which they expend more energy than walking on ice. The combination of shorter hunting seasons and increased time in water may result in energy deficits. By studying energy costs in these different environments, we will better understand polar bear energetics under these new environmental conditions.

Nicole_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Nicole Forrester

Investigation of the First Stars of the Universe Through 21cm Cosmology

Research Advisors: Pearl Sandick, Ashley Perko - Physics & Astronomy, College of Science

Introduction: 21cm cosmology is a technique that allows for the study of the formation of stars, as well as neutral hydrogen in the interstellar medium. The effects of changing parameters of the early conditions of the universe is represented by differences in the 21cm signal which is obtained through the use of ARES simulation on CHPC virtual environment. The parameters that were changed in this work include the star formation rate, the star efficiency rate, as well as the redshift when sources turn on, all of which influence the 21cm signal.

Jamie_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Jamie Covington

Effect of Platelet Depletion on Malarial Pathogenesis for Plasmodium chabaudi infection in Transgenic Pf4 Mice

Research Advisors: Tracy Lamb, Franklin Maloba, and Mellina Srey - Pathology, School of Medicine

Introduction: Malaria is a devastating disease caused by the parasite Plasmodium that infects red blood cells. In 2019, there were 229 million cases and 409,000 deaths caused by malaria, with sub-Saharan Africa carrying 94% of the world’s malaria burden. The relationship between malaria infections and platelets is a current topic of study. To explore this relationship further, we will use a mouse model infected with a form o f malaria called Plasmodium chabaudi.

Andelin_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Andelin Beishline

Will Utah’s Water Conservation Goals Reduce Total Water Use by 2030?

Research Advisors: Steven Burian, Daniyal Hassan, Ryan Johnson - Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering

Introduction: Utah is ranked as one of the highest water users in the western United States. In 2019, the state set a goal for reducing gallons per-capita water use (gpcd) by county. Using the Utah’s Regional M&I Water Conservation Goals report prepared by Hansen, Allen & Luce, Inc. and University of Utah Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute county population projections, we developed baseline (2015) and future (2030) per-capita water use values to identify trends, relationships, and evaluate conservation goals.

Emily_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Emily Baur

Egg-laying Preferences of Female Western Tree Hole Mosquitoes, Aedes sierrensis

Research Advisors: Neil Vickers, Kirsten Meredith - School of Biological Sciences, College of Science

Introduction: The Western Tree Hole mosquito, Aedes sierrensis, is an aggressive, nuisance biter of humans and also transmits a roundworm that causes canine heartworm disease. Female Aedes mosquitoes have been shown to be capable of sensing the water environment best suited to development of larvae. We tested the egg laying (oviposition) preferences of Ae. sierrensis in two-choice bioassays. Insights from experiments on oviposition preferences of mosquitoes may lead to the development of improved traps for both monitoring and controlling wild mosquito populations.

Kaia_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Kaia Jay

Development meets Metabolism: Investigating how Diet and Nutrition Influence Developmental Decisions

Research Advisors: Michael Werner, Tobias Loschko, Shelley Reich - School of Biological Sciences, College of Science

Introduction: The effect of environment on development is critical to human health, and animal and plant ecological strategies. The molecular mechanisms that regulate developmental (phenotypic) plasticity remain poorly understood. When exposed to different environments, the nematode Pristionchus pacificus expresses one of two possible mouth forms; either the ‘Stenostomatous’ morph or the ‘Eurystomatous’ morph. In my ACCESS project, I have been assessing whether morph choice, an experimentally tractable example of developmental plasticity, is mediated by nutrition.

Sam_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Samantha Nestel

Modeling the Fractionation of Carbonated Magma from Cape Verde

Research Advisors: Sarah Lambart, Otto Lang, Emily Cunningham - Geology & Geophysics, College of Mines and Earth Sciences

Introduction: Studying the composition of igneous rocks found on oceanic islands or at oceanic ridges is crucial in understanding the composition of the mantle, since there is no way to directly sample the mantle source of magmas. Preliminary analyses performed on three cumulative igneous rocks collected on the Santo Antão island of the Cabo Verde archipelagos indicate they crystallized into strikingly peculiar mineral compositions and assemblages.

Helen_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Helen Lindsey

Role of Immune Cells in Cardiac Regeneration

Research Advisors: Jamie Gagnon, Clayton Carey - School of Biological Sciences, College of Science

Introduction: Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, but in some vertebrates cardiac damage is not as fatal. Zebrafish are capable of complete cardiac regeneration. Currently, we have a limited understanding of the mechanisms that distinguish zebrafish from species that cannot regenerate their hearts. I hypothesize that differences in resident immune cells in the heart may modulate regenerative capacity. With this research, I hope to develop the understanding of endogenous regenerative capabilities that could potentially be used to elicit cardiac regeneration in humans.

Hailey_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Hailey Hauck

Wasatch Wildlife Watch; Leveraging the Power of Community Science and Camera Traps to Answer Large Ecological Questions

Research Advisors: Cagan H. Sekercioglu, Austin Green - School of Biological Sciences, College of Science

Introduction: Salt Lake City is a growing city surrounded by wildlife that is constantly having to adapt to this growth. Photos from camera traps can be used as data to quantify changes in temporal activity behavior. In this project, I focused on the Weekend Effect to assess how human activities, on weekends vs weekdays, may affect wildlife behavior.

Madelyn_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Madelyn Bossarte

Improving Turn-On Kinetics of RNA-Based Guanidine Biosensors

Research Advisors: Ming Hammond, Sudeshna Manna - Chemistry, College of Science

Introduction: Ribonucleic acid-based fluorescent (RBF) biosensors can be used for both in vitro and in vivo biosensing. One such biosensor, developed by Truong and Manna, selectively binds guanidine, and is thus referred to as the guanidine biosensor. This project focuses on mutagenesis of the guanidine biosensor RNA at four base pair locations on the Pb1 stem where the nucleobases are not conserved or involved in ligand bonding with the goal of improving biosensor kinetics.

Ava_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Ava Peitz

"X-raying" Galaxy Cluster Abell 2319: Understanding its High Energy Components

Research Advisors: Daniel Wik, Ayşegül Tümer - Physics & Astronomy, College of Science

Introduction: Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally bound objects in the universe, containing hundreds to thousands of galaxies, which grow by merging with other galaxy clusters. Within a cluster, galaxies make up a small portion of the total mass. Hot gas—part of the intraclustar medium (ICM)—exists between the galaxies and emits light in the X-ray regime. NuSTAR is an X-ray satellite whose mission includes the study of this ICM. In this project, we present the NuSTAR observation of Abell 2319, which is a massive galaxy cluster currently undergoing a merger event.

My_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Maya Wagner

Next Generation Deep Brain Stimulation for Depression Using Passive Intracranial Arterial Stents

Research Advisors: Cynthia Furse, Kaitlin Hall, Shaun McKellar - Electrical & Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Introduction: Deep brain stimulation is currently used to treat various neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, and major depressive disorder. To reduce complications from deep brain stimulation, this research proposes a minimally invasive, wireless system which places a stent in the brain to focus electromagnetic fields delivered from surface electrodes to the targeted tissue.

Crysta_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Crysta Oswald

X-Ray Diffraction Applications in Crystallography

Research Advisors: Shanti Deemyad, Tushar Bhowmick, Tessa McNamee - Physics & Astronomy, College of Science

Introduction: Our group studies matter at high pressures to explore changes in the structural and electronic properties of materials. In particular, we are seeking paths to find superconductivity close to ambient conditions.

Moira_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Moira Hicks

Glutamatergic Vocal Motoneurons in Xenopus laevis: An Immunohistochemical Analysis of Neurotransmitters in Frog Vocal Motoneurons

Research Advisors: Ayako Yamaguchi, Da-Jiang Zheng, Akemi Nguyen - School of Biological Sciences, College of Science

Introduction: The African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis, has sex-specific vocalizations that are independent of the respiratory system which allows for a clearer look at the relationship between neural activity and behavior. Here, we hypothesize that along with acetylcholine, glutamate is also used as a neurotransmitter by the vocal motor neurons to drive feedback neurons in the central vocal pathways of X. laevis.

Michelle_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Michelle Tin

Quantifying the Relationship Between Relative Brain Size and Sensory Neuron Population Across the Drosophila Phylogeny

Research Advisors: Sophie Caron, Hayley Smihula, Chelsea Gosney - School of Biological Sciences, College of Science

Introduction: Varying brain sizes across species is one of the many aspects of brain evolution, presenting the question of whether increases in brain size yields an expansion of cognitive and behavioral capacities. We are interested in determining if the variation in brain size across the Drosophila phylogeny is due to changes in neuron number.

Dua_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Dua Azhar

Evaluation of Low-Cost GPS Sensors for Environmental Monitoring Applications

Research Advisors: Eric Pardyjak, Rob Stoll, Alexis DeFord, Alex Bingham, Matthew Huckins - Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering

Introduction: For monitoring environmental changes in urban and remote areas, it is important to have sensors that are low-maintenance, durable, and accurate. While there are GPS systems on the market, they tend to be expensive and not easily integrated into our existing data-logging system. A GoouuuTech GT-U7 GPS module was added to a SparkFun SAMD micro-controller to provide location data and reduce costs while maintaining efficacy. This low-cost alternative may enable research teams to deploy large numbers of sensors in a variety of regions, leading to an overall increase in our understanding of how our environment is affected by certain activities or changes.

Carsen_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Carsen Monaco

Analysis of Tropospheric Ozone Levels (2016-2017) at Storm Peak Laboratory, Colorado

Research Advisors: Gannett Hallar, Noah Hirshorn, Christopher Rapp - Atmospheric Sciences, College of Mines and Earth Sciences

Introduction: Ozone (O3) is an atmospheric gas. Ozone formed in the stratosphere absorbs harmful UV radiation. However, tropospheric (ground level) ozone has negative effects on human health, and is one of the main constituents in photochemical smog. Long-term trends in ground level ozone concentrations (from 2016-2017) at Storm Peak Laboratory in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, were collected using a Thermo Fisher model 49i Ozone Analyzer and evaluated.

Lina_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Angelina Miller

What's the Price of Mistakes? Balancing False Negatives and False Positives in COVID-19 Tests

Research Advisors: Fred Adler, Alex Beams - Mathematics, College of Science

Introduction: Testing has been critical for surveillance and contact tracing of the COVID-19 pandemic. No test has perfect sensitivity (no false negatives) and perfect specificity (no false positives). Furthermore, the sensitivity and specificity of a test changes over the course of an infection. We adapted the fundamental epidemiological SIR model for spread of disease to model the number of cells infected with SARS-CoV-2 in order to predict when different types of tests will produce false positives or false negatives.

Muskan_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Muskan Walia

Enzymatic Modification of Synthetic Mucins with Bioactive Sugars

Research Advisors: Jessica Kramer, Casia Wardzala - Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering

Introduction: Mucus is a hydrogel primarily composed of mucin glycoproteins and has bodily functions such as regulating microbial interactions and acting as a biological lubricant. Part of what gives mucins these functions are bioactive sugars, known as sialic acids. Our ability to study these sugars in the context of mucins is limited due to the heterogeneity of mucin structures. Our solution to this problem is to synthesize and use synthetic mucin mimics to emulate native mucins from the body.

Sophia_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Sophia Blankevoort

Fuzzy invaders: Investigating the Behavior of Invasive Squirrels in Utah

Research Advisors: Josh Steffen, Tess Stapleton - Science Research Initiative

Introduction: The fox squirrel (Sciurus niger) is native to the eastern United States. In 2011, they were spotted in Utah along the Jordan River. Since then, this invasive species has spread along the Wasatch Front. Fox squirrels can cause damage to crops and infrastructure as well as potentially impact native species, such as the American Red Squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). This research will contribute to understanding the impact of invasive squirrels and what forces contribute to their successful migration and establishment.

Adamaris_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Adamaris Martinez

Creating a Mathematical Model to Represent Personal Bias and Diversity in a Video Game

Research Advisors: Rogelio Cardona-Rivera, School of Computing, College of Engineering

Introduction: In the faculty-hiring simulation game, a player is presented with situations that might prompt them to behave in a biased manner. The player’s behavior will be recorded as inputs. These inputs will be translated into a player’s diversity score. By calculating and showing players a score based off of their potential biases, we hypothesize that we will successfully elicit player awareness of their own implicit biases in the faculty hiring process.

Jialin_ACCESS Symposium Headshot.png

Jialin Wu