Category: Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award

Chi Zhang

ovprweb on March 24, 2016

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2016

Chi Zhang, a recent doctoral graduate in Bioinformatics,
studies the mechanisms of cancer initiation, progression, metastasis and post-metastasis development using large-scale data analyses of cancer tissue samples and computer modeling. Much of his research focuses on cancer micro-environment alterations and the Warburg’s theory, which states that the primary cause of cancer is the replacement of oxygen in normal body cells by a fermentation of sugar.  Zhang uses new genomic and transcriptomics data to explore this theory more completely by examining the fundamental metabolic changes that appear to be one of the primary causes of cancer in multiple tissues. His work could lead to new approaches to cancer prevention and treatment. Zhang is currently working as a postdoctoral
associate in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology.

Asher Rosinger

ovprweb on March 24, 2016

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2016

Asher Rosinger, a recent doctoral graduate in anthropology, is recognized for his work on human water consumption and nutrition. During one year of fieldwork in lowland Bolivia, Rosinger combined ethnographic methods with objective biomarkers of nutrition and disease to test how diet and local knowledge protect health. By considering both foods and drinks, he investigated how people meet their water needs in an environment with little to no access to potable water throughout the majority of the year. His research has broader implications within anthropology for advancing our understanding of human adaptations to heat as well as developing a holistic understanding of human water needs. Rosinger is now working as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Horry Parker

ovprweb on March 24, 2016

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2016

Horry Parker, a recent doctoral graduate in geology, has made several outstanding contributions in the fields of geology and geophysics. He applied geophysical methods, including seismology and magnetics, to study the structure and composition of the southern Appalachians and Atlantic Coastal Plain. The results provide new insight into tectonic processes associated with Appalachian mountain building and the relationship between geologic structure and the present topography of the Blue Ridge Mountains. This project required extensive fieldwork, including the deployment of an 85-station network of broadband seismometers across the southern Appalachians and adjacent coastal plain. Parker is currently applying seismic methods for imaging the crust-mantle boundary, or Moho, to investigate the formation of the South Georgia rift basin.

Lindsey Harding

ovprweb on March 24, 2016

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2016

Lindsey Harding, a recent doctoral graduate in English, distinguished herself by producing a sophisticated dissertation that investigated multi-modal forms of writing, including photography and digital archives. A hybrid of creative non-fiction and faux documentary, personal family history and rhetorical criticism, photography theory and homemade imaging, Harding’s dissertation explores the relationship between photography and motherhood and, more specifically, the cultural construction of motherhood through digital photographs. A chapter of her dissertation, titled “Motherhood Reimag(in)ed: A Study of Domestic Photography in the Digital Age,” is forthcoming in Photographies. Harding is the lead web developer for the literary journal Mandala, a publication of the Institute for African American Studies. She currently serves as the assistant director of the Franklin College Writing Intensive Program and as the faculty advisor and editor for The Classic, the Writing Intensive Program’s journal of undergraduate writing and research.

Michael Baer

ovprweb on March 24, 2016

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2016

Michael Baer, a recent doctoral graduate in management, studies the concepts of trust and fairness in the workplace. His dissertation examines the motives that drive managers to engage in trusting behaviors toward their employees. Some of his other work demonstrates the benefits and burdens of being trusted by one’s supervisor. On the plus side, being trusted can fill an employee with pride, which may enhance their work performance. On the negative side, being trusted brings more workload and more worries about one’s reputation, which can exhaust employees. Baer’s work reveals the importance of supporting the “stars” in a unit with resources that can help them manage their stress levels. He is now an assistant professor of management in Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business.

Pauline Reid

on February 19, 2016

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2015

Pauline Reid, a recent doctoral graduate in English, conducts highly original research that integrates and extends scholarship on early modern vision, book history and early modern rhetoric. Her dissertation argued that cultural crises of perception – the relationships between sight and knowledge — manifest in the visual rhetorical qualities of print, and that analyzing such qualities brings out epistemological problems that underpin each page of an early modern book. She consulted rhetorical manuals, almanacs, print maps, emblem poems, and handbooks published over a 150-year timespan in order to argue that visual style in these books, far from being merely “ornamental,” not only displayed the perceptual problems of early modern culture, but also provided a “popular pedagogy” that helped readers navigate the opposing demands of the new “plain style” and ornamentation. She is currently a Lecturer at the University of Denver’s nationally recognized Writing Program.

Anriban Mukhopadhyay

on February 19, 2016

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2015

Anriban Mukhopadhyay, a recent doctoral graduate in computer science, researches the use of 3D shape analysis, computer vision and machine learning in biomedical image analysis. He is particularly focused on theoretical development of geometric shape analysis and computer vision techniques and its application in structural and functional cardiovascular imaging. Mukhopadhyay worked extensively on the analysis of high-resolution multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) and CINE MR images for segmentation, detection and diagnosis of cardiovascular pathologies. He has designed geometric features for 3D shape analysis and 3D models for Cardiovascular Disease localization. His recent work has dealt with the sparse representation of the intensity pattern in CINE MR images for myocardial segmentation. His thesis showed that proper geometric analysis of the left ventricular endocardial surface provides a powerful and non-invasive means of predicting the incidence and severity of coronary artery disease. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the IMT Institute for Advanced Studies in Lucca, Italy.

Yuanyuan Ma

on February 19, 2016

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2015

Yuanyuan Ma, a recent doctoral graduate in food science and technology, took on a challenging research project at UGA that focuses on fortifying peanut butters with antioxidant-rich peanut skins, which are generally regarded as an industrial byproduct. Ma developed product prototypes, which included a novel grinding technology that reduces the particle size of peanut skins to an extent that they would not offend consumers’ palates. She also characterized the products’ textural attributes as well as the level of bioactives and selected nutrients in the formulated products after processing. This research has significant market potential for the peanut industry, as nearly half of the peanuts grown in the U.S. are made into peanut butter. Ma’s research makes possible the development of new peanut butter product lines and niche markets of peanut skin-fortified products with improved antioxidant and fiber levels.

Colette Miller

on February 19, 2016

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2015

Colette Miller, a recent doctoral graduate in foods and nutrition, studies obesity and how excessive weight may contribute to the development of liver diseases like fatty liver, fibrosis, cirrhosis and liver cancers. For her dissertation, Miller examined whether sex differences, estrogen, age and supplemental phytochemical blends influenced liver function as assessed by measures of liver metabolism and genetic expression of enzymatic and metabolic markers. She discovered marked sex differences, unique genetic signatures related to liver metabolism and hope for attenuation of liver disease with supplements of phytochemicals. The promise of her research is shown in part by her filing of an invention disclosure based on the use of flavonoids—a class of phytonutrients that give berries and other foods their rich color—to prevent the development on nonalcoholic steatohepatits in postmenopausal women. Miller is currently a postdoctoral research association in foods and nutrition at UGA and she recently accepted a post-doctoral research position at the Environmental Protection Agency at Research Triangle Park.

Allison Howard

on February 19, 2016

Graduate Student Excellence-in-Research Award 2015

Allison Howard, a recent doctoral graduate in psychology, studies animal travel patterns in natural environments and the decision-making processes that animals use to decide where to go. She began her work in animal movement for her master’s thesis using an experimental psychological approach in which captive capuchin monkeys used a laser pointer to indicate their choices for distant objects, which were delivered to them in the order they contacted them with the light point. For her dissertation, Howard analyzed monkeys’ movements in the wild. This challenging project required the integration of field observations, field experiments, computational techniques and remote sensing with satellite imagery, and it resulted in a powerful, cutting-edge treatment of the influence of landscape features on the movement and use of space of bearded capuchin monkeys. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Maryland’s Department of Biology.