2011 Undergraduate Symposium Prize Winners
$1000 First Prizes and $500 Second Prizes were awarded in each category
| Arts | |
| First Place | Bernice Fang Ngo, "Housing and Medical Facility in Floating Village of Tonle Sap Lake" Faculty Sponsor: Erik Mar, Architecture |
| Second Place | Tiffany Pereira, "Nothing is Black and White: Depicting an Environmental Case Study through Scientific Illustration" Faculty Sponsor: Xavier Fumat, Roski School of Fine Arts |
| Honorable Mention | Michelle Khazaryan, "The Sweetest of Pomegranates" Faculty Sponsor: Trisha Tucker, Thematic Option |
| Honorable Mention | Simon Fink, "Out of Hand" David Maquiling, School of Cinematic Arts |
| Interdisciplinary Award | Nicholas Brice, Jonathan Carmel, Katelyn Endow, Daniel Lum, Andrew Ogden, Blade Olson, Raunak Roy, Lawrence Sequino, Patrick Shay, David Sommer , "Dance Pad - social iPad game" Faculty Sponsors: Chris Swain, USC Cinema - Interactive Media Department; Michael Zyda, USC Viterbi - GamePipe Laboratory |
| Humanities | |
| First Place | Jacob Bongers, “Landscapes of Death: GIS-based Analyses of Chullpas in the Western Lake Titicaca Basin” Faculty Sponsor: Elizabeth Arkush, University of Pittsburgh; Ran Boytner, USC/UCLA; Michael Harrower, Johns Hopkins University |
| Second Place | Parin Patel, “Archaeology and the Literary Narrative: Using Written Language to Understand Material Culture in the Buddhist World” Faculty Sponsor: Lynn Swartz Dodd, Religion |
| Honorable Mention | Sarah Butler, Renee Duncan-Mestel, Bradford Jackson, "The Front Lines of Empire: Metal Arrowheads and Projectile Points as Indicators of Social and Political Transformation in the ancient Near East" Faculty Sponsor: Lynn Swartz Dodd, Religion |
| Honorable Mention | Grant Dixon, "What is a King to Do: An Investigation of Images of Kingship" Faculty Sponsor: Lynn Swartz Dodd, Religion |
| Honorable Mention | Katelyn Endow, "Katelyn Goes to Japan - Spring 2010" Faculty Sponsor: Yumi Matsumoto |
| Life Sciences | |
| First Place | Cara Bickers, “Novel Mutants Link DNA Replication and Centromere Function in the Fission Yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe” Faculty Sponsor: Susan Forsburg, College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences: Department of Molecular and Computational Biology |
| Second Place | John Choi, “The effects of oxidative damage on competitive fitness in aging E. coli” Faculty Sponsor: Steve Finkel, Biological Sciences |
| Second Place | Marissa Srour, “Rib Regeneration in a Mammalian Model” Faculty Sponsor: Francesca Mariani, Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC |
| Honorable Mention | Lindsay (LJ) Agostinelli, "Distribution of neurons expressing nitric oxide synthase, acetylcholinesterase, and hypocretin/orexin in the rat hypothalamus: relation to basal and stimulated levels of Fos and phospho-ERK." Faculty Sponsor: Arshad Khan, Biological Sciences |
| Honorable Mention | Meghan Brown, "Independent and Interactive Effects of Estrogen and Progesterone on Neuroprotection in an Animal Model of Neurodegeration" Faculty Sponsor: Christian Pike, Gerontology |
| Honorable Mention | Mathew Schur, "An inhibitory role for PID1 in ATRT cells" Faculty Sponsors: Anat Erdreich-Epstein, Keck School of Medicine, Department of Cancer Biology, Pediatrics, Hematology Oncology; Hong Zhou, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Hematology Oncology; Xiuhai Ren, Children's Hospital Los Angeles |
| Physical Sciences, Mathematics & Engineering | |
| First Place | Szeyan (Charlotte) Chan, Hannah Gray, Avril Pitter, Kristen Sharer, Lillian Ware, "Investigating the mechanisms of arsenic removal by microbial layer in a bio-sand filter used for drinking water purification in developing countries" Faculty Sponsors: Massoud Pirbazari, Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Varadarjan Ravindran, Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| Second Place | Tisa Thomas, "One-pot synthesis of N-(Fluoroethyl)amines by MCR strategy using Fluoroalkyl Sulfones as Efficient Fluoromethyl-Transfer Motifs" Faculty Sponsor: Surya Prakash, Department of Chemistry |
| Honorable Mention | Niral Patel, “Symmetry-Breaking Intramolecular Charge Transfer in meso-Linked BODIPY Dyadsk” Faculty Sponsors: Mark Thompson, Department of Chemistry; Matthew Whited, Department of Chemistry |
| Social Sciences | |
| First Place | Jordan Vieira, “Performance, Sex, and Politics: The Quest for Identity in Southern Uganda” Faculty Sponsor: Tok Thompson, Anthropology |
| Second Place | Shelly McArdle, “National Responses to September 11 Over Time: Analyzing Changes in Emotions, Beliefs, and Behaviors” Faculty Sponsors: Richard John, Psychology; Heather Rosoff, USC CREATE |
| Second Place | Daniel Paris, “Conceptual and Empirical Definitions of Group Membership: Measuring Street Gang Affiliation” Faculty Sponsors: Jo Ann Farver, Psychology; Karen Hennigan, Psychology |
| Honorable Mention | Joshua Real, “Linking Blink Rate to Motivational Systems and its Neural Substrates” Faculty Sponsors: Brian Baucom, Psychology; Gayla Margolin, Psychology |
| Honorable Mention | Dana Jebreel, "Young Children’s Ability to Generate False Statements as a Precursor to False Belief Understanding” Faculty Sponsor: Thomas Lyon, USC Gould School of Law |
| Interdisciplinary Award | Sarah (Katie) Camarda, “When Material and Digital Culture Collide: Ethnographic Expressions of "The Contemporary” Faculty Sponsors: Dorinne Kondo, Anthropology and American Studies and Ethnicity; Andreas Kratky, School of Cinematic Arts, Institute for Multimedia Literacy |
| Most Innovative | |
| First Place | Laura Corrales-Diaz Pomatto, “The Oxygen Conundrum” Faculty Sponsors: Kelvin Davies, Andrus School of Gerontology; Aaron Hagedorn, Andrus School of Gerontology |
| Second Place | Bernice Ngo, “Housing and Medical Facility in Floating Village of Tonle Sap Lake” Faculty Sponsors: Erik Mar, School of Architecture |
| Honorable Mention | Brian Rose, "Silica Sol-Gel Synthesis for Integrated Photonics” Faculty Sponsors: Andrea Armani, Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Material Science; Heather Hunt, Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Material Science |