ISA students presented an impressive number of posters at local, regional, and national conferences during the summer and fall of 2025. Congratulations to all!
If we are missing any presentations or publications, please let us know at ui-isa@uiowa.edu. We want to be sure to showcase all student accomplishments!
Name | Program | Event | Title | Mentor |
| Poster Presentations | ||||
| Alayna Gallery | Science Alliance | University of Iowa Summer Undergraduate Research Conference (SURC), July 29, 2025, Iowa City, IA | pCREB Signaling Pathway in Spinal Dopamine 1 Receptor Neurons | Dr. Kathleen Sluka |
| Andrea Medina | Latham | SURC | Sleep & Behavior: Examining the relations of sleep quality with empathy and social cognition in people living with schizophrenia | Dr. Bengi Baran |
| Bhoomika Shettigar | LSAMP | SURC | Refining Green Space Measurement: A Pipeline for Psychological Data | Dr. Ece Demir-Lira & Tess Filip |
| Christina Yu | Science Alliance | SURC | Development of state-dependent visuomotor activity in infant rats | Dr. Mark Blumberg |
| Everett White | Science Alliance | SURC | Investigating Calpain Proteolysis of MutantJunctophilin-1 | Dr. Long-Sheng Song |
| Kassandra Sigafus | Science Alliance | SURC | Investigating the RNA Processing Body Assembly Pathway in C. elegans Germline Development | Dr. Bryan Phillips |
| Abby Myroth | Science Alliance | SURC | Why does twitching during sleep persist in adult animals? | Dr. Mark Blumburg |
| Emily Formella | Science Alliance | SURC | The role of mechanotransduction pathways in chorioretinal cell response to simulated microgravity | Dr. Kristan Worthington |
| Kylee Harford | LSAMP | SURC | The Logistics of Managing Biodiversity Research Collections | Dr. Tiffany Adrain |
| Luke Hawkins & Berkley Johnson | Science Alliance | SURC | Utilizing GAPIM to Examine Relational Dynamics in Gratitude-Based Group Therapy | Dr. Martin Kivlighan |
| Natalie Kehrli | Latham | SURC | More than Low Disinhibition: Multiple Trait Explanations for Scores on Rigid Perfectionism as Measured by the Personality Inventory for DSM-5-Short Form | Dr. Brendan Whitney |
| Riley McCoy | LSAMP | SURC | Mapping DRN 5-HTstimulated brain-wide activation patterns with chemogenetic iDISCO | Dr. Catherine Marcinkiewz |
| Sabrina Vlk | Latham | SURC | GORDON: A Compact Lidar Instrument for Aerosol Profiling | Dr. Matthew McGill |
| Seren Castellano | Science Alliance | Leadership Alliance National Symposium, July 24, 2025 (Virtual) | Unraveling Ribbon Worm Diversity: Biodiversity and Systematics of Antarctic Nemertea | |
| Klaertje Hesselink | Science Alliance | SULI Summer Presentation Session, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado, 2025 | From Waste to Fuel: Designing Catalysts for Magnetic Induction Driven Reactive Carbon Capture Authors: K. Hesselink, A. Hill, C. J. Potter, W. McNeary | Dr. Tori Forbes |
| Braden Carne | Latham | University of Iowa Fall Undergraduate Research Festival (FURF), November 19, 2025, Iowa City, IA | Electron Behavior Across the Alfven Surface: Recent Finding from Parker Solar Probe | Dr. Jasper Halekas |
| Seren Castellano | Science Alliance | FURF | Unraveling Ribbon Worm Diversity: Biodiversity and Systematics of Antarctic Nemertea | Dr. Maurine Neiman |
| Vamsi Challa | Science Alliance | FURF | GDF15 Signaling Through GFRAL Mediates Metabolic Improvements in Response to Mitochondrial Stress | Dr. Renata Pereira and Ayushi Sood |
| Emily Formella | Science Alliance | FURF | The role of mechanotransduction pathways in chlorioretinal cell response to simulated microgravity | Dr. Kristan Worthington and Richard Cliver |
| Keegan Nissen | Science Alliance | FURF | Impact of Hearing Profiles on developmental Outcomes: Comparing Children with Unilateral or Bilateral Hearing Loss and Normal Hearing | Dr. Elizabeth Walker |
| Peter Nitsche | Latham | FURF | Tentacle Tales: How Genome Architecture and Nutrient Availability Shape Tissue Regeneration in a Freshwater Snail | Dr. Maurine Neiman |
| Tae’Shaun Presswood | LSAMP | FURF | Tentacle Tales: How Genome Architecture and Nutrient Availability Shape Tissue Regeneration in a Freshwater Snail | Dr. Maurine Neiman |
| Kassandra Sigafus | Science Alliance | FURF | Is ABCF-1 the Missing Link in the RNA Processing Bosy Assembly Pathway in C. elegans? | Dr. Bryan Phillips |
| Klaertje Hesselink | Science Alliance | Future Leaders in Chemical Engineering Symposium, October 9-10, 2025, Raleigh, NC | From Waste to Fuel: Designing Catalysts for Magnetic Induction Driven Reactive Carbon Capture Authors: K. Hesselink, A. Hill, C. J. Potter, W. McNeary | Dr. Tori Forbes |
| Klaertje Hesselink | Science Alliance | American Institute of Chemical Engineers Annual Meeting, October 31 – November 3, Boston, MA, 2025 | From Waste to Fuel: Designing Catalysts for Magnetic Induction Driven Reactive Carbon Capture Authors: K. Hesselink, A. Hill, C. J. Potter, W. McNeary | Dr. Tori Forbes |
| Bhoomika Shettigar | LSAMP | Society for Neuroscience Annual Conference, November 25 – 19, 2025, San Diego, CA | fNIRS Evidence for Transitional Frontal-Parietal Connectivity in Early Symbolic Number Acquisition | Dr. Ece Demir-Lira |
| Riley McCoy | LSAMP | Society for Neuroscience Annual Conference, November 25 – 19, 2025, San Diego, CA | Tau pathology leads to hyperactivity of noradrenergic neurons, potentially contributing to early Alzheimer’s Disease | Dr. Catherine Marcinkiewz |
| Publications | ||||
| Zachary Niemasz | Science Alliance | Basu, B., Breese, N. M., Lombardi, S., Wang, H., Li, X., Tiburcio, D., Niemasz, Z., Beyer, S. E., Dean, L. E., Marek, R. F., Toborek, M., Lehmler, H.-J., & Chatterjee, S. (2025). Spatial transcriptomic profiling uncovers the molecular effects of the neurotoxicant polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the brains of adult mice. bioRxiv, 2025.07.24.665575. DOI: 10.1101/2025.07.24.665575 | Dr. Snehajyoti Chatterjee
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