It’s a challenge to pick the best research presentations from a field of nearly 300 posters. With the help of a small army of volunteer faculty and postdoctoral students, organizers narrowed the field to 39 undergrad and graduate students who skillfully explained quality science created through their research.

Social & Behavioral Sciences
1st: Hadeel AlQadi
“An Overview of Cognitive Diagnosis Model for Dichotomous Latent Variables.”
Adviser: Sangbeak Ye2nd (tie): Kelsey Irvin
“Sensitivity of the Reward Positivity Event-Related Potential to a Savoring Affect Regulation Strategy.”
Adviser: Debora Bell2nd (tie): Kolter Grigsby
“The Role of Nucleus Accumbens CREB and PKIα modulation in Rescuing Low Voluntary Running Behavior.”
Adviser: Frank BoothLife Sciences Innovations
1st: Faye McGechie
“Using Novel 3D Techniques to Visualize and Quantify Primate Neck Anatomy.”
Adviser: Carol Ward

2nd (tie): Aditi Mishra
“Generation Of Novel Thermogenetic Tools In Drosophila Melanogaster.”
Adviser: Troy Zars

2nd (tie): Li Lee
“T2-mapping Magnetic Resonance Imaging As A Novel Strategy To Detect And Quantify Myocardial Fibrosis In Mice”
Adviser: lixin Ma

Honorable Mention: Chunye Zhang
“The Influence Of Gm Richness And Transfer Method On Disease Susceptibility In An Animal Model.”
Adviser: Aaron C. Ericsson

Honorable Mention: Paige Gruenke
“2′-Fluoro-Pyrimidine-Modified RNAs Strongly Inhibit HIV Reverse Transcriptase.”
Adviser: Donald Burke-Agüero

Animal Biology, Health and Disease
1st: Karl Kerns
“Sperm Capacitation-induced Zinc Efflux is Necessary for Increased Proteasomal Activity and Release from Oviduct Glycans of the Sperm Reservoir.”
Adviser: Peter Sutovsky

2nd: Alexis Dadelahi
“B Cells Inhibit CD4-mediated Protection During Brucella Melitensis Infection via an MHCII-dependent Mechanism.”
Adviser: Jerod Skyberg

3rd (tie): Emma Stephenson
“Effects of Copper, Zinc, and Manganese Source and Concentration during Late Gestation on Fetal Growth and Mineral Status of Calves.”
Adviser: Allison Meyer

3rd (tie): Monica Witzke
“Experimental Heat Stress Alters the Fecal Microbiome of Dairy Cattle.”
Adviser: Pamela Adkins

Honorable Mention: David Korasick
“Investigating the Dynamic and Complex Oligomeric States of  Aldehyde Dehydrogenase 7A1.”
Adviser: Jack Tanner

Honorable Mention: Kinjal Majumder
“Parvovirus Minute Virus of Mice Interacts with Sites of Cellular DNA Damage to Establish and Amplify its Lytic Infection.”
Adviser: David Pintel

Plant Biology, Health and Disease
1st: Jan Lorie Robil
“The Role of Auxin in Vein Patterning in Maize Leaves.”
Adviser: Paula McSteen

2nd: Jared Ellingsen
“Establishing the Roles and Interactions of E3L1 and MKP1 in Pattern-triggered Immunity.”
Adviser: Scott Peck

3rd: Caio Canella Vieira
“Major Gene for Resistance to Root-knot Nematode Sustains Yield Response Under High Nematode Pressure.”
Adviser: Pengyin Chen

Comparative and Translational Medicine
1st: Kari Chesney
“Modeling Crohn’s Disease: Identifying Environmental Triggers in a Genetically Susceptible Atg16l1 Rat Strain.”
Adviser: Elizabeth Bryda

2nd: Robert Kazmierczak
“Targeting Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer.”
Adviser: Chiswili Chabu

3rd: Lindsey Ledbetter
“Eosinophils Are Important for Early Formalin-inactivated Coxiella Burnetii Phase I Vaccine-mediated Protection and Antibody Isotype Switching.”
Adviser: Guoquan Zhang

Honorable Mention: Catherine Chambers
“IL-1 is Protective in a Murine Model of Neonatal Meningitis-Associated E. coli Infection.”
Adviser: Jerod Skyberg

Honorable Mention: Hien Huynh
“Antigen Requirements to Achieve T Cell Co-potentiation When Targeting Human CD3 with Fab Fragments in Humanized Mouse Models Expressing Transgenic TCRs.”
Adviser: Diana Gil Pages

Honorable Mention: Sessaly Reich
“HER2 Antibody Validation in Dogs and Expression Pattern in Canine Osteosarcoma Cell Lines and Tissues.”
Adviser: Jeffrey Bryan

Ecological and Evolutionary Biology
1st: Makenzie Mabry
“Brassica oleracea: The Dog of the Plant World.”
Adviser: J. Chris Pires

2nd: Troy Rowan
 “Detecting Signatures of Selection and Local Adaptation in United States Bos Taurus Beef Cattle.”
Adviser: Jared Decker

3rd: Erin Petty
“Which Resources Control Algal Biomass in Turbid Missouri Reservoirs: Light or Nutrients?”
Adviser: Rebecca North

Honorable Mention: Micah Turrell
“Evaluating the Critical Thermal Maxima Among Four Species of Missouri Salamanders.”
Adviser: Manuel Leal

Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
1st (tie): Sadia Akter
“A Machine Learning Approach for the Prediction of Endometriosis Using Multi-OMICS Next Generation Sequencing Data.”
Adviser: Trupti Joshi

1st (tie): Nicholas Mattia Marazzi
“Quantitative Evidence of the Role of the Lymphatic System in Maintaining the Subatmospheric Pressure Condition in the Interstitial Space.”
Adviser: Giovanna Guidoboni

3rd: Adil Al-Azzawi
“Super Clustering Approach for Fully Automated Single Particle Picking in Cryo-EM.”
Adviser: Jianlin Cheng

Undergraduates
1st: Olivia Botonis
“Distinct Roles of Two Dopaminergic Pathways in Reinforcement Learning.”
Adviser: Ilker Ozden

1st: Andrew Yowell
“An Essential Endopeptidase is Required for Cell Wall Synthesis and Morphology in A. tumefaciens.”
Adviser: Pamela Brown

2nd: Maha Hamed
“Role of Salicylic Acid in Immune Responses in Arabidopsis Clathrin-Coated Vesicle Mutants.”
Adviser: Antje Heese

2nd: Alec Wilken
“Functional Morphology of the Palate in Varanus exanthematicus and Its Significance for the Evolution of Cranial Kinesis.”
Adviser: Casey Holliday

3rd: Mason Ward
“Say Yes to the Host: The Effects of Drought on Parasitoid Wasp Behavior.”
Adviser: Debbie Finke

3rd: Paxton Kostos
“Delineating Constitutive Callose Defect in Dynamin Network Mutants.”
Adviser: Antje Heese

Honorable Mention: Aleks Shin
“Quantitative Analysis of Glycated Albumin by LC-MS/MS Using an Isotopically Labelled Standard.”
Adviser: Kuanysh Kabytaev

Honorable Mention: Skyler Kramer
“Novel Improvements on a Machine Learning-based Approach for Large-scale Prediction of Negative-mode Collisional Cross Sections.”
Adviser: Lloyd Sumner

Honorable Mention: Kody Jones
“Uncoupling Functions of Dynamin-related Protein Network in Plant Immune Responses from Development.”
Adviser: Antje Heese

Lead Organizer for Each Category

Social & Behavioral Sciences, Nate Green
Life Science Innovations, Mike Lewis
Animal Biology, Health and Disease, Jim Amos-Langraf
Plant Biology, Health and Disease, Scott Peck
Comparative and Translational Medicine, Jeff Bryan
Ecological and Evolutionary Biology, Rex Cocroft
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Chi-Ren Shyu
Undergraduates: D Cornelison