SURE 2013: apply by Feb. 3, 2014, see SURE website.

Emory STEM Symposium: apply by Jan. 7, 2014 see Emory STEM website.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

SURE 2012 Research Poster Awards


A Celebration of Undergraduate Research

Distilling ten weeks of hard work, the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) poster session showcased the work of 92 of our summer research fellows. Working full-time in research laboratories across 29 departments, SURE fellows also attended science career-related meetings and completed research ethics training. The session was open to the Emory community, and peers, lab mates, faculty mentors and administrators turned out to support our young scientists. SURE 2012 included 67 Emory students and 32 visiting students; including Emory, 26 colleges and universities (16 out of state) were represented.

SURE Poster Session, Coca Cola Commons, Dobbs University Center,  
Emory University, August 2, 2012

Since its inception in 1990, SURE has been primarily supported through consecutive awards from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to Pat Marsteller (Director of the Center for Science Education, Emory College). To date, SURE has trained over 1,400 participants. Augmenting our HHMI support, SURE 2012 added positions through our collaborations with from the Atlanta Center for Translational Research in Endometriosis (ACTRE); the Atlanta Clinical and Translational Science Institute (ACTSI); the Clare Boothe Luce Foundation; The Center for Chemical Evolution; Concerned Parents for AIDS Research (CPAR); Emory's Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (GDBBS); the Emory Scholars Program; and NASA, NSF and NIH awards to faculty mentors. SURE is a team effort that relies on the coordinated work of dozens of individuals across the University and ultimately succeeds through the support of our faculty members.


Drs. Wilfried Rossoll and Claudia Fallini (left) joyfully capture team member Ananya Mishra (right). Ananya's successful National Fragile X Foundation summer research fellowship application helped support her work.

Presenters receive written poster feedback from graduate student and postdoctoral fellow judges, per guidelines discussed earlier in the program. In choosing award winners, the judges were instructed to consider the poster's technical score in the context of overall presentation quality. Elevator talk and chalk talk activities served as a warm-up to the poster session, and emphasized the importance of communicating science to varied audiences.

SURE 2012 Poster Awards

We are thrilled to announce SURE 2012's poster awards. Student names appear in bold, while PIs are underlined. Congratulations, all! 


First Place:  Susanna Brantley, Emory College 
JAK/Stat signaling in the D. melanogaster cellular immune response.
Susanna Brantley, Nathan Mortimer and Todd Schlenke

Second Place: Xiya Zhu, Emory University
Selective stabilization of synaptic inputs onto motoneurons
by postsynaptic trkB receptors.
Xiya Zhu and Arthur English

Third Place: Kylee Martens, Emory University  
Characterizing the seizure phenotype of an Scn3a mutant
Kylee Martens, Ligia A Papale and Andrew Escayg

Honorable Mention:  Kelly E. Bennett, Georgia Gwinnett College 
Inorganic phosphate regulated proliferation and transformation
Kelly E. Bennett, Laura M. Garneys and George R. Beck, Jr.

Honorable Mention: Mengshi (Helena) Dai, Emory University
The long-term memory adf-1mutant (nalyot) and its role indendrite regulation in 
activity-dependent plasticity and memory formation
Mengshi (Helena) Dai, Christina K. Timmerman and Subhabrata Sanyal

Honorable Mention: Scott Danielson, Emory University
Targeting excess PI3K signaling to rescue increased protein synthesis 
and audiogenic seizures in a FXS mouse model
Scott W. Danielson, Christina Gross, and Gary Bassell

Honorable Mention: Jessica Elinburg, Emory University
A cure in coordination chemistry? Synthesizing [AuIII(phen)(curc)] 
as a potential chemotherapeutic drug
Jessica Elinburg, Neha Ahuja, and Cora MacBeth

Honorable Mention: Rashad Jabarkheel, Emory University 
PI4KIIα dimerization dependent upon AP-3 sorting motif and kinase domain
Rashad Jabarkheel, Pearl V. Ryder, and Victor Faundez

Honorable Mention: Min Kim, Emory University
Characterization of the HIV-1 antiviral activity of human tetherin isoforms
Min W. Kim, Jason E. Hammonds, Hin Chu and Paul Spearman

Honorable Mention: Phillip Rauscher, Emory University
Effect of adjacent rubbery layers on the physical aging rate of polymer glasses
Phillip Rauscher and Connie B. Roth

Honorable Mention: Abhinav Sharma, Emory University 
Characterization of biomarkers in breast cancer cells using quantum dots and 
detection of brain tumor cells using SpectroPen
Abhinav Sharma, Brad Kairdolf and Shuming Nie
[
Abhinav was supported by the Petit Scholars Program]

Honorable Mention: SongJun Son, Emory University (Oxford College)
Microwave-assisted aynthesis of 4 and 4’ substituted 3,5-diphenylisoxazoles
SungJun Son and Nichole Powell