Students Earn Awards for Papers from the Florida Academy of Science
MELBOURNE, FLA.—The Florida Academy of Sciences (FAS) recognized graduate and undergraduate students for outstanding oral and poster papers at the 75th annual Meetings of the Florida Academy of Sciences, held recently at Florida Institute of Technology. Florida Tech students earned awards in several categories, listed below.
Atmospheric and Oceanographic Sciences
Oral Paper, Undergraduate—Hannah Kolb, Marine & Environmental Systems, “Temporal changes in abundances of surface metazooplankton of the Indian River Lagoon, Florida”
Oral Paper, Graduate—Emily Ralston, Marine & Environmental Systems, “The ghost of fouling communities past: evidence for carry-on effects on transplanted panels”
Oral Paper, Graduate—Kerry Soltis, Marine & Environmental Systems, “Planktonic larval supply and recruitment of hardfouling organisms to oyster shell substrata in the Indian River Lagoon, Florida”
Oral Paper, Honorable Mention, Graduate—Jing Zhu, Biological Sciences, “Sex pheromone detection and olfactory sensilla in Lysmata shrimp”
Biological Sciences
Oral Paper, Undergraduate—Helen Croce, Biological Sciences, “Concurrent growth and differentiation of regenerating arms in brittlestars”
Oral Paper, Graduate—Adeljean Ho, Biological Sciences, “Population genetic structure coincides with geography, coloration, and morphometrics in yellowhead jawfish, Opistognathus aurifrons (Perciformes: Opistognathidae)
Environmental and Chemical Sciences
Oral Paper, Graduate—Nelson Akaighe, Chemistry, “Suwannee River humic acid-mediated silver nanoparticle formation under environmentally relevant conditions”
Poster Paper, Graduate—Yannick Ouerdraogo, Chemistry, “A two-step stereoselective synthesis of a fish pheromone from cortexolone”
Poster Paper, Honorable Mention, Graduate—Richard Comitz, Chemistry, “Development of photolabile caged neural transmitters”
Geology and Hydrology
Oral Paper, Graduate—John Hearin, Marine & Environmental Systems, “Analysis of bathymetry profile evolution of selected beaches in Brevard County after nourishment in 2010”
Physics and Space Sciences
Oral Paper, Undergraduate—Judson Locke, Physics & Space Sciences, “Imaging with, spatial resolution of, and plans for upgrading a minimal prototype muon tomography station”
Oral Paper, Graduate—Himali Kalakhety, Physics & Space Sciences, “Search for a Z’ boson in the dimuon channel in p-p collisions with the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider”
Poster Paper, Graduate—Xi Luo, Physics & Space Sciences, “Determining the location of termination shock using signature of galactic cosmic ray modulation by Global Merged Interaction Region in the heliosheath”
Science Teaching
Oral Paper, Graduate—Peter Cohen, Chemistry, “Results of integrating research-inspired laboratory modules in the general chemistry curriculum”
For the fourth time in its history, the FAS annual meeting was held at Florida Tech, concluding the FAS 75th Anniversary. Florida Tech faculty, graduate and undergraduate students were heavily represented in the 141 oral and 52 poster presentations of the 14 sections of the Academy.
Florida Tech faculty involvement included presentation of the banquet address by 2010 FAS Medalist Terry Oswalt, Department of Physics and Space Sciences. The FAS President Richard Turner, Department of Biological Sciences, officiated at several plenary sessions of the meeting, and John Trefry, Department of Marine and Environmental Systems, was the local arrangements chair. This meeting of the Senior Academy was shared with the Florida Junior Academy of Science (FJAS), which includes students from middle and high schools from around the state, including Brevard County, exposing almost 100 students to the university.
