Awards

Arts and Humanities

• 1st place: "Chinese"; and a: Exoticization and Orientalism in the 19th and 20th centuries and its effects on Museum Practices, Janine Salapantan
  Faculty mentor: Emily McKee

• 2nd place: Labor and Residence within the Mexican Community in Aurora, Illinois 1920-1940, Eddie Guerrero
  Faculty mentor: Aaron Fogleman

• 3rd place: The Recovery and Preservation of a Historical Ceramic Tile Mosaic from DeKalb's Monsanto Facility, Lead McQuire
  Faculty mentor: Matthew Deitch

Biological and Chemical Sciences

• 1st place: Expression of Genes in the Bacterium Pseudomonas 20ei1 in Response to Co-culture with the Fungus Aspergillus nidulans, Mike Nasseri
  Faculty mentor: Scott Grayburn

• 2nd place: Crossing the Streams: Searching for Local Adaptation Between Parasite and Host, Joshua Nelson
  Faculty mentor: Jennifer Koop

• 2nd place: Development of Fluorescent Assay for EGFR Inhibitors in Live Cells, Heather Matenaer
  Faculty mentor: Irina Nesterova

• 2nd place: Lawn and Order: Uncovering the Ecological Traits of Urban Spaces, Gabriel Reynolds and Adrian Rivera
  Faculty mentor: Bill Martin

• 2nd place: Arabidopsis versus the Climate Apocalypse, Jade Golembiewski, Sylven Broussard and Tessa Eads
  Faculty mentor: Bill Martin

• 2nd place: Identification of New Genes Involved in Epithelial Basement Membrane Protein Deposition, Anna Wiginton
  Faculty mentor: Olivier Devergne

Business and Entrepreneurship

• 1st place: Is More Better? The Influence of Visual Entropy and Color on Brand Identity and Engagement, Maryana Kopyt
  Faculty mentor: Andy Geon

• 2nd place: Using AI in Qualitative Research, Anthony Baptiste
  Faculty mentor: Furkan Gur

Education

• 1st place: Revolutionary or Risky? How Educators Perceive and Use Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Rachel Stowers
  Faculty mentor: Melanie Koss

• 1st place: The Visual Culture of American Popular Music, Mia Peterson
  Faculty mentor: Kathryn Sowinski

• 1st place: The Visual Culture of Wildlife Biology, Clara Malone
  Faculty mentor: Kathryn Sowinski

Engineering

• 1st place: Numerical Modeling of Wavy Electrohydrodynamic Flow to Promote Particle Collision, Hayden Selig
  Faculty mentor: Eric Lee

• 2nd place: Validating a Video-Based AI-Powered Early Autism Screening Web Application, Angelica Sanyal
  Faculty mentor: Ziteng Wang

• 3rd place: Machine Learning-Based Control for a Vision-Integrated Ball-on-Plate System, Ben Whitlock
  Faculty mentor: Ji-Chul Ryu

Health and Human Sciences

• 1st place: How do Autobiographical Memory Abilities Compare with other Cognitive Functions in an Adult Presenting with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) and Autism? A Case Study, Emilia Rzeszutek
  Faculty mentor: Jamie Mayer

• 1st place: Do Blue-Light Filtering Lenses Provide Measurable Benefits for Eye Strain and Sleep Quality Compared to Standard Lenses? Sara Rozalowski
  Faculty mentor: Kathryn Mazurek

• 2nd place: Heads up! Designing a Nursing Assessment Tool for Early Recognition of Intracranial Hypertension Post Head Injury, Sergio Dondiego
  Faculty mentor: Patrice Alsaden

Interdisciplinary Studies

• 1st place: On Death and Disease: How Physicians' Perspectives Compare Across Specialties Through Written Work, Stephanie Alkonga
  Faculty mentor: Alexandra Bennett

• 2nd place: Colonialism, Conflict, Capital and Coups: Drivers of Médecins Sans Frontières Operations in Mali Post-2022, Gina Fiorenza
  Faculty mentor: Mark Schuller

Physical Sciences, Math and Computational Sciences

• 1st place: Enhancing Performance and Maintainability in Unreal Engine 5 XR Applications through Optimization Techniques and Refactoring, Terron Taylor
  Faculty mentor: Federico Bassetti

• 2nd place: Anyone, Anywhere, In Real Time: Exploring the World of Virtual Production, Ethan Olvera
  Faculty mentor: Federico Bassetti

• 2nd place: Power Outages from Derechos and Severe Wind-producing Convective Systems across the United States, Wyatt Ficek
  Faculty mentor: Walker Ashley

Social and Behavioral Sciences

• 1st place: Protective Effects of Social Buffering against Stress in Prairie Voles, Alfonso Moraga
  Faculty mentor: Angela Grippo

• 2nd place: Explicit Textbooks Improve Psychology Students' Learning of Theories and Studies, Kylie Little
  Faculty mentor: Anne Britt

• 3rd place: Literature in US School Psychology: Who Gets in?,D rennan Finn, Carmin Jones and Kitzia Martinez
  Faculty mentor: Kara Styck

Civic Engagement

• 1st place: Congressional Leader Age and Legislative Success: How Old is too Old?, Edward Drinkwine
  Faculty mentor: Scot Schraufnagel

Community Engaged Research

• 1st place: Smart Drip Irrigation: A Sustainable Solution for Community Gardens, Kevin Brennan
  Faculty mentor: Kristen Borre

Inclusive Excellence

• 1st place: Supporting the Teachings of Race, Racism and Racial Equity in Biology Courses, Katelyn and Aziz Milla
  Faculty mentor: Heather Bergan-Roller

Honors Capstone

• 1st place: The Elements Among Us: The Periodic Table Reimagined, Emily Burris
  Faculty mentor: Elizabeth Galliard

Engagement Showcase

• 1st place: Expiri: Reducing Household Food Waste Through Smart Expiration Tracking, Hubert Stasik
  Faculty mentor: Christine Mooney
• 1st place: Consulting for Chicagoland: Updating the Greenest Region Compact, Sam Soria, Ryan Regelbrugge, Maxwell Alexander
  Faculty mentor: Melissa Burlingame Greenhagen

Arts and Humanities

• 1st place: No Hat Upon His Head; A Forgotten American Obsession, David Mortenson
  Faculty mentor: Taylor Atkins
• 2nd place: Swift Studies: Taylor Swift, Poetry and Academia, Madison Ruhl
  Faculty mentor: Ryan Hibbett
• 3rd place: 1967 and 2020: Understanding Protesting between the Long, Hot Summer and George Floyd, Jon Dunlap
  Faculty mentor: Taylor Atkins

Biological and Chemical Sciences

• 1st place: Flying Safe: Reducing Bird Strikes at Northern Illinois University, Stacey Marcinkowski
  Faculty mentor: Jennifer Koop
• 1st place: Flotillin 1 is Required for the Polarized Deposition of Basement Membrane Proteins in Epithelial Cells, Vana Dakarian
  Faculty mentor: Olivier Devergne
• 1st place: Double Crossed by Parasite, Katelin Wolken-Wright
  Faculty mentor: Jennifer Koop
• 1st place: The Mississippi River Microbiome: Balancing Structural Stability and Nutrient-Driven Variability in Microbial Community Assembly, Shelby Huffington
  Faculty mentor: Michael Henson

Education

• 1st place: Conceptual Frameworks in Art Education, Melissa Jasso
  Faculty mentor: Kathryn Sowinksi
• 2nd place: A Pathway to Commitment: Exploring the Steps and Stages Proceeding Commitment and Marriage, KaLilah Chears
  Faculty mentor: Scott Sibley
• 3rd place: The Effects of Multiplanar High Intensity Resistance Training on Increasing Bone Mineral Density on Middle Aged Females. The Stop Protocol, Ava Krall
  Faculty mentor: Rachel Kowal

Engineering

• 1st place: Estimating Pedestrian Crossing Times at Scramble Crossings via Machine Learning and Agent-Based Modeling, Sho Takami
  Faculty mentor: Kyu Cho
• 1st place: Analysis of Brain Signals Using Machine Learning Algorithms, Maria Corzo Roberti
  Faculty mentor: Kyu Cho
• 2nd place: Electron Beam Irradiation for Water Treatment of Per- and Poly-fluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS), Scott Mueller, Caleb Maue and Coltin Prentice
  Faculty mentor: Eric Lee

Health and Human Sciences

• 1st place: The Effectiveness of Kinesio taping for Pain Perception in Patients with Knee Osteoarthritis: A Topical Literature Review of Recent Randomized Control Trials, Jayla Scott
  Faculty mentor: Ting Xia
• 1st place: Brain Activation in Balanced vs. Unbalanced Bilingual Spanish-English Speakers: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIR) study, Gia Gurgone
  Faculty mentor: In-Sop Kim
• 2nd place: Expanding Brain Games: What Have We Learned from a Program Designed to Support Healthy Brain Aging for Older Adults?, Ella McKinney
  Faculty mentor: Jamie Mayer

Interdisciplinary Studies

• 1st place: The Study of Black Hair: Oppression in the Mainstream Media, Kia Clair
  Faculty mentor: T. Ajewole Duckett
• 1st place: Navigating Politics and Public Health: Analyzing Health Perspectives, Political Identity and Vaccine Views Among College Students, Molly Schmidt
  Faculty mentor: Tomoyuki Shibata
• 3rd place: Strategic Sustainability Communication: How Local Governments Can Use Social Media to Inspire Action, Hallela Wagner
  Faculty mentor: Colin Kuehl

Physical Sciences, Math and Computational Sciences

• 1st place: Detecting Storm Mode with Machine Learning, Sean Phipps
  Faculty mentor: Alex Haberlie
• 2nd place: Scientific Machine Learning for Estimation of Material Thermal Diffusivity, Hannah Havel
  Mentor: Alexander Heifetz
• 3rd place: Deep Learning Based Gait Video Data Validation, Michael Sensenbrenner
  Faculty mentor: Ziteng Wang

Social and Behavioral Sciences

• 1st place: Financial-Aid Challenges for Undocumented Students: Psychological Impacts and Potential Solutions, Marco Sotelo Avila and Jayce Stone
  Faculty mentor: Ibette Valle
• 1st place: Evaluating the Extent and Consequences of Polarization in the Supreme Court, Brianna Pechman
  Faculty mentor: April Clark
• 1st place: Perception of Criminal Cases: The Role of Race and Afrocentricity, Nya Thomas
  Faculty mentor: Katja Wiemer

Civic Engagement

Congressional Leaders: How old is too old?, Eli Freet
Faculty mentor: Scot Schraufnagel

Community Engaged Research

Downers Grove Environmental Sustainability Plan Implementation: Benchmark Analysis and Performance Management Plan, Allison Gazda and Jude St. Clair
Faculty mentor: Melissa Burlingame

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Do Educators Recognize Student Struggles? A Look into Mental Health Perceptions and Knowledge in Biology, Stephanie Drendel and Kanza Arshad
Faculty mentor: Heather Bergan-Roller

Honors Capstone

Evolution of House Fly Behavioral Resistance to a Bittering Agent Used in Toxic House Fly Baits, Lillian Garncarz
Faculty mentor: Bethia King

• 2024 Award Winners
• 2023 Award Winners
• 2022 Award Winners