Research Symposium
College of Agriculture and Natural Resources Student Research Symposium
Each year, students across the college—undergraduate, master’s and doctoral student participants—present new posters or posters recently presented at a scientific meeting.
Participants summarize their findings to faculty judges and UD faculty and staff in attendance. In addition to valuable professional skills, the chance to work on new research and with novel data brings a healthy dose of excitement to their work. Top presenters receive monetary awards.
Undergraduate
- First place: Spencer Toth – Exploring Viral Diversity Across Ecosystems: Insights from Soil Bradyrhizobium Phage Genomics
- Second place: Delaney Oeth – An In-Vitro Biocompatibility and Ex-Vivo Histological Analysis of Porous AA-MMA Copolymer Scaffold
- Third place: Joseph Romano – Evaluating early vigor in maize genotypes under Pythium stress
Master’s
- First place: Destiny Mann – Comparing Growth of a Waste Upcycler Using Benchtop and Mass Rearing Methods
- Second place: Marissa Jerden – Effect of Sulfur Amendments on Arsenic Speciation in Flooded Rice Paddy Soil
- Third place: Bali Singh – Method development to optimize production of Pythium graminicola zoospores
Ph.D.
- First place: Abdallah Hadimundeen – Effects of Early Life Stress on Intestinal Development and Enteroendocrine Hormone Expression in Broiler Chickens
- Second place: Brenna DeRocili – Surveillance and AMR detection of Microbial Communities in Farms Across the Mid-Atlantic
- Third place: Jiddu Joseph – Evaluation of the Antibiotic-Potentiating Efficiency of Methyl Trans Cinnamaldehyde against Salmonella enterica Typhimurium
Postdoctoral
- First Place: Jeonghwa Kim – A Comprehensive Overview of Maize Landraces
Undergraduate
- First place: Claire Bernard – Identifying purple martin diet and its effect on nestling development
- Second place: Gabriel Dasilva – Cannibalism in lesser mealworms
- Third place: Madeline Downer – Community resilience plan for the town of Slaughter Beach, Delaware
Master’s
- First place: Emily Morgese – Genomic and phenotypic diversity of 16 novel bradyrhizobium phages
- Second place: Ahamed Zakaria – Estimating the impacts of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination on the housing market
- Third place: Srabone Saha – Fair wage from the lens of consumer empathy
Ph.D.
- First place: Rachel Keown – A single amino acid mutation in coliphage T7 DNA polymerase disrupts in vitro enzyme processivity and in vivo infection dynamics
- Second place: Kathryn Ellwood – The layer hen model of human ovarian cancer
- Third place: Ashleigh Montgomery – Targeting the destabilization of organic matter-bearing Fe and Mn oxides using indicator of reduction in soils (IRIS) films in coastal forests affected by sea-level rise
Postdoctoral researchers
- First place: Jing Yan – Effects of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) on saltwater evaporation: a case study using bacillus subtilis
Climate change impacts, mitigation and adaptation
Winner: Amanda Crandall, graduate student, Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology
Title: The impacts of climate and anthropogenic change on migrant stopover using weather surveillance radars
Genetics and genomics for plant, animal and ecosystem improvement
Winner: Martina Bordini, Ph.D. student, Department of Animal and Food Sciences
Title: Differential gene expression profiles elucidate molecular pathways associated with wooden breast defect in pectoralis major muscles
Human dimensions of food, agriculture and natural resources
Winner: Carl Nelson-Poteet, undergraduate student, Department of Applied Economics and Statistics
Title: Common pool resource use under heterogeneous risk and impact
One health intersections among animal, plant, human and ecosystem health
Winner: Liang-en Yu, Ph.D. student, Department of Animal and Food Sciences
Title: In-ovo glutamine administration regulates intestinal epithelium development in a broiler intestinal organoid model
Sustainable food systems, landscapes and ecosystems
Winner: Emily Kennebeck, graduate student, Department of Plant and Soil Sciences
Title: Mustard 'amara' benefits from superelevated CO2 while adapting to far-red light over time