Martian volcanoes, Spanish dance and the metaphor of the vampire are just a few of the research topics to earn funding as part of the Undergraduate Research Scholar Award Program.
The program, now in its fourth year, is administered through the Office of the Vice President for Research.
In all, 46 students representing all seven schools received $500 each to cover laboratory equipment, travel and other project-related expenses for their research proposals. The students’ faculty advisers received $300 apiece, also for project related expenses.
The funds were granted for a single semester with the support of corporate sponsors Raytheon and Ericsson.
The number of undergraduate projects sponsored under the program has more than doubled since the program began in 2007, when 21 students received funding.
Students selected for the program spend a semester engaged in research, and many of the research projects will be available to view in the spring as part of the Undergraduate Research Poster Contest.
Judges score the researchers on the quality of their research objective, their methodology, research findings, the implications of the work and how the research was presented.
Last year’s winning project, by a senior computer science major, involved placing sensors on the tongue to construct three-dimensional models of the inner workings of the mouth during speech. The findings may eventually help people correct speech disorders or even learn new languages.
The complete list of funding research projects is as follows:
| Student | Project Topic | Adviser | ||
| Syed Ahmed and Mariam Tabbassaum |
Cortical plasticity due to somatosensory cortex reorganization in rats | Michael Kilgard | ||
| Shweta Arya | Cultural and social effects on civic participation rates: A cross-village study in India | Catherine Eckel | ||
| Bogdan Baciu | Granular parking study | Maria Labastida Tovar | ||
| Emily Butler | An interactive toolbox for the analysis of volcanoes on Earth and Mars | Georgia Fotopoulos | ||
| Philip Campbell | A path towards single electron device fabrication | Yves Chabal | ||
| Nicole Canon | The interactions of tris-benzamides in apoptotic pathways using a prostate cancer cell model | Jung-mo Ahn | ||
| Ryan Cheung | The effects of vagus nerve stimulation on the recovery of cortical damage in the motor cortex of sprague dawley rats | Michael Kilgard | ||
| Pavan Dave | Development of Internet based telemedicine system to support children with autism spectrum disorder | Lakshman Tamil | ||
| Truc Do | Chromosome walking using strand displacement cloning of gene-specific amplification products | Dennis Miller | ||
| Catherine Eckert | Zeolite imidazolate framework mixed matrix membranes | Kenneth Balkus | ||
| Barry Feigenbaum and Zachary Richardson |
Simulated touch screen functionality by means of capacitive proximity sensors | Nicholas Gans | ||
| Francisco Garcia | Abnormal adrenergic modulation of GABAergic synaptic transmission in a valproic acid animal model of autism | Marco Atzori | ||
| Carter Haines | Inherent Doppler acoustic sources from carbon nanotube speakers | Ray Baughman | ||
| Ravi Hanumara | Punishment in coordination games | Catherine Eckel | ||
| Stuart Harrell | Fully homomorphic encryption for practical data security | Murat Kantarcioglu | ||
| Ryan Hayes | Effects of phage display peptides on the growth of calcium oxalate monohydrate mapped against the effects of polyacrylic acid | Bruce Gnade | ||
| Luequan Huang | Developing a mathematic model to assess the transmissibility and virulence of avian- and swine-origin influenza viruses | Yan Cao | ||
| Visal Im | Pretreatment for cellulose hydrolysis by bleach solution | D.J. Yang | ||
| Nistha Jajal | Investigation of pupillary responses to threatening and non-threatening stimuli | John Hart | ||
| Tanushree Jhunjhunwala | Predicting academic success: A contest between simple and complex statistical models | Nathan Berg | ||
| Lisa Keylon | Categorization of infant-directed speech by 4- and 6-month-old infants | Melanie Spence | ||
| Arthur Klattenhoff | Pico life: Augmented, multiplayer 3D mobile gaming world | Balakrishnan Prabhakaran | ||
| Eun-Chong Kong | Luminescent gold nanoparticles for imaging brain cancer cells | Jie Zheng | ||
| Duc Le | Classifying emotion from spoken dialogues | Yang Liu | ||
| Alfonso Lopez | MOF deposition on thin films and specialized surfaces | Yves Chabal | ||
| Archana Madhavan | Regulation of quorum sensing during the Sinorhizobium meliloti-alfalfa symbiosis | Juan Gonzalez | ||
| Jenna Mattingly | Computer simulations of gene networks | Robert Hilborn | ||
| Nathanael Mayo | The search for double layer charge induced superconductivity | Anvar Zakhidov | ||
| Molly McGregor | Heat transfer characteristics of a microencapsulated PCM slurry through a porous material | Fatemeh Hassanipour | ||
| Jeremy Miller | Description of Noachian-Hesperian geologic contact at NE Syrtis Major Planum, Mars | Fang Qiu | ||
| Kenneth Mills | Risk analysis-based fault-proneness identification for multi-threaded embedded software | Eric Wong | ||
| Saheli Nath | Effects of playing chess on self-esteem among students at University of Texas at Dallas: A case control pilot study | Alexey Root | ||
| Tulja Parmar | The effect of noradrenergic manipulations of the basolateral complex of the amygdala on the phosphorylation state of the GluR1 subunit of the AMPA receptor | Christa McIntyre | ||
| Tharun Paruchuri | Investigation of the binding properties of a mutant DNA-binding protein | Donald Gray | ||
| John Perales | Wideband Power Combiners for Linear Power Amplifiers | Rashaunda Henderson | ||
| Abhishek Raj | Shape memory triggered coating failure for active biomaterials | Walter Voit | ||
| Bryan Reeves | Measuring risk preference with Bingo | Catherine Eckel | ||
| Sagar Shah | Triple shape memory polymers based on self complementary hydrogen bonding | Walter Voit | ||
| Dale Soney | Deposition of MOF on films on metal and functionalized Si surfaces | Yves Chabal | ||
| Sally Stewart | Literary vampires as social metaphor | Theresa Towner | ||
| Shane Stone | Synthesis and characterization of poly(3-hexylthiophene) derivatives for hybrid solar cells | John Ferraris | ||
| Anthony Tantillo | Gdeps, an open experimental software | Catherine Eckel | ||
| Sebastian Templet | Nootropic effects of dequalinium in a rat declarative memory task | Lucien Thompson | ||
| Jonathan Tsao | Metal Sulfide decorated TiO2 nanotubes for photocatalytic CO2 reduction | Kenneth Balkus | ||
| Falak Vyas | Evaluating the impact of affinity credit card program on the customer profitability | Julie Haworth | ||
| Lye-Ching Wong | Cultural study of regional identity and traditional dance in Spain | Monica Saba |