Contact: Sasha Steinberg

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State University is renowned for providing students with opportunities to conduct innovative and meaningful research alongside world-class faculty.

The university’s Graduate School and Graduate Student Association gave 80 master’s and doctoral students a forum to showcase work from the spring 2018 and fall 2019 semesters during the recent Graduate Student Research Symposium.

Twenty-nine of those students received cash prizes for having the top oral presentations and poster projects assigned to one of four categories—arts and humanities; life and biomedical sciences and engineering; physics, mathematics, computer science and engineering; and social and behavioral sciences.

A team of 20 campus faculty members representing a cross-section of academic disciplines served as judges.

This year’s winners include (by project type, category and classification):

POSTERS

ARTS AND HUMANITIES DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Morteza Nagahi, an industrial and systems engineering and business administration/management double-major from Iran, for “Personality Types and Level of Systems Thinking Skills.”

SECOND—Dustin Finch, an applied psychology/cognitive science major from Fort Wayne, Indiana, for “What Is That Smell?” He also is pursuing an MSU master’s degree in psychology.

THIRD—Courtney K. Mason, an applied psychology/clinical psychology major from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for “Affective Dysregulation and Behavior Dysregulation Are Mediated by Anger Rumination.” She also is pursuing an MSU master’s degree in psychology.

ARTS AND HUMANITIES MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Malavika Ramamurthy Jinka, an applied anthropology major from India, for “Development: Is It the Same for Both Internally Displaced People and the Government?”

FIRST—Julianne M. Paige, an applied anthropology major from Glenden Beach, Oregon, and Kara M. Larson, an applied anthropology major from Delton, Michigan, for “Feasting with the Dead: Preliminary Analysis of Faunal Remains at the Put Dragulina Roman Cemetery.” Put Dragulina, a Roman cemetery site dating between 1st century AD to approximately 7th century AD, was excavated as part of rescue projects during 2011 and 2017 in Trogir, Croatia.

SECOND—Sabhyata Lamichhane, a forestry major from Nepal, for “Trends and Drivers of Conservation Easements in The United States.”

LIFE AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Sachini K. Arachchige, a kinesiology/exercise science major from Sri Lanka, for “Impact of Occupational Footwear and Workload on Postural Stability in Work Safety.” She also holds an MSU master’s degree in kinesiology/exercise physiology.

SECOND—Rebecca Bracken, a forest resources/wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture major from Austin, Texas, for “Effects of a Closing Canopy on Avian Abundances in a Private, Working Forest.”

THIRD—Qingyu Sheng, a life sciences/animal physiology major from China, for “Near Infrared (NIR) Spectroscopy as a Non-Invasive Tool for In-Situ Gender Discrimination of Giant Panda Feces.”

LIFE AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Caitlyn A. Cowick, an agricultural life sciences/biochemistry major from Gulfport,  for “Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) Pathogens Affect Each Other During Co-Infection.” She also holds MSU bachelor’s degrees in biological sciences and microbiology.

SECOND—William O. “Will” Kruckeberg, a forestry major from Bastrop, Texas, for “Impacts of Prescribed Fire on Soil Erosion Potential in Northern Mississippi.”

SECOND—Brian D. Tow, a biological sciences major from Byhalia, for “Pharmacological Modulation of Mitochondria Ca2+ Exerts Divergent Effects on Arrhythmogenic Calcium Waves in Ca2+-dependent and Metabolic Cardiac Disease.” He also is an MSU summa cum laude bachelor’s graduate in biomedical engineering.

PHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Anh Nguyen, an earth and atmospheric sciences major from Vietnam, for “Assessment of Uranium (VI) Entrapment in Calcite at Hydrothermal Conditions. She also holds an MSU master’s degree in geosciences/geology.

FIRST—Achala S. Liyanage, a chemistry major from Sri Lanka, for “Surface Modified Ground Rubber Tire (GRT) as Heavy Metal Adsorbents.”

PHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Brent Burch, a mechanical engineering major from Dyersburg, Tennessee, for “Accelerated Aging Humidity Chamber for Nuclear Grade HEPA Filter Media.”

SECOND—Tin N. Le, a chemical engineering major from Olive Branch, for “Viability of Ag Incorporated into UiO-66 for Carbon Capture.”

THIRD—Amali Herath, a chemistry major from Sri Lanka, for “Efficient removal of rhodamine B from aqueous media by potassium hydroxide treated biochar.”

ORAL PRESENTATIONS

ARTS AND HUMANITIES EDUCATION AND SOCIAL SCIENCES DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Anusha Shreshta, a forest resources/forestry major from Nepal, for “Willingness to Pay for Prescribed Burning by Nonindustrial Private Forest Landowners.”

SECOND—Sarah K.C. Dygert, an applied psychology/cognitive science major from Madison, for “Re-Solving Ambiguities in Language and Problem Solving.” She also holds MSU bachelor’s and master’s degree in psychology.

THIRD—Robert B. Kolbila, a sociology major from Ghana, for “Using Fish4Zambia Preliminary Results to Explore Household-Level Hunger Among Fishing Value Chain Actors in Zambia’s Lake Banweulu Region.”

ARTS AND HUMANITIES EDUCATION AND SOCIAL SCIENCES MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Elizabeth M. “Betty” Thomas, an agriculture/ag economics major from Lenexa, Kansas, for “Consumer Purchasing Response to Genetically Engineered Labeling in Vermont.” She also is an MSU summa cum laude bachelor’s graduate in agribusiness/policy and law.

SECOND—Andrea M. Sakleh, an applied anthropology major from Plainfield, Illinois, for “Perspectives on Shame among Palestinian Women.”

LIFE AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Saman Fatemi, an agricultural science/poultry science major from Iran, for “Improvement in the Inflammatory Reaction and Small Intestine Morphology of Ross 708 Broilers in Response to the in-ovo Injection of Various Sources of Vitamin D3 When Subjected to a Coccidiosis Challenge.”

FIRST—Shannon M. Westlake, a forest resources/wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture major from Cayuta, New York, for “Attributes Affecting Adoption of Pollinator Conservation Practices.”

SECOND—Cori J. Speights, a biological sciences major from Mexia, Texas, for “Ecological Impacts of Asymmetric Warming.”

LIFE AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING MASTER’S STUDENTS

FIRST—Clayton W. Hale, a forestry major from Nolensville, Tennessee, for “A 14-Year Post-Hurricane Katrina Reevaluation of an Atlantic White Cedar Stand in Mississippi.”

PHYSICS, MATHEMATICS, COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING DOCTORAL STUDENTS

FIRST—Chartese D. Jones, a mathematical sciences major from Belzoni, for “Edge Enhancing Accelerated Diffusion Denoising Method for Medical Images.” He also holds an MSU master’s degree in mathematics.

SECOND—Siavash Fadaeerayeni, an engineering/chemical engineering major from Iran, for “Bimetallic Ni/Ga/ZSM-5 Catalyst for the Ethane Conversion to Aromatics.”

THIRD—Thu Ya Kyaw, a forest resources/forestry major from Myanmar, for “Determining Which Spectral Bands are Highly Correlated with Photosynthetic Capacity of a Poplar Plantation.”

For more information about MSU’s Graduate School and Graduate Student Association, visit www.grad.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.