ESC/BRC Student Research Forum Winners Announced

For the graduate students, two Grand Prize Awards, six Merit Awards and two Honorable Mention Awards were presented. They were selected from among the 42 posters and abstracts submitted by graduate students conducting research related to ecology, the environment and biotechnology at Michigan Tech. New this year was a separate undergraduate research division with 9 submissions. For the undergraduate students, each center awarded a grand prize winner.

Posters will continue to be on display in the atrium of the Noblet Building, School of Forest Resources, Michigan Tech Campus through April 8

Graduate Research: $500 Grand Prizes
Ecosystem Science Center:

• Mickey Jarvi (SFRES) for “Sugar Maple Root Respiration Shows No Short-Term Acclimation to Soil Warming,” advisor: Andrew Burton
  

Biotechnology Research Center:

• Katherine Snyder (BME) for “Development of a Novel Vapor Deposited Silica Sol Particles for Use as a Bioactive Materials System,” advisor: Rupak Rajachar

$100 Merit Awards
Ecosystem Science Center:

• Rita Koch (SFRES) for “Insect and Disease Response to Prescribed Burning, Harvesting and Wildfire in Red Pine Forests,” advisors: Linda Nagel and Andrew Storer.
• Meagan L. Harless (Biological Sciences) for “Sublethal Effects of Road Salt (NaCl) Exposure on the Survival and Growth of Larval Wood Frogs (Lithobates sylvatica),” advisor: Casey Huckins.
• Laura Kangas (SFRES) for “Microtopography in Created Northern White Cedar (Thuja occidentalis L.) Wetlands,” advisor: Rodney Chimner

Biotechnology Research Center

• Yiru Chen (SFRES) for “Auxin Efflux Carrier Pta PIN9 Regulates Wood Formation and Gravitropic Response in Poplar,” advisor: Victor Busov
• Surendar Reddy Dhadi (Biological Sciences) for “Functional Analysis of Bidirectional Promoters in Rice,” advisor: Ramakrishna Wusirika
• Xiaochu Ding (Chemistry) for “Efficient One-Pot Synthesis and Loading of Self-Assembled Amphiphilic Chitosan Nanoparticles for Low-Leaching Wood Preservation,” advisor: Patricia Heiden

$50 Honorable Mention Awards: Ecosystem Science Center

• Marcella Campione (SFRES) for “Herbaceous Community Compositional Changes in a Northern Hardwood Forest,” advisor: Linda Nagel
• Karl Romanowicz (SFRES) for “Plant Species Composition in Northern Peatland Ecosystems may have Significant Effects on Carbon Cycling,” advisor: Erik Lilleskov

Undergraduate Research: $150 Grand Prize Awards
Ecosystem Science Center

• Alisha Autio (SFRES) for “The Effects of Canopy Height on Leaf Mass per Area in Eucalyptus Spp,” advisor: Molly Cavaleri

Biotechnology Research Center

• Hal Holmes (BME) for “Magnetoelastic Materials as a Means to Control and Monitor Cellular Adhesion,” advisor: Rupak Rajachar

Organizers thank participants, the judges and all who helped with another successful ESC/BRC Student Research Forum.